Watch Episode 1: The Great Plow-Up on PBS. See more from The Dust Bowl.

We rely on our environment to survive, the Dust Bowl was the perfect example of what happens when we don’t take good care of that environment. Global warming is the current example.

From PBS: THE DUST BOWL:

THE DUST BOWL chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, in which the frenzied wheat boom of the “Great Plow-Up,” followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation. Vivid interviews with twenty-six survivors of those hard times, combined with dramatic photographs and seldom seen movie footage, bring to life stories of incredible human suffering and equally incredible human perseverance. It is also a morality tale about our relationship to the land that sustains us—a lesson we ignore at our peril.