John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY VINCE BEISER IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“China Is Terraforming the Gobi Desert
“Each year area the size of Ireland is forested to push back against the once expanding desert”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/china-is-terraforming-the-gobi-desert/
As is the case with so many Chinese projects - Belt and Road Initiative, high-speed rail system, a galaxy of new airports - this is on a truly grand scale.
I recall reading references to it some years back, but this piece contains a well-drawn picture.
Of course, there are risks, but the effort does seem worth attempting. It is a gigantic experiment for the entire planet to study, there being many areas threatened by desertification with perhaps more to come if warming does take serious hold.
There are aspects of this I don't like, such as the forced urbanization of some rural populations, but then the Chinese are dealing with problems on a scale most countries cannot even imagine, and urbanization has been one of civilization's major trends through the entire modern era.
The truth is that all the land we now allocate to agriculture, comprising a vast area, is not going to be required.
New methods of high-rise, hi-tech, around-the-clock agriculture, near cities, are going to start taking over. They also cut all the fleets of transport trucks we now use to go regularly from farm to city.
These methods are already in use in some places.
We will see also before long the synthesis of some foods in commercial volumes. It has already been done in labs.
Farms - themselves an artificial human construct torn from forests in great part - may not have a long-term future, at least to the extent we are used to seeing them.
Reduced natural population growth to non-replacement levels already is a fact in every advanced society, and it is going to have an impact on agricultural demand as it takes hold almost everywhere. This phenomenon is irreversible and already begins to threaten some advanced places, like Japan, with serious population decline.
Regardless of farms, desertification would still represent a problem for civilization.
I am very glad to see the effort in China. There are so few places where the vast resources needed could be marshaled and with highly organized planning and administration.
China's ability to undertake such efforts represents one of its society’s great strengths for the future.
