By Steven Brown Chicago Daily News
Man’s heavy use of fossil fuels has staved off another ice age and is creating a warmer global climate that will cause sweeping changes in population distribution and life-styles. That is the belief University of Michigan botany professor David Gates, who predicts that the temperate climatic zones will feel the most drastic impact of the changes. Life in the Midwest will be massively, …. The warmer weather will mean: in the Midwest, said Gates: —Falling water levels – “Great Lakes shipping may trouble navigating the corridors of the various locks and rivers.” — “Beaches would enormous, and vast relics of civilization— glass, porcelain refrigerators, cars and other junk-would emerge in the dying of the old lake bottom.” — Less snowfall and requiring more irrigation for crops, more watering for trees and lawns and changes in the plants commonly found agriculture would shift north, with the Corn Belt moving into Canada and wheat becoming the basic crop in the Great Lakes Region. — Increased population around the Great Lakes, where there will be at least some water remaining, with a halt to population growth in the more arid West and Southwest. But, Gates said, some difficult trades and adjustments will have to be made to sustain a growing population. “…. Population controls and rationing of resources would loom as undesirable unavoidable, Gates said. …. Gates said he testified in his theory before Congress recently. “Congress is already concern and they’re beginning to ask questions. We’ve got to really begin to work out some strategies to work with it.”
25 August 1977
The Vidette 25 August 1977 — The Vidette Digital Archives
There has been no change in Great Lakes water levels over the past century.
Maricopa County, Arizona is the fastest growing county in the US.
