The Importance of Stories to Climate Change

In the late 19th century, white settlement in the interior of the United States was accelerated by several intersecting events such as the Homestead Act of 1862, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the end of Civil War, and series of gold rushes. Wide adoption of agriculture across the American West did not seem originally possible, but by the dawn of the 20th century, the United States counted 45 states in the union, all with some degree of agriculture.

In 1819, Stephen H. Long described to President Monroe that the Great Plains were “wholly unfit for cultivation and… uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture.” The famous American explorer John Wesley Powell wrote in his 1878 report that there was effectively a climatological boundary dividing agriculturally viable eastern North American from the rest. West of the 100th meridian, less than 50cm of rain fell per year, making non-irrigated farming unlikely. Settlement largely followed these trends. As a lifelong westerner, I recognize that it isn’t the mountains that I love that define the west, but the lack of water.

But something happened as pioneer farmers started plowing up virgin prairie in Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, and elsewhere in the 1860s and 70s. It started to rain. Steel furrowed earth gave off the sound of a zipper being ripped open, exposing dark, rich soil loaded with eons of organic material and moist soil. Areas thought incapable of hosting farms became surprisingly workable. It was said, from reporters, settlers, and politicians, that “Rain follows the plow.” Wrapped within the zeitgeist of Manifest Destiny, this junk science was seen as confirmation of American exceptionalism and man’s dominion of nature. That by plowing “unproductive” land, it would feed a growing nation and the world. Amber waves of grain made America beautiful.

In retrospect, it is unclear whether the increased precipitation was borne of climactic cycles, or one brought about briefly by rapid and large ecosystem changes, but the rains didn’t continue. Many settlers went bust in the 1890s and 1910s as the moisture failed to continue. More left in the 1930s with the coming of the Dust Bowl.

It illustrates the power of storytelling. That we believe the stories that we want to believe and, in doing so, can change the literal world.

But it also illustrates that the only thing manifest about our destiny is that climate will drive it.

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