Good morning John. A couple of weeks ago, you and I spent a little bit of time kayaking around a huge lake that, seemingly impossibly, is in the middle of a desert. And indeed, Lake Powell is not natural. It is the reservoir formed by Glen Canyon Dam. Now there's a pretty good chance you don't know much about this, the second largest man-made lake in America, about the tremendous feats of engineering and human labor required to get it up and keep it up as well as its fraught environmental legacy, contentious past, and limited future. I didn't really feel like mentioning any of this while we were enjoying it, but the fight that lead to the creation of Lake Powell in some ways created the modern environmental movement and lead to some aspects of that movement that I don't love. This marvel of humanity's ability as well as our folly is kinda one of my greatest internal debates made real. So, I wanted to talk about that. Up until the 1960's dams were a big win for pretty much everyone, especially in the arid southwest US. First, beautiful man-made lakes stocked with bass gave fun, easy, recreational opportunities to millions of people; while getting into deep hidden canyons can be all but impossible for a hiker, motoring your boat into one is just a few gallons of gas away. Second, the tremendous water pressure that built up behind tall dams like Glen Canyon Dam is also harnessed for energy; at peak, enough to power two million homes without any carbon dioxide or other emissions. And most importantly, the Colorado River is a temperamental beast. A lot of water flows through the Colorado River but season to season and even year to year you never really know if it's going to be there when you need it to flush toilets or irrigate your crops. If states in the Southwest were going to be able to grow their economies and populations, they needed a stable source of water and protection from massive floods Hoover Dam, of course, created Lake Mead in the 1930's, but a number of other sites for dams became viable as technology progressed and the need for water increased. Three sites for large water storage included Echo Park, which would have flooded parts of Dinasour National Monument; Bridge Canyon, which would've flooded parts of the Grand Canyon; and Glen Canyon. The fight between the Sierra club and the department of the interior of these dams is stuff of environmental legend, and I encourage you to read about this era - it's fascinating - but in the end, Bridge Canyon and Echo Park were spared; Lake Powell was the price. This fight not only spawned much of the modern environmental movement, it also placed it within a frame that I personally find myself frustrated with sometimes: one of nature vs. humans and our technology. Like, the fact that we can see these canyons carved by the magnificent, unstoppable power of this tremendously unstable river system and think, "Hey, we should control that" is simultaneously the height of human effort and the height of human folly. I look at this dam and I think "humans are so freaking amazing and also so freaking stupid." And indeed these days, much of Lake Powell's water is lost to evaporation - water that would maybe otherwise make it to the sea to nourish the Gulf of California's Delta. The Colorado River almost always runs dry by the time America is done with it now. It has met the ocean just once in the last twenty years. And that's just the start of lake Powell's problems. Fast-flowing rivers carry sediment, but when it hits the reservoir, the water slows down and the sediment falls out. Canyons are now filling with mud, as is the area behind the dam. In 100-150 years, the sediment will clog the outflow valves and there will be no way to generate electricity from the dam. In 700 years, without some intervention, the reservoir will completely fill with mud. These days, drought has brought the reservoir down to just 50% of capacity, and there are fears that it will get much worse. And yet, that's far from the most severe possible problem, which is what happens when a dam exceeds 100% of capacity. We saw this this year when the Orville dam nearly failed when its spillway began to wash away, and it happened at Glen Canyon in 1983. Due to huge rains, dams upstream dumped so much water into Lake Powell that it kept rising even after all valves were opened. The spillway began to wash away, leaving a 30-foot-deep, 80-foot-wide hole in the bedrock of the dam. At times like those, I am reminded of the seemingly innocuous phrase, 'what goes up must come down.' Someday there will be no dam at Glen Canyon and we can only hope that when that happens, we do it on purpose. And yet, I kinda love this dam. I love that I can kayak through those canyons. I love that these people have a beach that they can go to, and fish to catch. I often see the environmental movement belittle the kinds of fun these people enjoy: the jetskis, and the motorboats, and the imagining of nature as something that exists just to serve humanity. The environmental movement, I think, can go too far into imagining humanity, or at least those willfully