Deserts
Sand stretches to the horizon, dunes rise more than 1,500 feet, and farmers flee their parched plots for work in the city. Welcome to northern China, where desertification—land degradation caused primarily by human activities—is wiping out close to a million acres of grassland a year (an area nearly as large as Rhode Island). Striving to feed twenty percent of the world's population, the Chinese have overgrazed, overfarmed, and created new deserts in the process.
—National Geographic, "Unjust Deserts, by Jarrett Wrisley, May 2008. Submitted by vi.
The Kuwait desert is as flat as a patio and as big as Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.
—Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism by P.J. O'Rourke, 2004.
The world is turning to dust, with lands the size of Rhode Island becoming desert wasteland every year and the problem threatening to send millions of people fleeing to greener countries, the United Nations says.
—Associated Press, "Environment: Desert threatens to eat up world," by Chris Hawley, June 16, 2004.