Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Sub-saharan drought Message-ID: <1253@dciem.UUCP> Date: Thu, 6-Dec-84 17:56:09 EST Article-I.D.: dciem.1253 Posted: Thu Dec 6 17:56:09 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 6-Dec-84 20:34:37 EST References: <610@amdahl.UUCP>Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 30 Summary: > The sahara desert has been growing to the south for the last several years. > It has brough severe drought with it. Before that time, the population > in the afflicted areas was growing at a high rate, due to the increases > in simple medical knowledge. This meant not only that more babies were being > born, since they were being carried to term, but that they were also living > to the age where they could make their own babies. > > Once the famine set in, the birthrate dropped. This is a fact, not subject > to vote or opinion. The drop occurred because the rate of miscarriages > increased sharply. Pregnant women don't carry to term when they suddenly > stop having enough food to eat. Additionally, many of the offspring who are > born are both mentally and physically deformed. They don't live long. > And after starving long enough, say, a year, fertility drops WAY down. One theory is that at least part of the drought can be attributed to poor land-use practices exacerbated by overpopulation. The ravaged soil no longer absorbs water, and has a changed albedo that discourages the formation of rainclouds -- or some such. The point is that the southward march of the Sahara is probably in part induced by the poeple who suffer from it. Fencing off a part of the desert in Algeria(?) led to that area becoming revegetated, as was readily apparent from the early manned satellites. Once upon a time, that part of what is now a sand desert served as the granary for the Roman Empire (I know, a lot of climate change has happened since then). -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmt