A Brief Note On An International Environment Agreement

Now, humans have a steady food supply so they do not have to move about. Therefore, people use fences to keep their animals in one place, which causes overgrazing. Today we see many subjects being affected by desertification. Ute Schaeffer reports the affects of desertification in, Down to Earth: News & Views on Desertification,“(doc.3) It has presented a challenge for governments and aid agencies in over 110 countries for some time, and is a contributing factor in poverty and regional conflicts, for example in Sudan. It has also been a major issue in Egypt, where 90% of the country’s land mass is desert. Faced with a rising population, the government has had to undertake a number of settlement and irrigation projects to create additional living and working space.” Necessary changes were made in order to adapt to the conditions of the desert and the obstacles that have to be faced. It is always presumed that there are only negative aspects to deserts but this isn’t always the case. There is a side to the Sahara desert that acts as a home to several living organisms. The Sahara has vegetation and access to water, which allows life to exist in this region. The Nile Valley, for example, is an area that is still quite full of foliage, trees and other growing things. This area is an exception, because of the way it is fed by the Nile River. Another area of the Sahara that has some vegetation to it is in the North, along the Mediterranean where olive trees grow

A food desert is a location in which a wide variety of nutrition food is not generally available (Wrigley et al. 261). Food deserts exist in places such as inner cities and isolated rural areas (Morton and Blanchard 1). Food deserts do not exist because of unfairness against the poor, but because of constraints related to supply and demand. Even though based on the statement that food deserts contain a preponderance of unhealthy food; because such food is all people in food deserts have to choose from is an unsupported statement. The main implication of this conclusion is that the answer to the food deserts is not for the government to interfere with the economics of the food business, but, rather, for both public and private forces to facilitate the development of change in how the poor view and consume food.

The concept of a Food Desert is not new, “British politicians introduced the idea of food deserts in the mid-1990s… suggested a link might exist between distance to a grocery store and the diets of poor people” (Gilligan, 2014). It took many years before the idea of a Food Desert was recognized in the United States of America but it is now estimated that, “About 23.5 million people live in food deserts” ("11 Facts About Food Deserts | DoSomething.org | Volunteer for Social Change," n.d.). The inability to obtain healthy food choices leads to, “people in low-income communities [suffering] more from diet-related diseases like obesity and diabetes” (Truehaft & Karpyn, 5, n.d.). The existence of these Food Deserts is a factor that works to keep those in poverty down and makes progress even harder for them to

The desertification of Sahel is causing devastating environmental issue in Africa. Desertification is the process of how fertile land becomes desert. This is usually cause by drought, deforestation, or poor agriculture planning. If it is overgrazed fields, or even the increase of wood needed to burn, human interaction has helped advance the expansion of desertification.

Nearly all-large deserts are found away from the coasts, in areas where the oceans moisture rarely reaches. For many of us, the word “desert” invokes thoughts of a hot and sandy environment. However, not all deserts may be sandy and hot, they do have one thing on common…they are dry. One type of desert we are focusing on, are the subtropical deserts, which sand dunes are a typical feature, along with the low vegetation and scarcity of water (KDE). Subtropical deserts are the hottest deserts, which are dry in the summer and cooler but still dry during the winter (Nature Works, 2015). In fact, most deserts receive less than 300mm of water a year (Paleontology U, 2013), much like the Great Victoria Desert in Australia where annual rainfall ranges from below 150mm to over 250mm (Fund, 2014). Great Victoria desert is the largest desert in Australia ranging to about 163,900 square miles (Hastwell) and during summer temperatures can reach between 32 – 35 degrees Celsius, whereas come winter it falls to about 18 – 23 degrees Celsius.

As the world's largest non-polar desert, the Sahara is actually expanding. It is estimated that, by 2025, two-thirds of Africa's arable land will be covered in sand. The danger of these projections is the destruction of farmland in countries that already suffer from a lack of crops.

NRDC’s work and efforts to work with countries worldwide reflect similarities that Gray have explained in this week’s reading. One of the greatest difficulties to sorting out in the turbulence of underbounded issue of climate change area is the manner by which to work together without the structure gave by government. Worldwide ecological administrations are different, which implies that there is little coordination of activity among partners. Even though climate change and environmental protections is a common issue worldwide; the scope and structure of the issue is immensely different. (Week 5, module). A solution to this could be increase the scope Particularly by mutual perspective taking as it related

