First of all, this story should never have been called ClimateGate. Given the similarities between this smear job and the Swift Boat attacks on Senator John Kerry, SwiftHack is a far more appropriate name.

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As the world has talked for a dozen years about what to do next, new ship passages opened through the once frozen summer sea ice of the Arctic. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice sheets have lost trillions of tons of ice.

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he ancient Nazca civilisation of Peru, made famous by the giant geoglyphs it left etched in the soil, partly triggered its own downfall by chopping down forests and creating a desert, according to researchers.

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Richard Betts of the Met Office Hadley Centre described himself as "shocked" that so much warming could occur within the lifetimes of people alive today. "If greenhouse gas emissions are not cut soon then we could see major climate changes within our own lifetimes," he said.

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The Central Intelligence Agency is launching The Center on Climate Change and National Security as the focal point for its work on the subject. The Center is a small unit led by senior specialists from the Directorate of Intelligence and the Directorate of Science and Technology.

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The tropics are expanding pushing the earth's jet streams and its bands of deserts further from the equator, and closer to the poles. The bands of deserts are moving North in the Northern Hemisphere and South in the Southern Hemisphere as global warming intensifies.

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The Chinese gateway to the ancient Silk Road is being flooded – and the culprit, researchers say, is climate change.

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Scientists propose using a microbe to turn sand into sandstone at the edge of the Sahara desert, creating a barrier against further desertification.

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Hot deserts that presently cover about one-fifth of the land area of our planet are rapidly devouring more and more arable lands mostly due to anthropogenic causes.

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The consequences of 5.5°C warming by 2100, which Hadley says is "likely" on our current emissions path are all but unimaginable — mass extinction, devastating ocean acidification, brutal summer-long heat waves, rapidly rising sea levels, widespread desertification.

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NDJAMENA (AFP) – Authorities in Chad are cracking down on the use of charcoal to save forests and keep the desert from advancing in the Saharan nation, but discontent is mounting over the tough measures.

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WASHINGTON — Ron Ace says that his breakthrough moments have come at unexpected times — while he lay in bed, eased his aging Cadillac across the Chesapeake Bay bridge or steered a tractor around his rustic, five-acre property.

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Dr.

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The Spanish Government says it will plant 45 million trees over the next four years to counter desertification caused by global warming.

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By Charles C. Mann Photograph by Jim Richardson On a warm September day, farmers from all over the state gather around the enormous machines.

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The 25-member African organisation CEN-SAD (Community of Sahel-Saharan States) has initiated a project to build a Great Green Wall across the continent from Mauritania in West Africa to Djibouti in the East.

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The Division for Sustainable Development provides leadership and is an authoritative source of expertise within the United Nations system on sustainable development.

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Developing nations from Sudan to Uruguay are finding new ways to "climate proof" their economies from threats ranging from desertification to storms, a U.N.-backed study said on Tuesday. Schemes to mute the impact of climate change such as wider use of drought-resistant crops,  …

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Earth's tropical belt seems to have expanded a couple of hundred miles over the past quarter century, which could mean more arid weather for some already dry subtropical regions, new climate research shows. Geographically, the tropical region is a wide swath around Earth's middl …

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Finding Steve Fossett more important than Tackling Desertification

The following is an example of our twisted inability to dispel our insidious ineptitude and to grasp the enormity of the challenges that lie ahead.

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A UN conference on desertification underway in Madrid has thrown the spotlight on the scope of the problem in Spain, which environmentalists say is suffering from an "Africanization" of its climate.

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Decades of flawed agricultural policies have led to rapid desertification. Behind the walled farmhouses, where fields of cotton and fennel bask in bright sunshine, the desert begins.

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Afghanistan will face a serious environmental crisis, which will have grave consequences for millions of its estimated 27 million population, if the government and international aid organisations continue ignoring the country's degrading environment, experts warn.

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In the next 10 years, 50 million people could lose their homes to encroaching deserts, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and central Asia. 6 minutes audio, colored world map, link to full text PDF. What else do you want?

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Darfur: Drought or Islamism?

It's not that I want to write up an excuse for religious extremism. It's not even that I claim expertise in the whole Darfur situation in particular. It's just that for quite some time I have noticed the natural resources vs. civil war link.

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