Dust storm threat to China's crops

Poststructural Pub
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North-western parts of China are turning into desert, creating huge dust storms that have reached as far as the United States, a US environmental group has warned.
The desertification process, evident in sandstorms that rage from March to the end of May, could affect food production in China, Lester Brown, chairman of the Earth Policy Institute, told journalists in Washington.

“What the Chinese are now faced with is the prospect of massive eastward migration… into the large cities. And that would create even more problems,” he said.

Official estimates show 2,330 square kilometres (900 square miles) of land turning to desert in the provinces of Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Quinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang each year, Mr Brown said.

An area several times as large is suffering a decline in productivity as it is degraded by overuse.

“There are too many people, too many cattle and sheep, and too many ploughs,” he said.

… On 18 April, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, reported that a huge dust storm from northern China had reached the United States "blanketing areas from Canada to Arizona with a layer of dust."

They reported the foothills of the Rocky Mountains were obscured by the dust from China.

:boggle:

rest of the story here:

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Woah, that’s news to me. It just goes to show that, while China has enormous sconomic potential, they might never realize it beause of the high hurdles in their path.

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And what lovely sunsets they’ve been! Much like the dust coming from Africa giving the East Coast of North America beautiful sunrises!

MarkB

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That link is from 2001. Here’s something more recent: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/features/parched/china.htm

Note: “Most of the dust that is in dust storms in fact is made up of quartz, which is the commonest form of what we call free silica. And quartz is a carcinogen. But the stages in responding to quartz dust in the lungs is initially a condition called ‘fibrosis’. This is when the fine dust is inhaled deeply into the lungs, it lodges in the little pouches within the lungs, called aveoli and these essentially build up a kind of crust. A product of this is maybe after 20, or even 30 years, you find it difficult to go up stairs. You find it difficult to hoe your field.”

This is what Woody Guthrie was talking about in [u]Dust Pneumonia Blues[/u]. I don’t think that it was taking 20 to 30 years at all.

I remember my mother talking about how dust storms filled the air with fine red dust. They would put wet sheets and towels around all the windows and doors, but everything in the house would still end up covered with dust.

I just recently became aware that dust from Africa is suspected of carrying microorganisms that are damaging coral and killing sea urchins in the Caribbean. There are quite a few interesting Web sites on the subject. (I found out about it from a Sarah Andrews mystery novel, Killer Dust.)

[u]One Web site[/u] has some interesting bits:

"Last year, USGS microbiologist Dale Griffin conducted the first microbial census of African dust trapped over the Caribbean. His results rattled a pillar of microbiology. Traditionally, scientists did not expect many microbes to survive long in the air, where the organisms are assaulted by oxygen and ultraviolet radiation. Only a few microbiologists had speculated that microorganisms could travel long distances. “When I came into this project, I thought if I got three or four organisms I’d be pretty lucky,” Griffin says. “Oh, my God, it was surprising!”

No one had predicted the bouquets of pink, yellow, orange, and gray that bloomed in Griffin’s petri dishes: “A hundred and twenty species of fungi and bacteria,” he says. Griffin thinks the dust may actually protect the microbes from the elements, sheltering them in microscopic crevices like tiny caves. The particles at the top of a dust cloud may also shade those traveling beneath them."

Even this is from 2002. I doubt that things have improved, though.

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This could be a good incentive to raise US exports of grain to China.

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It could also, ultimately, be a good incentive for a large-scale migration out of China, with all that that implies.

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Part of the real problem is that their farming is causing the desertification process. I have read up on the desertification process in the past and it is reversible, but it takes time and effort.

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Tried to find the success story that I remembered in the past. It involved taking the environment through steps of plant live like grassland>brush>trees>forest.

Unfortunately, most of the things I found in my quick search were talking about desertification as problem and asking for government intervention with no mention of places where those efforts succeeded. I guess that saying that something can be fixed is not news worthy or may damage someone’s efforts to get funding.

DOOM! DOOOOM! :stuck_out_tongue: