A slow-motion climate disaster: The spread of barren land
Much of Brazil’s vast northeast is, in effect, turning into a desert — a process called desertification that is worsening across the planet…. Climate change is one culprit. But local residents, faced with harsh economic realities, have also made short-term decisions to get by … that have carried long-term consequences. Desertification is a natural disaster playing out in slow motion in areas that are home to half a billion people, from northern China and North Africa to remote Russia and the American Southwest.