The Dust Bowl of the 1930s in the American Great Plains demonstrated the severe (but as then thought, temporary) potential for harm from climate change... in this case, drought. Farms were denuded and great dust storms oppressed both farmers and townspeople.

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.