 | Concentrating On The Important Things - Solar Thermal Power | The Oil Drum | Continuing the Nuclear Debate |  |
Search The Oil Drum with Google
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Local
- Home Buyers Demand Short Commutes, Efficient Homes (with Backyards, Parking, lots of Square Feet)
- Streets: Utilitarian Corridors or Livable Public Space
- Summer Streets a Success!
TOD:Europe
- IEA WEO 2008 - NGLs to the Rescue?
- IEA WEO 2008 - Fossil Fuel Ultimates and CO2 Emissions Scenarios
- The IEA WEO 2008: Will coal usage be phased out?
TOD:Canada
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
- Oil Megaproject Update (July 2008)
TOD:ANZ
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- The Energy Blog
- Entropy Production
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- Calculated Risk
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.”
—James Madison, FEDERALIST #57 (1787)
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Prof. Goose, Heading Out, Stuart Staniford, Nate Hagens
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Gail the Actuary, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Khebab, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Local: Glenn
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
The point is that if that section of the country faces flooding and therefore and inability to produce substantial amounts of crops, everyone in the US suffers, and therefore everyone in the world suffers (as food supply drops and therefore food prices skyrocket). It's not a case of "Us vs. Them," or "thats what you get for living there," its a case of, "we all need that area to grow our food."
Allowing the river to periodically inundate its floodplain would renew the fertility of the alluvial soils. This would increase agricultural productivity in the North American Midwest, while reducing the amount of artificial fertilizer required. It would also allow the Mississippi to renew its delta, protecting the Gulf coastal plain from storm surges during hurricanes. Channelizing the Mississip only allows the precious topsoil that erodes due to agroindustrial stupidity to reach deep water. Eroded topsoil should be redeposited over the floodplain and in the delta, where it would do some good.
Oh don't get me wrong, restoring the natural flooding cycle of the floodplain would be hugely beneficial to long term crop production from the area.
What the thread has been referring to is a summer where flooding ruins crop production for that year and how devastating that would be to our food supplies. It only takes 1 winter for people without food to starve.
Okay, gotcha. But even in '93 farmers managed to grow a crop on the floodplain. Taking out the levees & allowing snowmelt to renew the floodplain might preclude winter wheat and delay working the fields some years, but it wouldn't eliminate an entire growing season's crop. The occasional short-term detriment to agriculture would be enormously offset by the long-term benefit.