The UNs Global Compact was originally an approach by the UN in 2000. The strategy was founded in order to function as a podium for the execution and disclosure of including responsible businesses to the purpose of enhanced global development. The UNGC was planned to carry the international community and the businesses of the world collectively. The corporation between business, governments, civil society, labor and the UN has resulted in hopes to address landmarks for development, such as building markets, protecting the environment, struggle against corruption and guaranteeing social inclusion. The UNGC is established on ten principles that cover the parts of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. Now, there are almost 8,000 corporate contributors from over 140 countries worldwide. The UNGC is now the world’s principal voluntary initiative for corporate sustainability (UNGC, 2014:1). The ten principles of the UNGC

Water is the most valuable and indispensable resource for all forms of life. People need it for every activity: domestic use, agriculture and industry. Access to fresh water is regarded as a universal human right (United Nations Committee in Economics, Social and Cultural Rights, 2003). Drought has become an increasingly important problem in many parts of the world. Water scarcity is most common in arid and semiarid regions of the world, which cover one third of the Earth’s land surface (Smallwood, 2011). UNESCO and the Italian Ministry for the Environment and Territory (IMET) have launched “The Water Programme for Africa,

To make a substantive and significant deal on climate change, there is a need to integrate various parties that focus on the issue. United Nations (UN) is one of the leading parties in the world that make fundamental and major deals on climate change. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the UN’s arm that carries out climate change negotiations. The UNFCCC is committed to a decarbonized the world through its commitment to 40-70% reductions in carbon emissions by 2050 (UNFCCC, 2014). However, this can only be achieved if all countries phase out fossil fuels and rapidly scale up the usage of

Morocco is known for its rugged mountainous interior and large portions of desert. The climate is Mediterranean in the north and in some mountains, which becomes more extreme towards the interior regions. Morocco has approximately 12% of forests but only 5% is irrigated which means that there isn’t much water that the people can drink or use for their crops. Without that imperative water Morocco would lose their exports; winter wheat and barley, with vegetables, fruits, grapes, and olives.

There are a variety of causes held responsible for the water crisis in Africa. These causes have been taken from African’s control and desperately need to be solved. Climate change is one of the countless reasons that there is a high demand for water in Africa. An article entitled “Africa’s Water Crisis Deepens” written for the 2006 News Scientist, states that Drought, famine and spreading deserts have plagued Africa for the past 30 years. With the expansion of desertification, the process in which land becomes increasingly dry with little to no water resources, areas of land have dried out and are useless to humans due to the lack of rainfall on the African continent over the past several years.

Desertification is a dynamic process where viable soil becomes degraded land typically resulting from human activities such as deforestation, inappropriate agriculture, or simply due to due climatic variations like drought. Desertification occurs globally in a variety of regions, yet not all regions are alike, thus different forces that may be responsible for desertification. For example, in a region like Africa there are huge atmospheric cycles that occur near the equator that pushes dry air towards Africa. Other forms of desertification can be driven in this area by the extensive agriculture that sustains Africa's growing population. It may also be the lack of advanced technology that has gave first world countries a competitive edge in assessing soils, increasing agricultural production, and lowering pollution levels. In another region such as China, the result of desertification in places around the country derive from toxic levels of pollution, human alteration of the land, and natural causes. Though China may have advanced technology, they still have problems figuring out ways to mitigate this problem due to their gigantic population size. Even the United States has been through a drastic event that caused a huge economic impact and left thousands of landowners unable to farm and make revenue for many years. Although many of these regions have different factors contributing to desertification, many similar trends can be seen that ultimately point to desertification.

Natural causes leading to dissertation have been ongoing for the last few thousand years. That is to say, since the start of the world. As Brady, Nyle C., and Ray R. Weil. state in their book Elements of the Nature and Properties of Soils “Water deficiency is a major characteristic of these (arid) soils.” Soils without consistent water and the ability to store water require excessive care. Other natural causes are wild animal overpopulation or underpopulation, bare land, forest fires and natural disasters. While these many causes may seem overwhelming to correct there is much hope for arid lands.

The world?s degraded soils (1216 Mha) and agricultural soils (4961 Mha) both have high potential for C sequestration. Historical data shows that there were 40 Pg of SOC lost in these soils. Considering these soils have capability to sequester C, it is important to realized that the there is a way to reverse the SOC depletion process. Based on Table 2.1, the total potential of soil C sequestration is around 0.6 to 1.2 Pg C/ year, in which the world cropland could sequester C at the rate of 0.4 to 0.6 Pg C/ year (Lal, 2000) and the desertification control has the C sequestration potential around 0.2 to 0.6 Pg C/year. Conant et al., (2001) pointed out that the grassland also has relative high potential of C sequestration, which can be included in desertification control. These data implies that with 50 years accumulative sink (30-60