The New Yellow Peril
The Gobi Desert is now knocking at the western gates of Beijing.
Rapid industrialization and poor logging practices in the P.R.C. has enlarged the Gobi Desert and created new desert areas. The Gobi increased in size by 20,000 square miles between 1994 and 1999. Its expansion has slowed since, One-third of the grassland that makes up Inner Mongolia, birthplace of the horse peoples who united under Genghis Khan and conquered most of the known world, is now classified as desert.
And the sandstorms that sweep across northern China every Spring are increasing in intensity, duration, and area covered.
Taiwan now gets a face full of sand each year. And the sand is polluted from traveling over the heavy industrial areas within China to the west. The Korean peninsula is now affected. Before long, Japan will be too.
There is enormous pressure on China from other East Asian countries to both alter its logging practices and to curb environmentally-unfriendly industrial practices. Beijing has taken some steps, but only now is it replanting trees in a vain attempt to reduce the amount of sand that will be present in the city for the 2008 Olympic games.
And it would be unwise to assume that environmental problems in the East don't affect the West.
Rapid industrialization and poor logging practices in the P.R.C. has enlarged the Gobi Desert and created new desert areas. The Gobi increased in size by 20,000 square miles between 1994 and 1999. Its expansion has slowed since, One-third of the grassland that makes up Inner Mongolia, birthplace of the horse peoples who united under Genghis Khan and conquered most of the known world, is now classified as desert.
And the sandstorms that sweep across northern China every Spring are increasing in intensity, duration, and area covered.
Taiwan now gets a face full of sand each year. And the sand is polluted from traveling over the heavy industrial areas within China to the west. The Korean peninsula is now affected. Before long, Japan will be too.
There is enormous pressure on China from other East Asian countries to both alter its logging practices and to curb environmentally-unfriendly industrial practices. Beijing has taken some steps, but only now is it replanting trees in a vain attempt to reduce the amount of sand that will be present in the city for the 2008 Olympic games.
And it would be unwise to assume that environmental problems in the East don't affect the West.
DOOMED, DOOMED, DOOMED! Every year we're doomed!
Posted by
Badger |
April 30, 2007 7:50 AM