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How Desertification Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
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Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck bryant Y. How's it going? Oh, you know, Josh,
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Speaker 1: it's Monday. I don't think recording on mondays on either.
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Speaker 1: In the stupid room that you hate. My head hurts
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Speaker 1: to Jerry's all bummed out. What a wife? What are
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Speaker 1: we doing? I don't know. This isn't a big upper
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Speaker 1: of a topic either. The desertification, Yeah, maybe it's a
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Speaker 1: good thing. We're not in like some chipper mood. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: I think you're right because, as you know, Chuck, desertification
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Speaker 1: is one of the overlooked I think problems crises facing
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Speaker 1: humanity right now. Yeah, man, big time, Especially here in
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Speaker 1: the cushy US, especially in the very lush Southeastern US.
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Speaker 1: It's kind of easy to overlook. And we had like
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Speaker 1: a pretty huge drought a couple of years ago. Uh,
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Speaker 1: and you know we're like, oh no, we have slightly
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Speaker 1: less drinking water than we did before. Right, Well, there
1:11
Speaker 1: were some other slight issues. We had some uprooting of
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Speaker 1: trees and such. Sure there was that. Uh, there wasn't
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Speaker 1: nearly as much boating or jet skiing as usual, which
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Speaker 1: I'm sure affected a lot of the gas stations around
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Speaker 1: some of the lakes. Right. There were probably some impacts
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Speaker 1: here and there that we didn't think about. Um, And
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Speaker 1: you're probably right. But it's also even easier to overlook
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Speaker 1: some of the impacts that take place during desertification in
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Speaker 1: some of the more marginalized societies in the world, right
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Speaker 1: for sure, So what are we looking at? I think
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Speaker 1: it's like of the people who live in areas that
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Speaker 1: are at risk of desertification are um, the poor under
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Speaker 1: the undeveloped countries, right right, Josh, it's about two billion people,
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Speaker 1: and for these people there's a kind of a slightly
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Speaker 1: more problems than not being able to jet ski as
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Speaker 1: much as one would like. Um. I think the infanmortality
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Speaker 1: rate is about ten times that of an industrialized nation, um,
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Speaker 1: and something like twenty four thousand people die every day
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Speaker 1: from starvation. A lot of these people are found in
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Speaker 1: desertified areas, right right, Let's get to the nitty gritty
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Speaker 1: of this, Chuck. What is desertification. I'm just gonna say
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Speaker 1: it in my words, desertification is when um uh natural
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Speaker 1: things take place and then man made things take place
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Speaker 1: to cause essentially what is the degradation of the soil
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Speaker 1: itself to where it will erode, things won't grow there,
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Speaker 1: and basically you're left with a barren desert landscape. That's
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Speaker 1: Chuck's definition. That's a good definition, Chuck. It's dead on.
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Speaker 1: The two chief processes that hasten desertification are um poor
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Speaker 1: soil management right and overuse of the land. Right. This
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Speaker 1: land is not meant to have lots and lots of
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Speaker 1: people and cattle grazing, not people grazing obviously, people farming
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Speaker 1: grazing right, and um with the land we're talking about
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Speaker 1: specifically or Sarai semi arid regions right right, And we
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Speaker 1: have one of those here in the United States. You
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Speaker 1: wouldn't think of it because it's artificially managed, but the
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Speaker 1: Great Plains are semi arid um And because of those
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Speaker 1: uh man made interventions like over use UM and intensive
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Speaker 1: farming techniques that didn't and not observing soil conservation, we
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Speaker 1: actually did experience desertification a century. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly
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Speaker 1: what happened. We got all these new fangled farming equipment
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Speaker 1: and said, hey, we're kind of poor because the depression
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Speaker 1: is coming up, and um, we need to use all
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Speaker 1: this stuff to really farm a lot. And that's what happened.
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Speaker 1: And then the dust bowl happened, and uh, but we
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Speaker 1: got it back well there there, Well, there was this
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Speaker 1: perfect storm that happened actually in the in the Midwest
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Speaker 1: in the late twenties. Since there was the Roaring twenties,
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Speaker 1: everybody was making tons of cash and farmers um started
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Speaker 1: borrowing heavily. Uh, and then the depression hit, much like today,
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Speaker 1: UM values of land dropped, the prices of UM commodities,
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Speaker 1: including agricultural products dropped, and people started having trouble making payments,
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Speaker 1: banks foreclosed. At the same time, the farmers were hit
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Speaker 1: really really hard financially. They were also hit really really
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Speaker 1: hard naturally because as they tried to step up farming
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Speaker 1: to increase yields, UM all they did was stripped the
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Speaker 1: land of its nutrients. And it became the this vicious
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Speaker 1: cycle where the harder they tried to cold stuff from
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Speaker 1: the land, the worse off it got. And then all
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Speaker 1: of a sudden, nothing would grow will bringing a drought,
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Speaker 1: which is the second component mother nature lending a hand,
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Speaker 1: and well, not a hand, a backhand. And uh, that's
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Speaker 1: when the dust bowl occurred, and we were in bad
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Speaker 1: shape in the Great Plains for a long time. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Apparently these things were like the dust storms that came up.
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Speaker 1: Like trains would miss their stops in the middle of
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Speaker 1: these things because they couldn't see. Um. It's static electricity
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Speaker 1: is easily generated by these particles. So cars would stall. Um.
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Speaker 1: So people started dragging chains behind them to ground the
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Speaker 1: cars to keep them from stalling. Um. People would put
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Speaker 1: wet sheets up over their windows and like you would
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Speaker 1: have drifts of dust, like in your house with all
5:51
Speaker 1: the doors and windows closed, it would still get in.
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Speaker 1: It was everywhere. Yeah, it was bad, bad news, bad times. Right,
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Speaker 1: So we got it back, we did it. Yeah, the
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Speaker 1: Great Plains farming once again, rich soil once again. And
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Speaker 1: that's a little teaser because we can we can combat this,
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Speaker 1: but we'll we'll get to that at the end. Right.
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Speaker 1: So it's happened here, it's happening in other places. It's
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Speaker 1: actually happening at a pretty rapid pace, isn't it. Chuck, Yes,
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Speaker 1: Josh stats are you calling for stats? Uh? New deserts
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Speaker 1: are growing at a rate of twenty thousand square miles
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Speaker 1: a year. And when you consider that half of the
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Speaker 1: total land mass of the Earth is dry land, intend
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Speaker 1: that land is already degraded, then it's not looking good. No,
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Speaker 1: it's not. And there's not a lot of processes in
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Speaker 1: place right now that are going to stop this. Although
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Speaker 1: we have a pretty clear picture of what's causing this, right,
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Speaker 1: like we said, poor soil conservation. Yeah, it's pretty easy
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Speaker 1: actually when you look at it's not like the most
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Speaker 1: complicated problem. Well, let's talk about the problem first, like,
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Speaker 1: what's what's going on? What's what causes desertification. Well, if
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Speaker 1: you're talking ecosystems like the human by and like any
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Speaker 1: living thing, you're looking for balance. What's the word we
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Speaker 1: used in the so an ecosystem wants balance as well,
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Speaker 1: and anything to throw it out of balance is not good,
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Speaker 1: which is what happens with desertification. When you get in
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Speaker 1: frequent rainfall, you lose um, what's called humus, which is
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Speaker 1: the really good organic top soil you want that plant
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Speaker 1: and animal material. Right, So, bobcats walking along gets struck
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Speaker 1: by lightning, falls over under the ground. What's going to
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Speaker 1: degrade and and be eaten by microbes and then turned
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Speaker 1: into humus which supports soil. Yeah, we're talking carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus,
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Speaker 1: all these things that make your top soil really fertile. Right,
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Speaker 1: And there's nothing wrong with the semi arid region like it.
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Speaker 1: It's not a desert. You don't want to confuse the two.
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Speaker 1: The problem is when humans come in and say we
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Speaker 1: really need this land, this semi arid land, and we're
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Speaker 1: going to over use it, then it does become a desert.
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Speaker 1: And it becomes overused, um by not rotating crops, um,
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Speaker 1: by not using or over using chemical fertilizers, not composting
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Speaker 1: like you should, right exactly, and um kind of irresponsible
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Speaker 1: irrigation techniques right, allowing for runoff that kind of stuff.
