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World's land turning to desert at alarming speed, United Nations warns
wcco4 ^ | 6/15/04 | wcco4

Posted on 06/15/2004 6:23:44 PM PDT by freedom44

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. secretariat that oversees the 1994 accord. ``Entire parts of the world might become uninhabitable.''

Slash-and-burn agriculture, sloppy conservation, overtaxed water supplies and soaring populations are mostly to blame. But global warming is taking its toll, too.

The United Nations is holding a ceremony in Bonn, Germany, on Thursday to mark World Day to Combat Desertification, and will hold a meeting in Brazil this month to take stock of the problem.

The warning comes as a controversial movie, ``The Day After Tomorrow'' is whipping up interest in climate change, and as rivers and lakes dry up in the American West, giving Americans a taste of what's to come elsewhere.

The United Nations says:

From the mid-1990s to 2000, 1,374 square miles have turned into deserts each year an area about the size of Rhode Island. That's up from 840 square miles in the 1980s, and 624 square miles during the 1970s.

By 2025, two-thirds of arable land in Africa will disappear, along with one-third of Asia's and one-fifth of South America's.

Some 135 million people equivalent to the populations of France and Germany combined are at risk of being displaced.

Most at risk are dry regions on the edges of deserts places like sub-Saharan Africa or the Gobi Desert in China, where people are already struggling to eke out a living from the land.

As populations expand, those regions have become more stressed. Trees are cut for firewood, grasslands are overgrazed, fields are over-farmed and lose their nutrients, water becomes scarcer and dirtier.

Technology can make the problem worse. In parts of Australia, irrigation systems are pumping up salty water and slowly poisoning farms. In Saudi Arabia, herdsmen can use water trucks instead of taking their animals from oasis to oasis but by staying in one place, the herds are getting bigger and eating all the grass.

In Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, coastal resorts are swallowing up water that once moistened the wilderness. Many farmers in those countries still flood their fields instead of using more miserly ``drip irrigation,'' and the resulting shortages are slowly baking the life out of the land.

The result is a patchy ``rash'' of dead areas, rather than an easy-to-see expansion of existing deserts, scientists say. These areas have their good times and bad times as the weather changes. But in general, they are getting bigger and worse-off.

``It's not as dramatic as a flood or a big disaster like an earthquake,'' said Richard Thomas of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas in Aleppo, Syria. ``There are some bright spots and hot spots. But overall, there is a trend toward increasing degradation.''

The trend is speeding up, but it has been going on for centuries, scientists say. Fossilized pollen and seeds, along with ancient tools like grinding stones, show that much of the Middle East, the Mediterranean and North Africa were once green. The Sahara itself was a savanna, and rock paintings show giraffes, elephants and cows once lived there.

Global warming contributes to the problem, making many dry areas drier, scientists say. In the last century, average temperatures have risen over 1 degree Fahrenheit worldwide, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

As for the American Southwest, it is too early to tell whether its six-year drought could turn to something more permanent. But scientists note that reservoir levels are dropping as cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas expand.

``In some respects you may have greener vegetation showing up in people's yards, but you may be using water that was destined for the natural environment,'' said Stuart Marsh of the University of Arizona's Office of Arid Lands Studies. ``That might have an effect on the biodiversity surrounding that city.''

The Global Change Research Program says global warming could eventually make the Southwest wetter but it will also cause more extreme weather, meaning harsher droughts that could kill vegetation. Now, the Southwest drought has become so severe that even the sagebrush is dying.

``The lack of water and the overuse of water, that is going to be a threat to the United States,'' Thomas said. ``In other parts of the world, the problem is poverty that causes people to overuse the land. Most of these ecological systems have tipping points, and once you go past them, things go downhill.''


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: environment; un
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1 posted on 06/15/2004 6:23:45 PM PDT by freedom44
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To: freedom44

You had me worried for a moment. I thought the world's land was turning to dessert.


2 posted on 06/15/2004 6:27:17 PM PDT by mhx
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To: freedom44

Too bad the rest of the world is too smart to listen to us. No, sirree... they like their inefficient and wasteful habits when it comes to farming. And none of those GM crops which need less water and are resistant to spoilage.

What do we know? We just feed our people so well.


3 posted on 06/15/2004 6:28:29 PM PDT by Bogey78O (McDonalds rejected slogan "Billions served....millions if not counting Michael Moore")
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To: freedom44

The sky is falling (again).

I couldn't make it all the way through the article. Where does it say it's Americas fault?


