The Dust Bowl of the 1930s in the American Great Plains demonstrated the severe (but apparently temporary) potential for harm from climate change... in this case, drought. Farms were denuded and great dust storms oppressed citizens.
1935 photos from Russell Lord, "To Hold This Soil",
Miscellaneous Publication No. 321, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
1938.
Courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department
of Commerce.