Climate change because of man is causing more death and drought – especially in Africa, so claim the “experts”.
But what we have to remember is that many of these “experts are not reliable spend their time sitting in air conditioned offices in Zurich, London, or Manhattan and never really have gone out in the field and taken real scientific measurements. Many in fact just spew crap in the form of alarmist press releases to the gullible media. Hat-tip: International Business Times.
Der Spiegel above brings a report on the Sahel Region of Africa, interviewing Dutch geographer Chris Reij of the University of Amsterdam. Reij says the opposite is occurring: the Sahara is shrinking. It is not expanding.
Reij has been visiting and documenting “the greening of the Sahel Zone” for decades. According to Reij at the the 0:28 mark:
The Sahara is not expanding. Sure there are still some areas of drought. But it is a popular myth that is gladly spread by the media that the Sahara is creeping southwards more and more every year. Also serious organizations claim this agaian and again. But it’s not true.”
As Der Spiegel shows at 0:58, trees are growing where 20 years ago there was only sand. And people are learning to manage the land and to reforest the area. “Here there’s more success than what people believe,” says Reij.
Der Spiegel concludes:
The Sahel zone is called the ground zero of climate change by UN officials. But now it’s getting green because of people on site have learned to help themselves.”
Thanks, Der Spiegel, for this bit of reality from Africa.
[…] Der Spiegel: The “Ground Zero Of Climate Change” Is Becoming Green – Expanding Sahara Is A Myt… By P Gosselin on 3. Januar 2012 […]
Der Spiegel makes it sound like it’s only due to Mr. Reij giving the natives some clues that the trees are growing. The Hamburg climate change fanatics would probably rather chew their arms off than admit that rising CO2 makes the plants get by with less water.
I hope Brokdorf goes down this winter and Hamburg learns sustainability the hard way :-).
As late as 7,000 years ago, the Sahara was a savannah …. a grassland. There was water …. a lot of it.
People lived there, in villages ….. FISHING villages.
One day, perhaps far in the future, it will become a lake-filled grassland. But if the Enviro-Com crowd has their way, there won’t be any fishing villages. Either because people will be barred from going there, or because (as is the Enviro-Com’s fervent wish) there won’t BE any people.
The Earth changes. Climate Changes. These are facts of life. And there isn’t a soul alive who can say for sure what all of those changes will be, when they will be, or why they will be.