Updates
September 24, 2012: The original post linked to one of the more ridiculous stories that I have linked in the past couple of years. I was surprised that someone even bothered to post a comment (see first comment below). The reader suggested "oil and farming" was all that western North Dakota had to offer (I assume the reader was from eastern North Dakota; out-of-state readers do not know that there are two Dakotas, east and west, north of 45 degrees latitude, but I digress).
I responded that western North Dakota had more to offer, including hunting and fishing. A reader provided this link from USA Today, posted within the last 24 hours! Absolutely incredible!
More Americans are heading outdoors to hunt and fish for fun, reversing a two-decade-long decline among adults.
Eleven percent more Americans (ages 16 and older) fished and 9% more hunted in 2011 than in 2006, according to a new five-year survey from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"What we see is a pretty significant change in direction," says Dan Ashe, the Fish and Wildlife Service's director, noting declines in prior surveys since 1991.
He says the specific causes for the reversal won't be spelled out until the final report is issued later this year but adds: "There's a growing realization that doing things outdoors is healthy."Just incredible. Incredible. No one will believe me but that was the sequence of events: a) reader comments; b) I respond with "hunting and fishing"; c) another reader provides link of a story that had just been published supporting my thesis; and, a story that I would have otherwise missed. What a great country.
Original Post
Two UND professors are studying the impact of man camps in the oil patch. See The Bismarck Tribune link.“These man camps are only going to be there for 20 or 30 years, depending on labor needs,” Caraher said. “What’s it going to look like in 300 or 500 years?”I can't make this stuff up.
I hope these highly educated professors got a huge grant and are compensated very well for this critical study. While they are at they could study the mating habits of grasshoppers too. Enough to make anyone with common sense gag.
ReplyDeleteIt must have been a very, very slow news day for "The Bismarck Tribune."
DeleteI would assume the professors have tenure.
I don't know about tenure but my (admitedaly non academic ) take is that western ND will will look a lot like the poppers described and in way less time than 300years.
ReplyDeleteThe oil will be long gone and predicting farming activity that far down the road is anyone's guess. And, let's face it oil and farming is the total of activity for western ND.
Wow, that is so ironic. I was going to say if you want to see what western North Dakota is going to look like 500 years from now, re-read the Poppers article. Wow, great minds think alike.
Delete"Oil and farming is the total activity...." Don't forget natural gas. Actually, hunting and fishing are nice in western North Dakota. Solitude will be nice, once again. And maybe covered with wind farms. And coal.
What will the Man camps look like in 300-500 years? Look at fort mandan and the nearby mandan villages for an idea. Some of the items we make will last a lot longer than theirs but we also know a lot about returning a site back to it's natural appearance.
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps by then we will have learned how to turn coal into methane using bacteria, then using it as a source of fuel for electricity as suggested in Byron Dorgan's fiction book "Blowout".