[neutrino]

This is interesting in several ways, IMO. First, please recall that part of the reason Rome may have fallen under barbarian hordes was widespread famine. A present day famine would be widely destabilizing.

The second issue is that North Korea has already blackmailed the world for food; will China do otherwise?

Third interesting point is that China has a demographic imbalance (more young men than women).

More and more, I think our President is wise to avoid any fight in Korea...because being around China during such times might not be good at all.

[SerfsUp]

So will the US taxpayer end up sending loans to China to allow them to buy food?

[BfloGuy]

It threatens to drive up the price of food and greatly increase starvation worldwide, and could lead to tens of millions of desperate Chinese environmental refugees. "No country has ever faced a potential ecological catastrophe on the scale of the dust bowl now developing in China," says Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, based in Washington. "Merely grasping its dimensions and consequences poses a serious analytical challenge."

SKY FALLS -- WOMEN AND MINORITIES HURT MOST

[Kevin Curry]

Viewed from Korea, these clouds make the entire sky in the direction of China (the Gobi Desert esp.) yellow. It's awesome to see.

[general_re]

The problem here is that the driving force behind this article is Lester Brown. Brown has been consistently predicting worldwide famine every year since 1974, and has been consistently wrong every year since 1974. I don't see any particular reason to believe that Lester's suddenly got his sh*t together after a 30 year losing streak ;)

[Diana Rose]

OK, so how are they going to make it our fault?

[buffyt]

"The clouds – which stretch for thousands of miles over Asia and have even reached across the Pacific to North America – are rising from a rapidly growing dust bowl in northern China that far outstrips the notorious one in the United States in the 1930s."

Our dust bowl in the 1930s was caused by all our gas guzzling SUVs right? HA

[twntaipan]

Question: Will the threat of air too thick to breathe force the IOC to consider moving the Olympics?

[razorback-bert]

[Republic If You Can Keep It]

Between 1994 and 1999, the country's Environmental Protection Agency reports, the Gobi Desert expanded....

What? They have an EPA? And it's run by Communists?

Our countries have so much in common!

[freepersup]

I was thinking a little bit more along this line

[altair]

The institute blames "over-cultivation, overgrazing, over-cutting and over-pumping" for the escalating catastrophe.

Nope. It's due to Global Warming. Good thing we have the Kyoto Protocol to come to the rescue. Oh wait, China is exempted from that. Never mind.

[Action-America]

It is planting 26 million acres – a tenth of its grain-growing area – with trees. But many die because the soil is already too thin; and, say critics, too many are being planted around Beijing so as to try to "green" the city – and clean the air – before the 2008 Olympics.

Not to worry.  American technology comes to the rescue.

The Chinese government recently agreed to a plan that would place an American company at the forefront of resolving this problem.  As I understand it, this company has sole distribution rights for a tree that will not only grow in the most inhospitable conditions, but is also the fastest growing tree in the world.  The tree, known as the Megaflora Tree (www.megafloratree.com), was created by US scientists and is now in great demand around the world.  It grows to 65 feet in 7 years, though it can be harvested in as little as 18 months for pulp, to be used for biomass fuel or paper products.  Even the envirowackos can't complain too loud about cutting this tree down, either, since a new tree will grow back up out of the old stump and reach 45 feet in only 2 years.  Since it will grow in the desert and it grows so fast, it is the ideal tree to stop the encroachment of the Gobi Desert.  But, I bet it really irks the envirowackos to know that a US company is going to be making money by helping the environment.

 

[this_ol_patriot]

Has France vetoed this yet?

[185JHP]

Girl infanticide, govt.-forced abortions, persecution of Christians - do the thugs in Red China deserve some pain?

[nightdriver]

This could be a good way to improve our balance of payments with china. Canada got paid in gold for their wheat, the least we could do is get some of our dollars back.

[CaptRon]

It's sand kicked up by the Iraqi army getting out of Dodge.