Living in China’s Expanding Deserts

Josh Haner, Edward Wong, Derek Watkins and Jeremy White, Living in China’s Expanding Deserts. The New York Times, 24 October 2016. Part 4 of an 8-part series on Carbon’s Casualties. “Articles in this series explore how climate change is displacing people around the world.” [T]he Tengger desert “lies on the southern edge of the massive Gobi Desert, not far from major cities like Beijing. The Tengger is growing. For years, China’s deserts spread at an annual rate of more than 1,300 square miles. Many villages have been lost. Climate change and human activities have accelerated desertification. China says government efforts to relocate residents, plant trees and limit herding have slowed or reversed desert growth in some areas. But the usefulness of those policies is debated by scientists, and deserts are expanding in critical regions.”

[Read more…]