World's land turning to desert at alarming speed

[gulfcoastliberal]

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The world is turning to dust, with lands the size of Rhode Island becoming desert wasteland every year and the problem threatening to send millions of people fleeing to greener countries, the United Nations says.

One-third of the Earth's surface is at risk, driving people into cities and destroying agriculture in vast swaths of Africa. Thirty-one percent of Spain is threatened, while China has lost 36,000 square miles to desert — an area the size of Indiana — since the 1950s.

This week the United Nations marks the 10th anniversary of the Convention to Combat Desertification, a plan aimed at stopping the phenomenon. Despite the efforts, the trend seems to be picking up speed — doubling its pace since the 1970s.

"It's a creeping catastrophe," said Michel Smitall, a spokesman for the U.N. secretary that oversees the 1994 accord. "Entire parts of the world might become uninhabitable."

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2004-06-15-global-drying_x.htm

Between killing the oceans and this... well, it doesn't look good.

[Double T]

1. Why there's no problem with global warming 'cause 'W' told....

us so, so it must be so. 'W' said the rain in Spain doesn't fall mainly on the desert plain or somethin' like that.

[funflower]

6. LOL! And where's that soggy plain? In Spain! In Spain!

[XemaSab]

2. We're hosed

n/t

[Boomer]

4. Yup

Welcome to Easter Island Redux.

[NNadir]

3. More places for solar cells presumably. Let's go watch TV.

[gulfcoastliberal]

5. LOL

You have to laugh at the shortsightedness of humans.

[Delphinus]

7. More like cry.

What will happen is people will look back at this time and ask "why didn't they do something when they had the chance?"

Our children and grandchildren may wind up hating us for our inability to see what's right in front of our noses.

[NNadir]

8. Our children and grandchildren may not exist.

This is a very real possible consequence of global climate change.

It may not be a probable out come, but it certainly a possible outcome, far more possible for instance that humanity will be rendered extinct by a leaking drum in Yucca Mountain.

[gulfcoastliberal]

9. Yeap, this is why I have no desire to have kids!

What kind of world would they grow up in? I imagine in twenty years time the world will not be a friendly place. I really can't believe that it all boils down to making a quick buck while ignoring the consequences. I mean, think of all the great jobs that a massive mass transit system for the US would bring, while simultaneously curbing pollution and gridlock - improving quality of life, etc. But no, we need to all drive our inefficient cars while the US automakers outsource their factories to Mexico and the Japanese, Germans, & Koreans build their cars in America?! What a world.

[kestrel91316]

10. Ditto ...........

I am glad I never discovered maternal instincts. I would be feeling pretty guilty to have added one more person to the world's burden. Bad enough that I have been contributing to GW myself.

[thegreatwildebeest]

11. Oh the hilarity...

I love how you poke fun at those who promote solar panels, while holding up nuclear power. I don't care if nuclear power is good, bad, or a bit of both. What I am concerned with is the fact that you have noted many times that solar power is wrong because it cannot realistically support industry and agriculture the way it is, and that presumably, we want the worlds poor to continue to be poor. Obviously you want the poor to remain poor as the natural resource extraction companies continue their hop scotching around the world, moving indigenous people off their land, and propping up dictators so that they may access not just oil and coal, but diamonds, wood, and the other materials needed for a computer industrial society (even solar panels are included in this). I don't WANT to see the current industrial status quo maintained, as I am sure the indigenous people of the worlds, who are seeing their lands taken, don't want the multinationals coming and extracting their livelihoods from them. Not everyone wants development, and its not because thier "savages" but because they weren't stupid enough to build a civilization utterly reliant on huge resource extraction.