The Dust Bowl

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Originally Posted by Retread

Does the film do justice to the guvmint being a major cause?

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AND to it being a major solution, so it's a wash. :smile-new:

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Originally Posted by Retread

Does the film do justice to the guvmint being a major cause?

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No. That's not their take on it at all. They claim that it was caused by lack of direction by a Department of Agriculture that was just getting started. In fact, if you didn't listen closely, you would go away thinking that FDR had started the Department of Agriculture (he didn't; Lincoln was more involved than FDR) in order to solve the dust bowl problem.

At the end it was pointed out that the government had purchased - or maybe just annexed - millions of acres of grasslands so that they would forever stay grasslands, thereby mitigating the effect of any future dust storms.

But it also pointed out that northern Africa, which is now a desert, was once a fertile forest land, and that was only 2500 years ago. If nature want to change the landscape, it just By God will. But the Dust Bowl didn't have to happen.