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Speaker 1: The problem is is, like you said, humus is so
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Speaker 1: essential that if you if you strip the soil of
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Speaker 1: its humus, no matter how much rainfall comes along, it's
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Speaker 1: not going to restore that balance. Even worse, the rainfalls
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Speaker 1: is going to carry the soil away, just eroads it further,
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Speaker 1: which is the problem. So what are some of the
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Speaker 1: things that we're doing to to the semi arid regions.
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Speaker 1: Let's say a bunch of people suddenly come to a
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Speaker 1: semi arid region and say, we're gonna start farming here.
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Speaker 1: What are some of the uses of this land that
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Speaker 1: that can be problematic, well, grazing, grazing of cattle, like
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Speaker 1: irris sponsible grazing. What happens is a lot of poor
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Speaker 1: people might migrate to an area because their area has
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Speaker 1: been degraded. So you have a mass migration of people
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Speaker 1: that will bring in all their cows, so they're over
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Speaker 1: using the land. All of a sudden, the cows are grazing,
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Speaker 1: and you know, you can't fault them for saying it's
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Speaker 1: irresponsible grazing because they're trying to survive and they eat
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Speaker 1: all the grass. Let's say grasses is in trees are
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Speaker 1: essential for holding that top soil together, so once that's gone,
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Speaker 1: or firewood was another one, right, yeah, because if they're
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Speaker 1: looking for firewood, right, if you're using that fuel, then
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Speaker 1: they do like crazy, You're gonna cut down trees because
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Speaker 1: there's your fuel right there. And when you cut down
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Speaker 1: a bunch of trees, you actually um make the land
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Speaker 1: much more reflective, which dries out the atmosphere. It causes
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Speaker 1: more evaporation UM. And also once you lose that the
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Speaker 1: anchor for the soil, the soil gets kicked up as dust.
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Speaker 1: So the combination of that more UM, that drier climate,
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Speaker 1: plus the dust in the air means it's harder for
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Speaker 1: putation to form, making the the area even more arid. Yeah,
10:03
Speaker 1: like compounds on itself. Sure, I got I got a
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Speaker 1: stat I was telling you that the mass migration of
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Speaker 1: people UH in the ninety nineties, dry land regions UM
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Speaker 1: grew eighteen point five percent in population. I mean, these
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Speaker 1: are places that shouldn't have that many people there anyway,
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Speaker 1: they're probably already overtaxed. Then mass migration happens, and it's
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Speaker 1: just a recipe for disaster, right, And the problem is
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Speaker 1: humans migrate a lot faster than land can be restored. Right.
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Speaker 1: So you you're you move from one place to another,
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Speaker 1: use that place up, you move to the next one. There,
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Speaker 1: there's you're eventually going to run out of places to move. Yeah, right,
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Speaker 1: that's what's happening. It is, And it's easy to overlook
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Speaker 1: here in the US, although I don't think we should,
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Speaker 1: because we we do have very um, we have really
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Speaker 1: good irrigation techniques in the Great Planes these days. But
10:55
Speaker 1: if you look at it, it's we're not there's not
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Speaker 1: a bunch of people living on the Great Plains. It's
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Speaker 1: pretty sparsely populated. But humans in the US are virtually
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Speaker 1: represented on the Great Plains because you've got one percent
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Speaker 1: of Americans farming for the rest of America, right, So
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Speaker 1: there's like a virtual demand on that land through farming
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Speaker 1: because it produces the food we eat. So we may
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Speaker 1: not be living there, but we're using that land just
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Speaker 1: as if we were indigenous people all living on the
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Speaker 1: Great Plains. And the water that's used there actually is
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Speaker 1: virtually exported elsewhere, right, So we're we're putting in water
11:33
Speaker 1: inputs there, it's growing, and we're taking that that water
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Speaker 1: basically and exporting it to the places where we eat
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Speaker 1: that food because we don't have to use the water here.
