Dust Clouds Blowing Into Korea From China Since 2 A.D.

[Robert]

Since the 2nd century dusty air has blown into Korea from desert areas in Northern China and Mongolia. More likely in March through May but can be any time weather conditions are right.

It used to be just natural items such as dust, fungi, viruses and bacteria, but now also carries various industrial pollutants, pesticides, heavy metals.

The dust also has a negative economic impact in the affected areas. Another weather related negative economic factor to be included in the monthly balance sheet.

They are trying to plant trees barriers in the desert regions but apparently the trees aren't able to stabilize the desert ground. The desert regions are constantly expanding bringing more dust and the Gobi Desert is the fast growing desert region in the world.

https://asiasociety.org/korea/hwang-s...

http://english.seoul.go.kr/policy-inf...

In some areas even though the dust concentration can be comparatively low, it might actually be carrying more toxic compounds that dust clouds with higher dust densities.

https://phys.org/news/2018-07-reveals...

[Clare]

We've had clouds of yellow dust arrive from China. One way of transporting minerals around the world.

[Clare]

Another action China is taking with regard to water is building giant canals to divert Himalayan rivers northwards. Technically this is Chinese water, but the nations to the south depend on those waters.
Meltdown in Tibet: China's Reckless Destruction of Ecosystems from the Highlands of Tibet to the Deltas of Asia

[Clare]

I was reading recently that since China gained a market for cashmere which is goats' hair, the central plains herders greatly expanded their herds, so now the plains are full of starving goats and the plants are all eaten away to the ground. This is why we are getting more of the dust events here in Ireland.

I found an excellent article on a site called Grist this morning; not familiar with it, but it says this is independent journalism. The article well explains various natural processes and shows, for example, how we know what is happening.

" In addition to the direct damage from overplowing and overgrazing, the northern half of China is literally drying out as rainfall declines and aquifers are depleted by overpumping. Water tables are falling almost everywhere, gradually altering the region’s hydrology. As water tables fall, springs dry up, streams no longer flow, lakes disappear, and rivers run dry. U.S. satellites, which have been monitoring land use in China for some 30 years, show that literally thousands of lakes in the North have disappeared.

Deforestation in southern and eastern China is reducing the moisture transported inland from the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and the Yellow Sea, writes Wang Hongchang, a fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Where land is forested, the water is held and evaporates to be carried further inland. When tree cover is removed, the initial rainfall from the inland-moving, moisture-laden air simply runs off and returns to the sea. As this recycling of rainfall inland is weakened by deforestation, rainfall in the interior is declining. "

https://grist.org/article/grossman-bi...

[Clare]

Relevant book: AwareKnits: Knit & Crochet Projects for the Eco-Conscious Stitcher

[Clare]

Another article on the cashmere, Sciencemag.org

"Summary
Mongolia's grasslands, essential to the country's economy and identity, are under threat. An estimated 70% of all the grazing lands are considered degraded to some degree. Climate change plays a role in the decline, but the most important cause is overgrazing. Since the fall of communism in the 1990s, Mongolia has gone from 20 million grazing livestock to 61.5 million, driven in part by the exploding global demand for cashmere wool. A project run by the Wildlife Conservation Society hopes it can help turn the tide. It uses data gathered by NASA and Stanford University to help herders find places with healthy vegetation to sustain their herds and is trying to find ways to reduce herd sizes."
http://science.sciencemag.org/content...

[Robert]

Big government and big education is going to find the remaining healthy environments and turn them into wastelands. Exploding materialistic global demands are not based on sustainability and sustaining them will not produce sustainability.

A while back the government went on a massive campaign to eliminate the prairie dog because people didn't like the tunnels in the ground. Turned out the tunnels irrigated the land under the surface so when it didn't rain the ground had moisture in it.

Just about all the natural wildlife populations numbers are down except for wolves, which are surviving off the grazing livestock.

[Clare]

I agree about destroying the remaining green lands.