Desertification
Exploding the Myth
Wiley (Publisher)
Published on 18. April 1994
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-0-471-94815-5 (ISBN)
Description
Desertification, the conversion of fertile land on the fringe of the arid zones of the tropics to sterile, useless waste, is one of the great issues of global environmental concern. Blamed on global warming, poor agricultural practice, population pressure or soil erosion, it has generated a large scientific literature, great global concern, massive research funding and a host of policy and environmental books intent on investigation and control. The point of this book is to argue that the process of desertification as an objective scientific measurable reality does not actually exist and that the need to demonstrate that the "threatening ever-expanding desert" and its corollary of irreversible environmental change, arises more from social, political or ecoactivist priorities than scientific ones.
Here, David Thomas, an internationally known authority on dry land geomorphology, and Nick Middleton, science writer and desert researcher, examine the origin of the "desertification myth", how it spawned multi-million dollar research initiatives and became regarded as a leading environmental issue, and with the aid of recent research findings, including the use of evidence from geographic information systems, they demonstrate that this much vaunted problem is very much smaller and less locally significant than previously accepted and that the "global process of desertification" as an environmental problem is simply chimerical. The book explores the political and institutional factors that created the myth, sustained it and now protects it against scientific criticism.
As both an account of how the scientific method works and a critique of certain forms of environmental thinking, this book should be of interest to students and researchers in geography and environmental science, as well as those interested in institutional politics at the international level, and should alert the general reader to the political position-taking and wilful or inadvertent misuse of science that is behind at least one great environmental issue.
Here, David Thomas, an internationally known authority on dry land geomorphology, and Nick Middleton, science writer and desert researcher, examine the origin of the "desertification myth", how it spawned multi-million dollar research initiatives and became regarded as a leading environmental issue, and with the aid of recent research findings, including the use of evidence from geographic information systems, they demonstrate that this much vaunted problem is very much smaller and less locally significant than previously accepted and that the "global process of desertification" as an environmental problem is simply chimerical. The book explores the political and institutional factors that created the myth, sustained it and now protects it against scientific criticism.
As both an account of how the scientific method works and a critique of certain forms of environmental thinking, this book should be of interest to students and researchers in geography and environmental science, as well as those interested in institutional politics at the international level, and should alert the general reader to the political position-taking and wilful or inadvertent misuse of science that is behind at least one great environmental issue.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chichester
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
figures, tables, bibliography, index
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 155 mm
Weight
460 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-471-94815-5 (9780471948155)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
History of desertification; institutional developments; the institutional myth; causes of desertification; why does desertification occur?; unravelling the myth; key environmental issues; the future.