ignorant humans, as nothing but a blight on the perfection of nature. Sometimes, this goes so far as to imagine all technology as a step in the wrong direction, as if the only way out of this mess is backward. But I cannot abide that. I am in love with nature, and I am in love with humans. I won't so far as to say that we are natural, because while we are, we are also much more, and also, sometimes I think, less. I want Glen Canyon to be a natural, unaltered ecosystem, but I also want people to be able to enjoy Lake Powell. Part of being human is being able to want contradictory things. But I have been thrilled to watch, especially over the last decade, as technology has come to be seen more as a tool for protection of the environment than for its destruction. These large-scale engineering projects that destroyed natural environments set up a dichotomy that's now being dismantled by electric cars and solar panels and LED light bulbs, but there are still times when I have to excitedly marvel at these amazing feats of human ingenuity while also kinda wishing they didn't exist. I disagree with me sometimes, and, especially in this particular moment in history, when we are all so convinced of our own rightness and righteousness, I need opportunities to confront, admit, and accept that more than ever. John, I'll see you on Tuesday. While I was researching this video, I came across two documentary films that the US government made about Glen Canyon dam: one about the construction and one about the repair after the floods in the 1980's, and I found them both fascinating to watch and if you are the kind of person who likes to watch those I've uploaded them on lists to the Vlogbrothers channel and you can do that, uh, by clickin' on either of these links here. OKAY BYE
How educational was this video?
normally Im not a fan of hank's 'thoughts from places'-esque videos, but this one knocked it out of the park!
I took an environmental history class a few years back, and finally think I am qualified enough to comment on a video.
That's the question about the modern world: the clash between nature and harnessing our potential to create and harness the environment. Who has the right to make a decision that could be so detrimental to the local ecosystem? Why did we discuss a plan to flood dinosaur national monument? What is good and what is bad when it comes to these things? It all comes out, what I've learned, is that it's a question of ethics, not of scientific fact.
For example, we had to read an incredibly long first person document on the evidence of lead paint in the home and the effects it had on the people living in it. There were arguments that said that the lead in paint was so minuscule that people couldn't die of it, but what about children? What happens when paint chips and gets into the air, now you're breathing it? There is so much that people don't take into consideration (at least in this source) that they didn't take into account, which is what sticks with me the most about it.
Maybe that's why we're having the discussion today: whether saving the environment is the most pressing issue that we have as a species. Many people do not believe this, and why?
As an aside, I have always thought it to be in my best interest that when attacking a problem, analyze the problem arbitrarily to figure out it's roots. Finding the problem at the root will not only solve the problem you're addressing, but solve problems that are unforeseen at the moment.
Anyway, let's attack this problem at it's root by asking the obvious problem: "Should we help the environment or should we let it be and continue doing what we're doing?" and then ask, "How did we get to this problem?" The answer lies here (and there is only one answer): the exploitation to the human's benefit. Let's define exploitation before we move on: it's the rape of the environment to help the human achieve their goals. So, the discussion comes about to human greed. How do we know what's too much or too little for our population? That is the question we should be asking as a people, and what many countries (here's looking at you, Europe) are trying to estimate, which is something that I am ashamed to admit the United States are not actively setting this as a priority.
Thus, I would love to see a scientific, non-biased study where it tests the correlation between corruption, wealth disparity, and overall GDP against the state of the environment in respective countries. I believe this would open eyes to people that have power (politicians) to actually do something about the environment, because I would love to have my grandchildren experience the earth I know and love.
edit: If you don't agree with my opinions, I understand. I'm posting it here because I know that the nerdfighting community is supportive and understands to think about humans complexly. I'm usually too nervous to really put my thoughts out there, but I'm trying something new.
Another almost relevant documentary.
Actually, /u/ecogeek , we need to consider the enormous carbon cost of the concrete when looking at hydroelectric as an energy source.