Ibid.

389 surrounding China's Gobi Desert

Damien Currington, "Desertification Is the Greatest Threat to the Planet, Experts Warn," Guardian, December 15, 2010.

390 goats compared to less than 10 million in the United States

Ibid.

391 China is now losing almost 1,400 square miles of arable land

Ibid.

392 Inner Mongolia and Gansu Province are merging and expanding

Ibid.

393 Taklamakan and k.u.mtag deserts are also merging and expanding

Ibid.

394 abandoned in northern and western regions of China

Ibid.

395 have already abandoned many villages to the encroaching desert

Ibid.

396 "a savannah-like region bordering the basin on its south side"

Ibid.

397 Amazon rainforest, adding even more risk to the integrity

David Lapola et al., "Indirect Land-Use Changes Can Overcome Carbon Savings from Biofuels in Brazil," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, January 2010.

398 suffered from two "hundred-year" droughts in the last seven years

Simon Lewis et al., "The 2010 Amazon Drought," Science, February 2011.

399 greatest tropical rainforest on Earth into a ma.s.sive dryland region

Brown, Plan B 4.0.

400 90 percent of the people affected live in developing countries

Currington, "Desertification Is the Greatest Threat to the Planet, Experts Warn."

401 "The top 20 centimeters of soil"

Ibid.

402 to accommodate additional shelter for Egypt's fast-growing population

Metwali Salem, "UN Report: Egypt Sustains Severe Land Loss to Desertification and Development," Egypt Independent, June 17, 2011.

403 resulting in the loss of cropland to salinization

"Seawater Intrusion Is the First Cause of Contamination of Coastal Aquifers," ScienceDaily, July 31, 2007, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070727091903.htm.

404 Ganges Delta, the Mekong Delta, and in other so-called mega-deltas

K. Wium Olesen et al., "Mega Deltas and the Climate Change Challenges," Eleventh International Symposium on River Sedimentation, September 69, 2010, http://www.irtces.org/zt/11isrs/paper/Kim_Wium_Olesen.pdf.