A Chinese Grapes of Wrath

The once green pastures of eastern Inner Mongolia [in China] lately resemble a scene from the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Sand storms emanating from these desertified grasslands have become an increasingly common irritant in Northern Chinese cities, and their effects have recently been felt as far away as Colorado.

—American Embassy in China

Say the word desert, and the first word that is likely to pop into your head might be Sahara or Mojave—certainly not China. In truth, China is one of the most desert-plagued nations on Earth. Fully one-fourth of its land mass, primarily in the northwestern part of the country, is desiccated dust. Within another 20 years, some experts predict that almost 40 percent of China will have been ground into sand.

Turning China into desert is hardly new. The Chinese philosopher Mencius noted the problem as far back as 300 B.C., and even pinpointed the human causes of the problem, principally overcultivation and overgrazing.

What is both new and alarming is the accelerating speed with which this process is now taking place. According to the Chinese Academy of Forestry, between the 1950s and 1970s, China lost only about 600 square miles to desert. Today, as the desert has approached within 150 miles of Beijing, roughly 2,000 square miles of Chinese real estate are now being lost to desertification every year. That number continues to rise despite massive efforts by the central government to contain it.

As the speed of China’s desertification has been accelerating, so, too, has the frequency and severity of associated sand and dust storms. Prior to the 1990s, these storms were relatively rare. Now, however, China is likely to experience more than 20 episodes a year, with at least half of China being affected. These storms have become so severe that they are literally devouring portions of the Great Wall in northwest China. Consider this ever-more typical scenario:

It is spring, and the latest windstorm whips across the steppes of Inner Mongolia. These gale-force winds send vortices of sand and dust clouds high up into the air for a ride upon the jet stream. As this giant yellow swirl moves eastward toward Beijing, it passes over China’s industrial heartland and sucks up all manner of other highly toxic pollutants—from carcinogenic dioxins and fine particulates spewed from coal plants to heavy metals such as cadmium, copper, lead, and mercury.

After dumping tons upon tons of this toxic yellow stew along a string of Chinese cities and towns, the swirl first makes a “stopover” in Japan and Korea. There, according to South Korea’s Rural Development Agency, “a single storm can dump more than 8,000 tons of sand.” The worst storms close airports, roads, shops, and schools. More broadly, according to the United Nations Environmental Program, the cost of these dust storms to the region’s economy is regularly topping $6 billion a year.

China’s tons of yellow dust are not merely sandblasting China’s neighbors and weighing down the regional economy. These swirling toxic clouds continue at speeds of upward of 1,500 miles per day, to complete their 7,000-mile journey to North American skies to greet us as we walk out of our Wal-Marts and Targets with baskets full of cheap Chinese goods. As Professor Tom Cahill of the University of California-Davis has duly noted: “We’re a small world. We’re all breathing each other’s effluent.”