11:43
Speaker 1: So it's like a virtual export of water. Interesting. Well,
11:46
Speaker 1: the other thing to being American is we import a
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Speaker 1: lot of our food because we can afford to do so,
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Speaker 1: so we get food from all over the world. One
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Speaker 1: of the things that exacerbates the desertification is these migrating
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Speaker 1: poor people. They're rying on the natural ecosystem around them
12:04
Speaker 1: pretty much only right, they can't afford to. Sometimes you
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Speaker 1: in regents where they just can't import anyway. Plus they
12:09
Speaker 1: can't afford to because prices are skyrocketing for like wheat
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Speaker 1: and soy, So they need to use the grass that's
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Speaker 1: behind them and the cow that's eating it, and the
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Speaker 1: little tiny river full of dirty water. Because if you're
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Speaker 1: cutting down trees for fuel, you're probably not exporting a
12:25
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. I got another staff for you. You're
12:28
Speaker 1: ready to be creeped out. Uh, fifty million people will
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Speaker 1: be displaced by desertification in the next ten years and
12:36
Speaker 1: I saw that, so says people in planet dot net.
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Speaker 1: That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people,
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Speaker 1: and they're going to places like we said, that's not
12:43
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily you know, fertile oasis anyway. So it's just
12:47
Speaker 1: making everything worse. And again, if you don't have the
12:50
Speaker 1: money to import food, you don't have the money to
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Speaker 1: virtually import water. Hence the thousand people that die every
12:59
Speaker 1: day of starvation, yeah every day. Wow, it's very sad.
13:03
Speaker 1: Stat Like you said, the chuck um, So just let's
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Speaker 1: provide a quick recap, right, you've got a semi arid
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Speaker 1: region that looks kind of lush, you know, it doesn't
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Speaker 1: look like a desert. You come in, you start planting,
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Speaker 1: you use too much chemical fertilizer, you overgraze, you cut
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Speaker 1: down trees for fuel. You're and you're making a living.
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Speaker 1: A few people can do this and it can be sustainable,
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Speaker 1: but when too many people start doing it, then the
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Speaker 1: the humus is lost in the soil and uh, the
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Speaker 1: land starts reflecting back into the sky. So precipitation goes down,
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Speaker 1: the soil is loose, storms blow in and you've got nothing.
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Speaker 1: You have desert, erosion and desert. Yeah, how do you
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Speaker 1: combat this? Well, Josh, it's not easy. It's actually fundamentally easy,
13:52
Speaker 1: but it's hard because not enough people are taking part,
13:55
Speaker 1: and it's such a it needs to be done in
13:57
Speaker 1: such a massive scale, right, Exactly what you have to
14:00
Speaker 1: do is start at a grassroots level, That's what they say,
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Speaker 1: and you need to go in there with people like
14:06
Speaker 1: the u N I know as a group will plug
14:08
Speaker 1: them in a second. And you go in and you
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Speaker 1: teach these people long term benefits, teaching them to think
14:13
Speaker 1: long term as far as rotating crops terracing the land
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Speaker 1: proper irrigation techniques so they're not so shortsighted and just
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Speaker 1: trying to get the crops this year. You gotta teach them.
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Speaker 1: That's hard to do. That's what we did in the
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Speaker 1: UM late thirties and early forties. The federal government UM
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Speaker 1: was like, wow, we our nation's bread basket is a desert.
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Speaker 1: Now we have to do something. But they determined that
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Speaker 1: they couldn't constitutionally force farmers to use improve soil techniques.
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Speaker 1: So they turned to the states to basically force them
14:45
Speaker 1: to and they created soil conservation districts UH and made
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Speaker 1: it virtually free to farm and and undertake these soil
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Speaker 1: conservation techniques. So they're like, we're gonna provide you with
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Speaker 1: everything you need. Just do this right. UM. Use contour
15:01
Speaker 1: plowing to to trap water better when you arrogate. UM.
