A Vision of the Future?

Introduction

When I graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in Environmental Design I found the field to be interesting and a good compliment to architecture.

Early Focus

The curriculum focused on the use and integration of engineered materials and natural resources into various types of building designs and construction.  I viewed the information was highly relevant in the context of practicing architecture.  That said, I completed a series of material design and performance studies that allowed me to get a feel of the physics involved. In some cases I explored a range of designs and applications that involved purely environmental engineering problems that were not directly associated to architecture.  These investigations involved the discovery of the fundamental physics as related to the use and conservation of natural resources.  

Care and Conservation of Material & Natural Resources

Over the completion of the curriculum, we never focused on historical case studies involving the "misuse" or "poor practices" that pertained to climate engineering or natural resource management.  Maybe we should have.  

All of the professors that taught environmental science and materials classes have passed on to another dimension. They are not available to argue my position on this point.  As some historian's have argued that, "only winners get to write history."  In this case, I would argue, "those that outlive winners get to rewrite history." (Huff, P.D., 2015)

Knowledge of Historical Natural Disasters

It was not that the study of historical environmental case studies associated with the misuse or poor practices associated with natural resources was not an important topic, because it was.  Moreover, it was the prevailing thought in the 1960s and 70s that our society would not need to re-address this concern in the future.  Why?  From the perspective of a "progressive" faculty in the "prairie school of architecture," a young architect/engineer about to enter the field needed to place his/her priories and focus on the current and projected problems of our times.  That meant we were to be focused on the emerging horizons and challenges to be confronted over the next 15 to 25 years. As it turned. our vision of the future overlooked a few simple truths about the nature of our global environment and the universe.  

The Study of Future Challenges in Other Areas

Matters pertaining to the potentials of: a) a mild to severe global-axis shift; and, b) the effects of celestial based climate engineering were not on the top of the list for young graduates in architecture/engineering in the mid-west.  Obviously, it was at elite university's like MIT.

As a common citizen, I spent much of my time in the corridors of the local architecture/engineering college.  I do not remember many (if any) of my peers being focused on much of anything except discovering new uses and innovative applications for materials, methods for improving negative-unity power and distribution systems, advancing the field of computer electronics and control systems, assessing innovative means of improving deep-sea drilling platforms, to include investigating and discovering new methods and techniques in the area of horizontal drilling.

A Late Wake up Call

The article and series of images that follow indicate I was wrong to assume we (architects/engineers) had our creative attentions focused in all of the right directions.  I now believe our powers of observation, creativity, research and development should have focused on a much different worldview in terms of future challenges.  More particularly, the kinds of challenges we are now about to collectively experience.  I trust you will find the following article and graphic interpretatives interesting.  My final observations follow the article.

Article by: FEELguide Staff Writers, https://www.feelguide.com/2015/03/22/r-i-p-california-1850-2016-what-well-lose-and-learn-from-the-worlds-first-major-water-collapse/

California is on its Death Bed

Last week when NASA announced that California is on its death bed and has only 12 months of water left, the news hit like a punch to the gut. “Data from NASA satellites show that the total amount of water stored in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins — that is, all of the snow, river and reservoir water, water in soils and groundwater combined — was 34 million acre-feet below normal in 2014. That loss is nearly 1.5 times the capacity of Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir,” writes Jay Famiglietti of NASA.

The Present and Growing Water Crisis

Famiglietti adds: “Statewide, we’ve been dropping more than 12 million acre-feet of total water yearly since 2011. Roughly two-thirds of these losses are attributable to groundwater pumping for agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley. Farmers have little choice but to pump more groundwater during droughts, especially when their surface water allocations have been slashed 80% to 100%. However, these pumping rates are excessive and unsustainable. Wells are running dry. In some areas of the Central Valley, the land is sinking by one foot or more per year.”

Growing Awareness and Actual Water Outages

Tensions are high in the state, and small conflicts are breaking out as people are beginning to steal water from others. Caroline Stanley of Refinery 29 writes: “As Tom McKay points out, the water crisis will likely have the biggest impact on the state’s agricultural community — which currently accounts for a whopping 80% of its water usage. (According to Carolee Krieger, president and executive director of the California Water Impact Network, the almond crop alone uses enough water to supply 75 percent of the state’s population.) But, recently, your average citizens are feeling it, too. People in the Bay Area are actually stealing water from their neighbors.”

