Desertification, dust are global threats - report

[gulfcoastliberal]

OSLO (Reuters) - Desertification threatens to drive millions of people from their homes in coming decades while vast dust storms can damage the health of people continents away, an international report said on Thursday.

"Desertification has emerged as a global problem affecting everyone," said Zafar Adeel, assistant director of the U.N. University's water academy and a lead author of a report drawing on the work of 1,360 scientists in 95 nations.

Two billion people live in drylands vulnerable to desertification, ranging from northern Africa to swathes of central Asia, he told Reuters. And storms can lift dust from the Sahara Desert, for instance, and cause respiratory problems for people as far away as North America.

Over-grazing and over-planting of crops, swelling human populations and misuse of irrigation were contributing to desertification, the report said. It estimated that 10-20 percent of drylands were already degraded.

Much more at article:

http://tinyurl.com/d9pg5

PS- We're doomed.

[CrispyQ]

1. Not to change the subject, but

Howard Lyman's book, "Mad Cowboy" has an excellent chapter in it titled "Bovine Planet" that I believe is an ominous portent of our future. It's incredible the changes that occur to land when we allow animals to overgraze.

"...and with deserts will come famine." --Mad Cowboy

[phantom power]

2. On the bright side...

we can all wear stil-suits, raise sandworms and sell spice to the other planets in the empire.

Oh, wait, that's right. There are no other damned planets. We're screwed.