15:05
Speaker 1: The federal government also planted between nineteen thirty five and
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Speaker 1: nineteen forty two hundred and eighty five thousand miles of trees. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: That's a huge one because trees not only do they
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Speaker 1: help keep the soil together with the root system, but
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Speaker 1: they block the wind, and the wind causes a lot
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Speaker 1: of erosion Yeah, this is all easier done in America. Obviously,
15:26
Speaker 1: you got we got our work cut out against us
15:28
Speaker 1: for developing nations. Well yeah, and but China, I mean,
15:32
Speaker 1: they're they're starting to get a little more cash in
15:34
Speaker 1: their pocket than they have before. And they have a
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Speaker 1: huge problem with desertification. Is the Gobi is creeping closer
15:40
Speaker 1: and closer towards Beijing. Apparently dust storm from the Gobi
15:46
Speaker 1: that covers Beijing are some of them are so enormous
15:49
Speaker 1: that they can be detected in the States. Yeah, big
15:54
Speaker 1: dust storm. It is. China is taking action though. They
15:56
Speaker 1: built a or there in the process of planning a
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Speaker 1: three thousand mile long belt of trees along the edge
16:02
Speaker 1: of the Gobi, which is gonna help. And um, I
16:05
Speaker 1: think what other countries doing that? And uh oh along
16:08
Speaker 1: the Sahara Desert they're gonna they're trying to build a
16:11
Speaker 1: similar like they're calling it a green wall, right, And
16:13
Speaker 1: there's a German company, actually it's not a company, they're
16:16
Speaker 1: out of Bremen University. Um. They figured out that if
16:20
Speaker 1: you take coffee sacks like jute sacks, um fill them
16:24
Speaker 1: with this uh this kind of gel that can hold
16:28
Speaker 1: like a thousand times it's wede in water or something
16:30
Speaker 1: like that. Seeds compost and uh it is it's like
16:36
Speaker 1: a huge seed bomb. You can drop them out around
16:40
Speaker 1: the desert and they will or at least a semi
16:43
Speaker 1: arid region and they will take root, uh after just
16:46
Speaker 1: a few rainfalls. You can also put them in between
16:50
Speaker 1: trees and just leave the trees and those trees will grow.
16:53
Speaker 1: I think they had success rate with the type of
16:56
Speaker 1: holly tree that they were trying to grow. They plant
16:59
Speaker 1: two of them and then put one of these bags
17:02
Speaker 1: in between them. Yeah, that's awesome. Um. The other thing
17:05
Speaker 1: I thought was cool in the article was that the
17:08
Speaker 1: writer talked a little bit about sometimes the old traditional techniques,
17:11
Speaker 1: the ancient techniques, they were like really on target with
17:15
Speaker 1: what they were doing, and sometimes a modern way doesn't
17:17
Speaker 1: work as well. So in Spain, uh, and a British
17:20
Speaker 1: company has been renovating in a one thousand year old
17:23
Speaker 1: Moorish irrigation system. Yeah. How cool is that? It's just
17:27
Speaker 1: cool that there's a thousand year old irrigation systems. Yeah, Chuck,
17:32
Speaker 1: there's um. I mean, unless you feel like going to
17:37
Speaker 1: China or subs are in Africa and plant trees, there's
17:41
Speaker 1: not a lot you could do. Is like the stuff
17:42
Speaker 1: you should know listener, right, except yeah, Um, one of
17:48
Speaker 1: the one of the key ways of preventing desertification or
17:53
Speaker 1: slowing it, I guess is encouraging um indigenous societies to
17:59
Speaker 1: look for alter native means of sustaining themselves. I guess
18:04
Speaker 1: besides farming and agriculture, right, and you know there's things
18:07
Speaker 1: like growing herbs and uh things you can make oil
18:12
Speaker 1: extracts from and using them soaps and stuff like that.
18:15
Speaker 1: So I guess if you wanted to do something here
18:17
Speaker 1: in the States or in Norway, you would maybe kind
18:22
Speaker 1: of look for something like that and start buying them
18:24
Speaker 1: on mass online. Does your does Emily sell those on
18:28
Speaker 1: Love Your Mama? Well, she sells around soaps, but she doesn't.
18:31
Speaker 1: Does she use oils from the Gobi or anything? No,
18:34
Speaker 1: she tries to buy local. Actually, right, that's not local. No, No,
18:37
Speaker 1: it's not that local. I'm gonna shame her for not
18:39
Speaker 1: shipping in her essential oils from the Guppy consort. Right.
18:42
Speaker 1: You got anything else on desertification? Yeah, just if you
18:45
Speaker 1: want to read a little bit more on how you
18:47
Speaker 1: can participate or at least support and write letters that
18:50
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Uh. The u n has a cool site,
18:53
Speaker 1: the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and that is
18:57
Speaker 1: u N C C D DOT I N T and
19:01
Speaker 1: you can click on action programs and that's programs spelled
19:05
Speaker 1: with two ms and any. Yeah, British, they're silly that way,
19:09
Speaker 1: so it's pretty cool. You can click on action programs
19:11
Speaker 1: and they have it. There isn't one action program because
19:13
Speaker 1: it's got to be very specific to the land. So
19:16
Speaker 1: you click on that and you can go to Africa
19:17
Speaker 1: and you can go to a subregion of Botswana and
19:20
Speaker 1: find out like you can download a pdf to see
19:23
Speaker 1: exactly what they're trying to do. So cool, it's kind
19:25
Speaker 1: of cool just to educate yourself. Or you can start
19:27
Speaker 1: collecting juke coffee bags and mail them to Bremen University.
