Gaia: How Dry She Is

More than a third of the world's land mass may become desert

Coastal areas. The Prairies. The Mediterranean region. The savannah. The temperate Steppes. The temperate deserts. Tropical and subtropical Steppes. Tropical and subtropical deserts.

Amounting to 38% of the world's land surface, these eight natural areas of varying aridity are in serious trouble of turning into deserts because humans have been treating this land badly, according to a recent press release issued by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT).

Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a scientific methodology that analyses the human impact on the environment, researchers led by Montserrat Núñez from Institute of Agro Food Research and Technology (IRTA) have found that unsustainable land use in these eight "eco-regions" may lead to a level of soil degradation that is irreversible.

In a nutshell, that means that virtually nothing will grow there.

The regions most in danger of becoming completely "dead" include North Africa, the countries of the Middle East, Australia, South West China and the western edge of South America.

The research, published in the latest issue of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, is the world's first study to take into consideration the impact of desertification in the LCA.

According to Peter Russell's World Clock, 110 hectares of land turns to desert every ten minutes. At this rate, many of the world's inhabitants in the not-so-distant future will have to find new places to grow food -- and live.

Projects like the Underground Desert Living Unit (UDLU) and the Lilypad attempt to solve the future problem of the millions of "global warming refugees" that will be created by the loss of arable land, either through desertification or rising sea levels.

According to James Lovelock, the climatologist and futurist who first proposed the Gaia hypothesis, it's too late to try to turn the tide on global warming. Instead of spending time and resources in an attempt to reverse climate change, he argues, we should be focused on finding new places to live.

GET INVOLVED

• Monitor the growing devastation with Peter Russell's World Clock
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change
• Join the Greenpeace "Energy [R]evolution"
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International
• Take these seven steps to help save the Amazon rainforest

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image: the Guadalquivir River as it passes through Seville, one of the areas most at risk of desertification in Spain (credit: Nesta Vázquez)