The Next Dust Bowl, or Worse?

So what will happen when California turns into a dust bowl? Will the beauty and rich fabric of California’scultural history evaporate as well? SF Weekly put together a list of the top 51 reasons why California is America’s greatest state, and you can read them HERE. BuzzFeed also points out the 32 reasons why California is the most beautiful place in the world and you can read them at BuzzFeed.com as well. Moreover, what about the amazing culture of spirituality, peace, tolerance, ingenuity, and love that permeates the Golden State — would we lose that too?

The Global and National Food Supply

From another perspective, the North American food supply will also suffer a devastating blow because the state’s agricultural production zone is smack dab in the middle of the drought’s most severely hit area. And not only will California’s farming industry come to a screeching halt — the little water that is left will be so filled with toxins and pollutants that it will be undrinkable for local residents. Mother Jones put together an eye-opening set of infographics that paint a disturbing picture, and you can study them below.

Living Beyond the Availability of the Resources?

Mother Jones also points out that the lifeblood groundwater Californians are surviving on is 20,000 years old. (See attached images.) Tom Knudson writes: “Such water is not just old. It is prehistoric. It is older than the earliest pyramids on the Nile, older than the world’s oldest tree, the bristlecone pine. It was swirling down rivers and streams 15,000 to 20,000 years ago when humans were crossing the Bering Strait from Asia. Tapping such water is more than a scientific curiosity. It is one more sign that some parts of California are living beyond nature’s means, with implications that could ripple into the next century and beyond as climate change turns the region warmer and robs moisture from the sky. ‘What I see going on is a future disaster. You are removing water that’s been there a long, long time. Moreover, it will probably take a long time to replace it. We are mining water that cannot be readily replaced,’ said Vance Kennedy, a 91-year-old retired research hydrologist in the Central Valley.”

The California water crisis is reminiscent of The Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties — “a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the US and Canadian prairies during the 1930s” (Wikipedia). “Severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion (the Aeolian processes) caused the phenomenon. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–40, but some regions of the high plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years. With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and widespread use of the combine harvester contributed to farmers’ decisions to convert arid grassland (much of which received no more than 10 inches (250 mm) of precipitation per year) to cultivated cropland.”

The Dust Bowl resulted in a mass evacuation of the heartland, as tens of thousands of people were forced to abandon their farms. A similar evacuation is already underway in California as many farmers have been forced to give up. Unlike the Dust Bowl, however, California’s crisis does not end with abandoned farms — it ends with abandoned cities.

Possible Evacuation of Areas Without Water Resources?

The Dust Bowl resulted in a mass evacuation of the heartland, as tens of thousands of people were forced to abandon their farms. A similar evacuation is already underway in California as many farmers have been forced to give up. Unlike the Dust Bowl, however, California’s crisis does not end with abandoned farms — it ends with abandoned cities.   (See attached images.)

This Author's Final Observations

This all seems difficult to believe in light of the recent efforts by corporate and special interests in our government to build a source distribution petroleum pipeline across the country from Northern Canada to the Southern Gulf Coast region of the US.

What's wrong with this picture?  Perhaps a national water re-distribution pipeline should be considered as a "top priority" by our government's leaders.  Perhaps there is not enough money in a project of this type to inspire them to research and act on this or any other solution to the problem that is in the best interests of the nation and its urgent security defenses?  Or; Perhaps our leadership is as surprised as we are about this turn of events?  I think not.

For the Benefit of Other Colleagues and Research Peers

In reproducing this article for the benefit and consideration of others, I wanted to be sure the last set of graphic images were attached.  

Why?  The images remind me of a time when I was shown similar pictures by my grandparents and elders of the devastating times they lived through before we (as a nation) fully understood how to master our global resources through applied sciences, engineering, and climate control mechanisms. They stated, that thanks to the nation's advanced understanding of nature and its ability to manage its our resources this country would never experience this sort of thing ever again and most definitely not in our lifetime or that of our children. 

The Children of our Children

My grandparents would be greatly disappointed to see what we are facing in the context of the predictive outcomes related to the disposition of our environment and natural resources in the near-future.

What should I tell my grandchildren about these prospects and potential outcomes when they read this report?  They will expect a logical, truthful answer, and for me to respond as a caregiver.

Let me know what you think.

Image credits:  YouTube