World's land turning to desert at alarming speed, United Nations warns

WCCO 4 ^ | 6/15/04 | Chris Hawley - AP

[muawiyah]

Hey, instead of birth control (and it's evil twin abortion), why don't we just get rid of adults who have failed to pull their weight in this world?

I'm thinking of a couple right now ~ of course you could volunteer to take their place.

[muawiyah]

BTW, the Enclosures Act guaranteed the American war of independence as soon as possible.

[stands2reason]

I don't live near there-- thank goodness.

Some people love West Texas. Like me. Suit yourself though.

[Clara Lou]

Some people love West Texas. Like me. Suit yourself though.
"I meant near there" as in near that dust storm. Don't misinterpret.

[Zeppo]

with lands the size of Rhode Island becoming desert wasteland every year

Boy, that specter is enough to keep people awake at night (not). About as alarming as saying, "lands the size of tiny Luxembourg are becoming desert wasteland every year". Ho hum...

[expatpat]

How come?

[muawiyah]

An enormous number of folks adversely affected by the Enclosure Law ended up in America ~ willingly or unwillingly.

This is one of the reasons the Revolution started early in Mecklenburg County.

[NormsRevenge]

Yahoo has a new title up for the article

World's land turning to desert at alarming speed, United Nations warns

U.N. Says Globe Drying Up at Fast Pace

[SauronOfMordor]

That points out a problem with the Bering land bridge that people supposedly walked across last Ice Age. It was a thousand miles of desert. A major expedition might make it across, but a hunting party would not be interested.

A fishing society might have been more likely to have been moving along there

[babaloo999]

Who is Noone?

[RightWhale]

The middle of Alaska is still kind of a desert and there is little wildlife. Granted a moose here and there gives the impression of lots of wildlife. There are fish. The early settlements were along the coast and relied on fishing and mammals that fish. Small coastal fishing boats was probably the main way people got around, since you can hardly walk across the muskeg ground in summer. It's hard to imagine hunters walking across just to find themselves in more desert.

[DCPatriot]

Well if people can survive in Afghanistan they can survive in that type of environment.

Remember those sand people in the 1st Star Wars movie that were dressed like hood monks? ;^)

[xrp]

``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.''

Like this FARMLAND IN THE DESERT:

The Al Khufrah Oasis in southeastern Libya is an irrigation project that enables cultivation of agricultural products in the dry, hot desert. Image #SAF1-E1112444.

[xrp]

The UN will soon blame us for controlling the weather.

We do, where have you been? Don't you know about HAARP?

[DannyTN]

``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,''

So the problem is that all lands are turning into deserts, except those that are greener and they are using too much water.

[mykroar]

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.

Did anyone catch this one?? LOL. Mid-90s = probably 1996.

So for what - 4 or 5 years this happened? On a global scale?

Give me a break. /rolleyes

[madison10]

They haven't visited the Great Lakes region recently, have they? Desert my butt. Try swamp.