ndmckinney|net

A painfully funny commentary about McCain supporters.

In today’s Washington Post, George Will has an article that chronicles the Dust Bowl. The story is in the context of “warnings of environmental apocalypse” and serves as an illustration of a real one; the problem is, the dust seems to have settle in Will’s head.

There is something of a logical disconnect between the entirety of Will’s article and the very last sentence.

The earth turned out to be more durable, and the people who wrested their livings from it more resilient, than had been thought.

This sentence poses two problems. Firstly, it downplays the true hardships that Will himself purported to chronicle. Secondly, it reaches a conclusion that an “environmental apocalypse” is really more of a mild inconvenience. John Steinbeck’s masterpiece Grapes of Wrath seems to reach the opposite conclusion as Will.

Arguably, the damage from the Dust Bowl can still be seen. While there aren’t clouds of dust reaching towards the stratosphere anymore, the fertile prairie land has not recovered. Many farm communities in the plains are just as impoverished today as they were during the Dust Bowl, and survival exists only through a series of government subsidies and a bit of luck. A new environmental apocalypse, with effects that will reach far beyond those seen in the 1930’s, could not only bring about a new Dust Bowl, but could have a more permanent impact on the American landscape.

Mr. Will, this is not something that will just “blow over”.