Seems today is a day for the unexpected.
Thanks to Responsible China, I found my way to this article about China’s shrinking deserts. Yep, you read that right. And I did say today is a day for the unexpected. Here’s a wee snippet:
Desert coverage has been falling by about 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) each year for the past five to six years, Zhu Lieke, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration, said at a news conference.
“This has been a trend that has been ongoing,” he said. “This is a good thing that we have witnessed.”
Zhu said his data was backed up by satellite imagery and scientists in the field.
I was under the impression that despite China’s best efforts, the deserts were still spreading, that China was only managing to slow the rate of desertification, not turn the deserts back. But it seems I was wrong and China is managing to reclaim land from the deserts. Excellent news.
And the title of Responsible China’s latest post pretty much sums up what I feel about the weather this summer: Schizo Enviro. Yep. While the rest of the country, even Gansu and Xinjiang, seems to be flooded out, Beijing is shrouded in thick, murky, humid haze. It has rained about as often as the sky has been blue this summer, it seems.
Yet oddly enough here in Chengdu, where the sky is usually grey, we haven’t had as much rain as I might’ve expected in such a climate. There was a rather ominous bank of grey cloud the other night, which passed over the centre of the city and merely dribbled slightly.
On the other hand, we’ve had a couple of very clear evenings and more, albeit hazy, sunshine than I’d been led to believe was usual for central Sichuan.
Ah, so you’re being treated to the same fucking awful weather we’re getting here. The way I see it, if it’s going to be humid, it should bloody well rain. But no, it won’t.