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I Disagree with Me (Thoughts from Lake Powell)

2017-03-24 · documentary visit · Hank · 6:08 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature · mode: Personal essay · tags: recurring series, on location

At Lake Powell, the reservoir of Glen Canyon Dam, Hank explains why dams were built and the problems the lake faces, and argues against an environmentalism that frames nature against humans and technology: he loves both nature and the dam, wants contradictory things, and says he needs to disagree with himself.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Kayaking on Lake Powell, a man-made reservoir; one of Hank's greatest internal debates

  • ★★ Hank recalls that a couple of weeks ago he and John spent time kayaking around a huge lake in the middle of a desert. — 00:00:01 · John Green
  • ★★ Hank says Lake Powell is not natural: it is the reservoir formed by Glen Canyon Dam and the second largest man-made lake in America. — 00:00:08
  • ★★★ Hank says the fight that led to Lake Powell in some ways created the modern environmental movement and some aspects of it he doesn't love; the lake is one of his greatest internal debates made real. (hedged) — 00:00:29

00:00:49 — Why dams were built: recreation, hydropower, water storage; Hoover Dam and three proposed sites

  • ★★ Hank says that until the 1960s dams were a big win, especially in the arid Southwest: man-made lakes stocked with bass gave easy recreation to millions of people. — 00:00:49
  • ★★ Hank says the water pressure behind tall dams like Glen Canyon Dam is harnessed for energy: at peak enough to power two million homes without carbon dioxide emissions. — 00:01:09
  • ★★ Hank says the Colorado River is a temperamental beast whose flow varies season to season and year to year, so Southwest states needed a stable water source and flood protection to grow. — 00:01:19
  • ★★ Hank says Hoover Dam created Lake Mead in the 1930s; later three large storage sites were proposed: Echo Park (flooding parts of Dinosaur National Monument), Bridge Canyon (parts of the Grand Canyon) and Glen Canyon. — 00:01:40

00:01:58 — The Sierra Club fight and the nature-versus-humans frame; the height of effort and of folly

  • ★★★ Hank says the Sierra Club's fight with the Department of the Interior over these dams is environmental legend, which he encourages viewers to read about; Bridge Canyon and Echo Park were spared, and Lake Powell was the price. — 00:01:58
  • ★★★ Hank says the fight spawned much of the modern environmental movement and placed it in a frame he sometimes finds frustrating: nature versus humans and their technology. — 00:02:11
  • ★★★ Hank says seeing canyons carved by an unstable river and thinking 'we should control that' is at once the height of human effort and of human folly: humans are so amazing and so stupid. — 00:02:23

00:02:44 — Lake Powell's problems: evaporation, a dry Colorado, sediment, drought and the 1983 spillway near-failure

  • ★★ Hank says much of Lake Powell's water is lost to evaporation, water that might otherwise reach the sea and nourish the Gulf of California's delta. (hedged) — 00:02:44
  • ★★★ Hank says the Colorado River now almost always runs dry before reaching the sea and has met the ocean just once in the last twenty years. — 00:02:52
  • ★★★ Hank says sediment is filling the canyons and the area behind the dam: in 100 to 150 years it will clog the outflow valves and end power generation, and in 700 years, without intervention, the reservoir will be full of mud. — 00:03:02
  • ★★ Hank says drought has brought the reservoir down to just 50% of capacity, with fears it will get much worse. — 00:03:22
  • ★★ Hank says a worse problem is a dam exceeding 100% of capacity, as this year (2017) when the Oroville Dam nearly failed as its spillway began to wash away. — 00:03:28
  • ★★★ Hank says it happened at Glen Canyon in 1983: huge rains upstream kept Lake Powell rising with all valves open, and the spillway washed out a 30-foot-deep, 80-foot-wide hole in the dam's bedrock. — 00:03:39
  • ★★ Reminded that what goes up must come down, Hank says someday there will be no dam at Glen Canyon, and we can only hope it is removed on purpose. — 00:04:01 · What goes up must come down

00:04:06 — Loving the dam: against an anti-human, anti-technology environmentalism; wanting contradictory things; disagreeing with himself

  • ★★★ Hank says he kind of loves the dam: he loves kayaking through the canyons and that people have a beach to go to and fish to catch. (hedged) — 00:04:06
  • ★★★ Hank often sees the environmental movement belittle people's fun, and thinks it can go too far in imagining humanity as a blight on nature and all technology as a step backward; he cannot abide that. (hedged) — 00:04:16
  • ★★★ Hank says he is in love with nature and with humans; he won't call humans simply natural, because while we are, we are also much more and sometimes less. (hedged) — 00:04:41
  • ★★★ Hank wants Glen Canyon to be a natural, unaltered ecosystem and also wants people to enjoy Lake Powell: part of being human is being able to want contradictory things. — 00:04:53
  • ★★★ Hank is thrilled that, especially over the last decade, technology has come to be seen more as a tool for protecting the environment, dismantling the old dichotomy through electric cars, solar panels and LED bulbs. — 00:05:02
  • ★★ Hank says there are still times he excitedly marvels at feats of human ingenuity like the dam while also kind of wishing they didn't exist. (hedged) — 00:05:17

  • ★★★ Hank says he disagrees with himself sometimes, and in a moment when everyone is so convinced of their own rightness, he needs chances to confront, admit and accept that. — 00:05:28

    “I disagree with me sometimes”

00:05:45 — Two US government documentaries about Glen Canyon Dam uploaded unlisted

  • ★★ Hank found two US government documentaries about Glen Canyon Dam, on its construction and its repair after the 1980s floods, found them fascinating, and uploaded them unlisted to the Vlogbrothers channel. — 00:05:45 · Vlogbrothers

In the description and comments

  • ★ The description says Lake Powell was part of the Colorado River Storage Project, meant to store flood-time water for use in dry times. — video description
  • ★ Hank says the storage project has worked, letting many people live and farm in arid parts of the Southwest, and Lake Powell is also a pretty, cool lake many people enjoy recreationally. — video description
  • ★★★ Hank, a big fan of the environment, often thinks a bias toward 'naturalness' can cause big problems, like a fear of vaccines or genetically modified foods. (hedged) — video description
  • ★★ Hank adds that there are lessons to learn from such projects: Glen Canyon Dam's construction left it vulnerable to floods that almost caused a massive disaster in the 1980s, so there is much to be said for caution. — video description
  • ★ Hank links a documentary about people who want to remove Glen Canyon Dam. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: environmentalism · Glen Canyon Dam · Lake Powell

Also: Organizations: Federal government of the United States · Sierra Club · United States Department of the Interior

Concepts: Anthropocene · carbon dioxide · drought · Electric car · LED lamp · solar power

Places: Bridge Canyon · Colorado River · Dinosaur National Monument · Echo Park · Glen Canyon · Grand Canyon · Gulf of California · Hoover Dam · Lake Mead · Oroville Dam

Memes: What goes up must come down

Only in the description or credits: Colorado River Storage Project · genetic engineering · Southwestern United States · Thoughts from Places · Vaccine hesitancy

Also centred on environmentalism: Maine Inspires Deep Thoughts · How to Be Green Without Being a Prick · Why Environmentalists Hate Captain Planet · Wrong on the Internet

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