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A Semi Desert With A Desert Heart
A Semi Desert With A Desert Heart
Period 4
Journal:A Semi-desert With a Desert Heart
2. The title of the work is A Semi-desert With a Desert Heart. The significance of this title is
that the west at heart is a desert but through humans and irrigation, parts have become
more of a semidesert.
3. The work was written in 1986. The important background of the work is that
environmentalism was gaining popularity and more people were beginning to care about
the planet.
4. The intended audience may have been people who carelessly used water when they live
in a desert region.
5. Marc Reisner begins A Semi-desert With a Desert Heart by describing his view of Utah
from an airplane. He describes the barrenness of the land that suddenly turns into large
cities then just back to being barren suddenly. Reisner explains early irrigation
techniques of the mormon pioneers and how they were able to turn a desert into arable
land. He then describes how these techniques have allowed the settlement in the desert
lands of the west. After Reisner explains the negative effects that this is causing. He first
describes the negative effects on the Colorado River. The Colorado River is becoming
incredibly salty because of the use of it for farming and waste. Reisner then begins to
discuss the effects on California. In California they have used much of the groundwater
that is nonrenewable. Reisner then explains that at some point we will not be able to
6. The main point of this piece is that we cannot continue to use water the way that we are
currently using it. Although we have currently been able to settle the west we will not be
able to continue. The way in which we use the water from rivers increases the salt
7. I thought that the work was interesting and brought up some very good points. One of
the things that interested me was when he discussed how people love the desert but
we don't want to leave our modern comforts to actually explore it. It reminded me of the
passage that we read on industrial tourism; we say we like something but are too
unwilling to leave our modern comforts to actually experience what it is like. I also
thought it was cool how it brought up some things that I have learned about in my Utah
history classes.