U.N. Says Globe Drying Up at Fast Pace

[Ivan Seeking]

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. [continued]

Also, as a rant:

...The warning comes as a controversial movie, "The Day After Tomorrow"...

All science aside, this movie is just another example of special effects used in place of substance; be it sci-fi or otherwise. I had the plot figured within the first ten minutes or so. Then, I fail to see why another rendition of plastic miniatures, Styrofoam chunks [icebergs], and computer generated wolves [that still don't cut it] cause such a frenzy. How about a plot?

Thanks. Now I feel better.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040615/D837O6TO0.html

 

[Andre]

Well perhaps a fact is that a lot of the World has become more arid the last 8000 - 10,000 years, especially Northern Siberia, the Middle East and Africa.

Perhaps another fact is that the general receding of glaciers is primarily caused by increased aridity and not by global warming.

for backing this up you could check:

http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EAE03/02093/EAE03-J-02093.pdf
http://geowww.uibk.ac.at/glacio/LITERATUR/kaser_et_al_IJC24(2004).pdf
http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGS02/02490/EGS02-A-02490.pdf
http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EAE03/01829/EAE03-J-01829.pdf

However, the global warming tales are so full of propaganda like:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/064.htm

On the global scale, air temperature is considered by most glaciologists to be the most important factor reflecting glacier retreat.

Gibberish, check my linx again.

And as the models consistently fail to predict the past, let alone the future, this isn't even worth a penny for a thought:

Global warming contributes to the problem, making many dry areas drier, scientists say.

We can only watch and mitigate the problem by careful water management. But that costs money, money that goes to the shredder machines of the global warmers.