19:31
Speaker 1: Here you go if you want to know more about desertification,
19:35
Speaker 1: arguably the greatest crisis humanity faces. Right now, you can
19:40
Speaker 1: type that word and remember just one s in the
19:43
Speaker 1: handy search bar at how stuff worst dot com, which
19:45
Speaker 1: means it's time for a listener mail. Indeed, Josh, I'm
19:51
Speaker 1: gonna call this those crazy wacky Aussies. Okay, we have
19:57
Speaker 1: a lot of AUSI listeners. We hear from them quite
19:59
Speaker 1: a bit, and uh, they're they're wacky people and we
20:03
Speaker 1: need to make it down there at some point, although
20:05
Speaker 1: I don't think you could ever stomach that flight, could you.
20:08
Speaker 1: I'm going to Japan. It's fourteen hours. Good luck. Uh.
20:12
Speaker 1: This comes from Chris from Australia. I listen to your
20:15
Speaker 1: podcasts all the time. I'm sure it's a clinical addiction.
20:18
Speaker 1: And I thought you needed to know about cow pat latto.
20:22
Speaker 1: You know what a cow pad is. It's poop, yeah,
20:24
Speaker 1: cow pie, cow poop. Cow pat latto is recognized but
20:28
Speaker 1: certainly not common event in rural Australia where a paddock
20:33
Speaker 1: is plotted into sections. I don't know what you would
20:35
Speaker 1: call it. I don't know, an area of land. Maybe
20:37
Speaker 1: you call it a paddock. That's what he says. That's
20:39
Speaker 1: what I've always called So they split it into sections.
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Speaker 1: That's all done on paper like a Cartesian coordinate. Gamblers
20:46
Speaker 1: will bet their money on a particular portion of said paddock.
20:49
Speaker 1: When it's decided that it's time to get on with
20:51
Speaker 1: the game, a farm animal, traditionally bovine you know what's coming,
20:55
Speaker 1: is thrown in the paddock gamblers and other locals and
20:58
Speaker 1: sit around, eating and drinking and generally making merry and
21:02
Speaker 1: wait for said bovine to take a crap. So when
21:06
Speaker 1: the aforementioned cow has uh taking his poopoo, its coordinates
21:10
Speaker 1: are taken and the winner is whoever's plot the poopoo
21:14
Speaker 1: has landed in. Obviously, prizes I don't know, maybe the money.
21:18
Speaker 1: Maybe they wait for a second and third prize, although
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Speaker 1: this would indicate an unhealthy cow. It keeps going, and
21:27
Speaker 1: maybe they get a turkey or a meat tray, or
21:29
Speaker 1: a slab of beer or something where I get confused. Wait,
21:32
Speaker 1: a slab of beer is that a case? I don't know.
21:35
Speaker 1: Maybe it's Australian for cakes right. Anyway, it's generally used
21:39
Speaker 1: as a fundraiser, like a local raffle, so it's like
21:41
Speaker 1: a fundraising thing. And then she said there's like ladies
21:44
Speaker 1: having baked sales and the guys are all sitting around
21:46
Speaker 1: getting hammered. Basically, generally it's a great excuse for us
21:51
Speaker 1: suck more And that is an Australian synonym for a
21:55
Speaker 1: shin dig, a hoot nanny, a party, or a booze up.
21:59
Speaker 1: They call it a suck more Okay, so that's from
22:01
Speaker 1: Chris Australia red Hair. Nice. Thanks Chris. So now we
22:06
Speaker 1: know about desertification and suck mors. Yes, if you have
22:10
Speaker 1: an interesting term you wanna introduce chucking eye too, chucking
22:15
Speaker 1: me to one of those two? Uh? Send it in
22:17
Speaker 1: an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
22:27
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