World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought

Did you know that one hectare of land can produce 1.6 tons of grain [1]? We eat this grain in our cereal, our bread, and our pasta. This is grain that we depend on to survive, and grain that farmers spend hours cultivating for us. That’s pretty cool, right? Surely since we have a ton of land, we can easily use any of it to produce grain?

That is kind of true. We have around 3 billion hectares of arable (fertile and useful) land, which is a LOT [2]. That’s around 6 billion football fields! We could host a lot of championship games that way, not that we should get any ideas to do so though…We need to eat.

However, let this article throw another statistic your way. 12 million hectares of useful, arable land are being lost every year due to a problem called “desertification” [1]. If you’ve not done the math yet, we are losing 0.3% of our useful land every year due to this problem. This costs the world $42 million (USD) every year.

Now, you’re probably wondering: what even is desertification and why is it putting less of that delicious restaurant bread on my table? Desertification is land degradation, and the loss of fertile, useful land in areas becoming drier [3]. Due to this, the world loses fertile soil, and viable land to plant crops and food on. 

Also, another prevalent problem is droughts. Droughts are due to rising heat levels meaning that a place like California, which is especially affected by this, might not get rain or snow for a while, which removes all their water stores. Also, if someone were to live downstream from a river, then droughts might be caused by places upstream not getting enough moisture either. It is almost like a cycle.

But what causes these terrible phenomena? The culprit behind this is a phrase you’ve probably heard a lot: climate change. Climate change is the shifting of the world’s general climate, with specific examples being changing weather patterns, rising sea levels, and melting glaciers [5]. This is generally due to the buildup of our main culprit: greenhouse gases. These are gases like carbon dioxide and methane. These gases are able to trap heat, and form a ‘blanket’ around the Earth [6], causing it to trap all excess heat within our atmosphere (also known as the greenhouse effect). There does seem like a simple solution. How about we produce less of these gases? 

Unfortunately, as with life, it is not that simple. These gases power many of the things we use in our daily lives, and are released into the environment when we burn fossil fuels, which remain a major fuel source.

Right now, many researchers are attempting to come up with solutions to the growing accumulation of these gases. One notable one is renewable energies. These are energies powered by sustainable and eco-friendly sources, like our sun, or the wind [7]. These resources will last much longer and have a much better impact than our current ways of collecting energy.

However, while the scientific progress is great, we are not implementing the changes and the ideas around the world. Science doesn’t sit in isolation of all else, and politics can play a big part in whether these solutions are used for our collective good, or remain only as ideas.  Some people don’t believe this problem exists, and this can be compounded by an unwillingness to sacrifice different privileges for the good of our planet.

So, that brings up the age old question: how can we actually prevent climate change and do our part to make the world better? There are many things you can do as a concerned citizen, and as an eco-conscious human. 

One thing you can do is minimize your energy intake. Maybe you can’t install $40,000 USD solar panels on your roof - that’s okay. An alternative would be to take shorter and colder showers, as energy is required to pump and heat the water. You could make a note of turning the lights off when you leave the room. 

Another thing you can do is educate yourself. This article is only the beginning, there are many informative articles about what you can do as a citizen and ones that dive much deeper into the science behind all of this.

Once you have your newfound knowledge, educate others! Submit your ideas to write articles for Youth STEM Matters, share it on social media, or simply tell your friends and family. Education and understanding its impacts will take us very far.

This World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought - June 17, 2020 - let’s take action to build a better world!

References

[1] “The United Nations Decade for Deserts (2010-2020) and the fight against Desertification,” UNCCD. [Online]. Available: https://www.unccd.int/actions/united-nations-decade-deserts-2010-2020-and-fight-against-desertification. [Accessed: 06-Jun-2020].

[2] Arable land. [Online]. Available: https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/a/Arable_land.htm. [Accessed: 06-Jun-2020].

[3] “World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought,” United Nations. [Online]. Available: https://www.un.org/en/observances/desertification-day. [Accessed: 06-Jun-2020].

[4] “Education,” National Drought Mitigation Center. [Online]. Available: https://drought.unl.edu/Education/DroughtforKids/WhatisDrought.aspx. [Accessed: 06-Jun-2020].

[5] “Climate Change,” United Nations. [Online]. Available: https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/climate-change/. [Accessed: 06-Jun-2020].

[6] “Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet,” NASA. [Online]. Available: https://climate.nasa.gov/. [Accessed: 06-Jun-2020].

[7] “Renewable Energy,” Renewable Energy | Student Energy. [Online]. Available: https://www.studentenergy.org/topics/renewable-energy. [Accessed: 06-Jun-2020].