Had a farmers daughter complaining about the "new", Obama laws to keep dust and erosion down

[NNN0LHI]

She was in her early 20,s and working at my bank and this happened several months ago.

I told her to go home and Google "The Dust Bowl", to see how long these laws have been in effect and why they were enacted decades ago.

I couldn't believe someone could be that ignorant fresh out of High School and with a father who was a farmer and is well aware of The Dust Bowl.

Amazing isn't it?

Obviously these Obama haters like this farmer are teaching their children to be idiots. Guess they think we are all as stupid as they are.

Unbelievable.

Don

[magical thyme]

1. Suggest she watch the PBS special on the dust bowl

the timing couldn't be better.

And the thought occurred to me that the next time people more fixated on extracting resources than caring for the land destroy that area, instead of helping them stay on their farms, the government should buy *all* of them out, repair the soil *again* and then hold onto the land and manage it organically.

Unfortunately when it happens again, it will be the big corporations instead of individual farmers. Nationalize them?

[brokechris]

2. are you sure that there are no new regs though?

we have a lot of new regs here in CA re keeping dust down. I was under the impression that Obama had toughened air quality standards. (a good thing)

for pertinent Fed laws see--EPA fugitive dust emissions
CARB (The California Air Resources Board) also added a bunch of regs on the state level under Arnold.

[PCIntern]

3. Sounds like the opening to a joke:

So I was on a business trip and my car broke down outside this farm. I knocked on the door and the farmer opened it and invited me in and he and his wife invited me to dinner. The only thing he told me I couldn't do was...

[A HERETIC I AM]

11. ...talk about how stupid their daughter was?

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

43. LOL!

[Fumesucker]

13. I was halfway expecting a joke too n/t

[lonestarnot]

4. Guess someone should buy ms. stupid a box of rocks and a copy of Grapes of Wrath, but then what

would she do with a book? Burn the pages for heat no doubt.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. No, not surprised.

I was an aide in a public elementary school last year. I heard the teacher tell the class that Hoovervilles were named by the people living in them to honor Herbert Hoover for all his help to them.

[Fumesucker]

15. That's right, and tumbrel rides were all the rage among the nobles of France

[Sekhmets Daughter]

26. LMAO....

[Caretha]

6. I suggest she moves

to the Texas panhandle where most days the wind is 15 to 35 mph, and we have wind storms producing 50 to 70 mph gusts. I live on the outskirts of town next to I-40. I've seen Lubbock & Midland blow by on a few days, and visibility was just 20 yards or so.

People in the panhandle never forget about the dust bowl days. My mom lived through them and told stories that would curl your hair.

[madrchsod]

7. i doubt the majority of people in their 20`s know about the dust bowl

[treestar]

8. So with a Republican House, Obama passed these laws all by himself

[brokechris]

9. if you are referring to the new regulations, then the EPA originated them. n/t

[hobbit709]

10. Then there's a reason for them. They don't make them up on a whim.

[brokechris]

17. never said they were on a whim.

read my first post in the thread--I said improving air quality is a good thing.

This is one of my areas of expertise-making sure companies are NEPA and CEQA compliant--so I know this pretty well.

There have been regs--they have nothing to do with the dust bowl. They are good--but a farmer (dealing with manure etc) might consider them punitive. Farmers are kept well-informed about these regs and any changes--so someone from that community likely knew exactly what she needed to do and how it had changed. The lady probably had no clue why OP started going on about the Dust Bowl.

[XemaSab]

24. I'm in CA

Some of the regs have nothing to do with the Dust Bowl, and some do.

But I do see people plowing on awfully windy days.

[brokechris]

25. the ones that have come about while Obama

has been in office have mostly dealt with Greenhouse Gas Emissions. I am actually serving on a committee (for Governor Brown working on these right now--sadly it is for free--but I am making contacts).

Could you name a few recent (within Obama's tenure) California regs that have to do with the Dust Bowl? I can't think of any (completely stumped) so I am interested.

[XemaSab]

27. Come join us in the Environment/Energy forum

[brokechris]

31. I didn't even know one existed!! neat!

I will find it!

I have been a consultant in this area for about 8 years--but the engineering firm I was working for went under. Have been trying to get on with California Air Resources Board--but the hiring freezes have kept me out. So life is depressing right now...

[hobbit709]

14. contour plowing and other soil conservation measures.

Did you watch Dust Bowl?

[brokechris]

18. I've seen it--but the new air quality regs are not

due to the dust bowl. They are even more stringent here in CA.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

28. I was in California

back in the mid 90s when the sky was brown for a week. I had never seen brown sky in my life, it gave me a whole new appreciation for the bright blue skies of Florida. Having said that, I would prefer living in CA.

[brokechris]

32. when I was in Fl, they had a huge storm

but the sun shined the whole time! It was amazing to see.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

35. Yep.

Rainbows are also common here. When we moved to FL in July of 1987 we saw rainbows and double rainbows almost every day...the kids were always so excited by them. Eventually you become jaded.