4 posted on 06/15/2004 6:30:02 PM PDT by Fzob (Why does this tag line keep showing up?)
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To: freedom44

Time to get out my little plastic bucket and shovel.


5 posted on 06/15/2004 6:35:06 PM PDT by LoudRepublicangirl (loudrepublicangirl)
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To: freedom44
``It's a creeping catastrophe,'' said Michel Smitall.

Quote of the week?

6 posted on 06/15/2004 6:35:29 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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Comment #7 Removed by Moderator

To: freedom44

Barbra Streisand!


8 posted on 06/15/2004 6:39:07 PM PDT by buffyt (There is no limit to what a man can do - as long as he doesn't care who gets the credit. R Reagan)
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To: Cicero

CREEP of the week! LOL


9 posted on 06/15/2004 6:39:32 PM PDT by buffyt (There is no limit to what a man can do - as long as he doesn't care who gets the credit. R Reagan)
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To: freedom44

UN scams turning to graft at alarming speed.


10 posted on 06/15/2004 6:42:07 PM PDT by johniegrad
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To: Fzob
"I couldn't make it all the way through the article. Where does it say it's Americas fault?"

Lol -- to be "officially" announced here and there:

The United Nations is holding a ceremony in Bonn, Germany, on Thursday to mark World Day to Combat Desertification, and will hold a meeting in Brazil this month to take stock of the problem [America].

11 posted on 06/15/2004 6:45:16 PM PDT by F16Fighter
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To: freedom44

I seem to remember an article posted a few weeks ago about how global warming would make the earth wetter.


12 posted on 06/15/2004 6:49:02 PM PDT by nuconvert ("America will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins." ( Azadi baraye Iran)
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To: freedom44
Shouldn't the good ol' USofA be desert-ified the fastest since we're the cause of all the world's problems?

It really is just easier to ignore anything that has "UN" in the title.
13 posted on 06/15/2004 6:49:52 PM PDT by mykroar
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To: freedom44

Uninhabitable????? Last I checked there were plenty of people living in deserts around the world.....


14 posted on 06/15/2004 6:55:28 PM PDT by HamiltonJay ("You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.")
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To: freedom44; Eagle9; freedox; chesty_puller; GRRRRR; MouthOfTheSouth; Memother; joan_30; ...

Comedy Clown Zone Bumps


15 posted on 06/15/2004 6:59:30 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK (‘All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.’ TJefferson)
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To: nuconvert
I seem to remember an article posted a few weeks ago about how global warming would make the earth wetter.

Depends on which article you read. My understanding is tha Global Warming will make the world Colder and Wetter. Desert areas will be hardest hit. And women and minorities. It's creepin' catastrophe, man!

16 posted on 06/15/2004 7:15:19 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (You can see it coming like a train on a track.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

All your deserts are belong to us!


17 posted on 06/15/2004 7:17:26 PM PDT by night reader
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To: ClearCase_guy

"Global Warming will make the world Colder and Wetter"

Do you think "they" will get around to re-naming it?

How about 'global dog's nose'? That's cold and wet.

Or 'global Ale'?


18 posted on 06/15/2004 7:20:51 PM PDT by nuconvert ("America will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins." ( Azadi baraye Iran)
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To: freedom44

Slaughter all the grazing animals that range through the marginal lands that are on the edge of deserts. And more than anything, do not turn already semi-arid regions into farming enterprises with irrigation water. This accelerates the growth and spread of deserts more than any other single enterprise mankind engages in.

Why? Because even the freshest of irrigation water carries some salinity. The water is flushed out acrose the irrigated tract, and part of it evaporates, concentrating the salinity of the remaining water. Over time, unless certain steps are taken, the salinity of the soil rises to the point that only salt-tolerant plants thrive there.

By laying sub-soil drainage tile, so that the excess somewhat more saline water is drained away, carrying the salt with it, the tendency for the irrigated tract to to turn saline is averted. But it takes a LOT of extra irrigation water to assure the salinity does not rise to serious levels, and the effluent will be even more salty, to the detriment of downstream users of the water.


19 posted on 06/15/2004 7:59:51 PM PDT by alloysteel (Win one for the Gipper. He's watching, you know.)
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To: alloysteel
Oh do shut up!

Just because you know all those fact thingys,like cause and effect, does not make you the equal of a UN diplomat, a media spokesperson, or a murderous African dictator!

Who do you think you are? /sarcasm//
20 posted on 06/15/2004 8:11:18 PM PDT by sarasmom (Sometimes, I wish liberals had beliefs, so I could desecrate them. (spok))
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