A driver in the Paris-Dakar rally speeds through the Sahara where the desert landscape is threatened by four-wheel-drive traffic.
Dust storms in the Sahara have increased tenfold in 50 years, contributing to climate change as well as threatening human health and destroying coral reefs thousands of kilometres away. One major cause is the replacement of the camel by four-wheel-drive vehicles as the desert vehicle of choice. Andrew Goudie, professor of geography at Oxford University, blames the process of Toyotarisation - a coinage reflecting the near-ubiquitous desert use of Toyota LandCruisers - for destroying a thin crust of lichen and stones that has protected the Sahara from wind for centuries...etc etc...
(There's islamic terrorism and then there's Global-Warming type terrorism.)
That sounds like the biggest pile of crap I have heard in a long time. I live in the California desert. Plus, I have been to Dakar, Mauritania, Niger and Algeria. If you think that driving a few motor vehicles over the sand is causing the spread of the Sahara, you are beyond help. Consider just how few vehicles are in the North Africa desert in comparison to the size of the land mass. I rest my case.
“Andrew Goudie, professor of geography at Oxford University,
blames the process of Toyotarisation - a coinage reflecting the
near-ubiquitous desert use of Toyota LandCruisers - for destroying
a thin crust of lichen and stones that has protected the Sahara from
wind for centuries...etc etc... “
Toyota: Stronger and More Evil than Nature!
(/SARC)...as there’s no mention of the sirocco winds (50-70 mph) that
carry Saharan sand all the way across the Mediterranean to Europe!!!!!!!!!!!!
Regardles of the factors bearing down on the Sahara...
IT’S STILL A FREAKIN’ DESERT!!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirocco
“Dust storms in the Sahara have increased tenfold in 50 years, contributing to climate change as well as threatening human health and destroying coral reefs thousands of kilometres away.”
That’s great! I’ve had so many good laughs out of FR so far this year. :’D The dust storms also result in a huge increase in the rate of autism. /rimshot
"You cannot be serious!!!"
As if we need any more proof that these "professors" are full of crap! Then why not blame Arctic melting on the much more voluminous and much darker iron/magnesium-rich dust from huge volcanoes, such as Pinatubo or the recent Indonesian eruptions?
Well, I veered off the thread subject. The Goebbels-Warming crowd's next stunt will be praise of the terrorists as "concerned environmentalist militants".
After all they forced the cancellation of the dust-storm-creating, climate-changing, evil capitalistic, and racist Paris-Dakar Rally.