[Jackpine Radical]

34. Now, THAT's a flashback!

I went to a 1-room country grade school and, even though most of us weren't farm kids, the state DPI made sure that sound ag practices, including contour plowing, were included in the curriculum in grade school.

[treestar]

19. Regulations are only about how the law will be carried out

They cannot change anything that Congress passed. If they do, they can be challenged.

Regulation and executive orders are limited by law to the carrying out of duly passed laws. They are not "new" laws or ways for the Executive Branch to just invent laws of its own.

[brokechris]

20. exactly--but the new regs do change things for people

in very real and practical ways as they do business and conduct their lives.

Regs aren't new law, but people have to follow it just as if it law.

here is how Regs come about:
http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/basics.html

[Egalitarian Thug]

16. Sadly, not unbelievable at all. n/t

[yesphan]

21. An excellent book on this topic

is "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan. Reading it now and it rivals Burns' film.

[XemaSab]

22. That book was quite the read

Highly recommended.

[Retrograde]

40. Burns' film was heavily based on Egan's book

And Egan made several appearances in it.

That said, "The Worst Hard Time" is one of the best books I've read in the last 10 years, and everyone who hasn't read it yet should obtain a copy from their favorite book purveyor or library forthwith. It's chilling: humans destroy a stable ecosystem in less than a generation.

[Arkana]

23. Why is this a bad law? Those dust storms on the Plains used to kill people.

Oh, right, I forgot--Democrats = evil, Obama = Democrat, ergo Obama = evil Negro Kenyan Socialist Muslim Commie.

[deerheadgal]

29. Dust Bowl could happen again

My family has a ranch not far from the area Ken Burns highlighted. When I was growing up in the '50s, my dad and our neighbors all had beautifully terraced fields that held in the available water. They practiced dry land farming with no irrigation. They loved the land and considered themselves stewards, and this was our home, not a factory.
As time went by, they grew old and their children went into other careers, the land was sold to corporations (many filled with "suitcase farmers"--dentists from Kansas City or lawyers from Tulsa who had no connection with the land.) To expedite the work, many of the corporate farmers used gigantic equipment and the terraces were knocked down so they could quickly plow and put in a crop that relied on chemicals rather than natural means to produce high yields.
There has been a terrible drought these past few years, and a couple of months ago, my brother sent me a picture of a dust storm that was similar to the ones we saw in the 1950s. It is not out of the realm of possibility that greed and a disdain for history and the land itself will again reap a harvest of dust and despair.

[MuseRider]

38. I saw dust blowing all the way up in NE Kansas this fall.

We are a long way from where the worst of the dust bowl occurred but it still was bad up here, my father lived through it and told me stories about it.

I have been worried about all those well kept family farms that have been sold to the corporations.

When I bought my farm I was so pleased to see that it was nicely terraced, I have added a few more to help control the runoff through the pastures when we get good rain (if that ever happens again, fingers crossed). It is a dry grass farm (no irrigation) and I do not have to plow and plant thankfully. I see a lot of family farms that have been working no till for quite some time but they are dwindling every year as they get bought out and the signs go up for Monsanto corn crops. Out come the big machines and here we go again.......

[Lasher]

30. Guess what, she probably didn't Google it.

Willful ignorance, reinforced by similar relatives and friends, and by rightwing entertainment 'news'.

[Arkansas Granny]

36. That's the thing that I don't understand. I hear this rw crap at work and it just takes a few

keystrokes to disprove it. How hard is that? These people don't even bother to do any fact checking when they hear something outrageous, they just accept it on blind faith. IMHO, that's why Fox News is so popular among them. They don't have to put forth any effort at all, they just sit back and watch and they will be told what they should think and believe. Willful ignorance is spot on. They don't know the truth and they don't care.

[Mariana]

39. Willful is indeed the word for it.

I'm never going to understand this about the RWers. They WANT to believe all this crap. I don't know why, but they do. Normal people are relieved when they find out something they were upset about isn't true. But when you demonstrate to these people that their complaint is bullshit, they get even more angry - and not at Fox News who lied to them to begin with. No, they get pissed of at YOU.

[Lasher]

41. They are zealots.

It took me years to realize this because I was hoping that some of them could be reached if confronted with compelling arguments. I have had some of them admit that they will say anything, true or not, if they think they might thereby promote their ideology. They think such deception is virtuous, and are proud of themselves for being the pathetic liars that they are.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

44. It's also very easy to find RW sources that support the BS. Which links do you think RWers will

click on?

[lapfog_1]

33. I watched for years now

farmers in my home state of Kansas ripping out the hedge rows that were put into place after the dust bowl era... the hedge rows interfere with every increasing large mechanization of corporate farms.

Hedge rows are an important wind break for surface winds and help prevent the formation of dust storms.

OTOH, cultivators and earth tilling machines are better these days about not ripping up the soil as much.

but I do worry that we are forgetting the lessons of history.

[monmouth3]

37. Look at how many posts you have.....Congrats...n/t

[aandegoons]

42. Where I live we still have a lot of run-down trailers with trash all over their front yard

with those America against Obama signs still in front of them.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

45. Afraid he's going to take away their trash?