China's falling water tables and overgrazing in the country whose landmass is already one-third desert are resulting in a giant dust bowl across northern China, converting large swathes of arable land to desert and triggering sandstorms whose impact carries across the Pacific. "There are huge areas there that were once productive grassland that are now desert," says Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute. Sandstorms were this year exacerbated by droughts across northern and western China, that were also contributing to forest fires raging in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang. Water tables were diminishing in north China, causing rivers and land to dry out and affecting grain harvests, especially of wheat, which is grown predominantly in the drought-stricken northern provinces.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is engaged in an interesting project in the Caribbean and South America to combat drought, soil degradation and desertification. The program is the first sub-regional program of its kind, depending upon young people trained in reforestation and sustainable development techniques carrying out a program of environmental rehabilitation. The project is the beginning of the sort of large-scale ecological restoration efforts that Ecological Internet has long advocated. Humanity has surpassed the Earth's carrying-capacity, having destroyed more ecosystems than can be lost and the Earth's life-support systems still function in the long-term. We must not only protect all remaining large natural habitats, but also commence an age of ecological restoration based upon protecting water and other landscape ecological patterns and processes.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Economic growth based upon the liquidation of natural capital is relatively easy to achieve and is particularly undermining of ecosystems and future development potential. China has regularly achieved growth rates near 10% by mining their water. The Boston Globe reports that environmentally reckless development of China's provincial cities is devastating the country's lakes and rivers. Consider that three of China's seven major river basins are polluted, 90 percent of the rivers running through cities suffer from severe pollution, and more than 300 million rural residents do not have access to clean water. China's artificially high growth rates are a mirage based upon unsustainable water and other resource use - including the region's ancient forests. The Chinese economic miracle in its aping of the destructive Western way of living is destroying the planet.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)