Two-thirds of Spain is at risk of permanent desertification. The cold and wet country of Iceland holds half of all Europe's deserts. China's Gobi Desert is expanding rapidly, swallowing thousands of villages and threatening to envelop the capital city Beijing. In just 40 years a third of the plant's arable land has eroded, and each year desertification destroys the potential to grow 20 million tons of grain.

Once again, a show all about sand, but this time we're not building with it; we're running from it. What are some of the long-term systems that lead to desertification? What are some of the simple causes? And in what ways does human and economic development play a role in this process?

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Chapters

00:32 Civilizations Rise and Fall

12:00 "Spain, Iceland, China, Mongolia"

24:54 Global Aridity

31:30 Desertification Causes and Feedbacks

44:28 Land Use

53:07 Incentives

59:09 What can we do?

1:06:55 Carbondale Spring

Recommended reading and viewing

(3) Carbondale Spring, Illinois

(4) Global Land Use:

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/yields-and-land-use-in-agriculture

Sources

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Published 14-03-2019 00:39