Cutting trees leading to Desertification

In a differt thread cobbler made reference to the lack of rainfall to the cutting down of trees. This cause me to think about an important evironmental issue called desertification. That is when otherwise arible land turns into desert. This is a problem around the world and has been a curse upon the human race since societies began and trees were cut down.

Have any of you had to deal with this or seen this important evironmental issue, and if so how has the government responded to it?

i have seen this. what they do is they try to plant plants and irriigate them to encourage them to grow and forcee desert back

I know Israel is successful doing this. The problem is that you cannot grow wheat where the trees are and the temptation to plant crops to feed a hungery population is always there.

Where did you see this or did you read about it?

Another area where gene modification might offer up some usable solutions.

Would be neat to be able to grow some sort of weed that you COULD plant food crops amongst, there's quite a lot of desert around.

But then again, much suggests that the earth depends on the deserts just as much as on the rainforests for it's "breathing". THAT is a problem I'd like to see some actual research done on, does ANYBODY know the balance we need to achieve? or are we all just assuming that getting rid of as much desert as possible is what we want?

You want to get me started on a subject that I feel is dagerous, that would be gene modification. I think that gene modification can be a major source of environmental problems if I continues to be used as it is now. I know that it looks good, but you rarely hear about the negatives.

One book I would highly recommend is the book Fatal Harvest. After reading it, it change how and what I eat. It deals more with agribusiness, but it does address gene modification.

You may assume that I know quite a bit out the negative possibilities of gene modification, also about agribusiness and such tricks as terminator seeds.

I am not saying we shouldn't be careful, we should be very VERY careful, but the potential is enormous and we need solutions for some fairly pressing issues. Some of these solutions may come frome gene modified plants and animals.

Thanks for the book recommandation.

You hit the one of the things that really scare and angers me about the mega seed companies.. terminator seeds.

"Hey poor country buy our seed and grow healthy crops in you poor soil, but don't save the seeds as they are dead and they are our property..."

The whole owning a life for thing bugs the crap out of me.

It is a truly cynical thing to do.
And the worst part is that they arguments for applying terminator technology are very good indeed, because none of us really want laboratory designed plants run unchecked in the fauna before we have some idea of what they might do if they did.

It's a heavy argument, but it is without a shadow of doubt being used for economic purposes rather than environmental concern.