There are natural causes for the on-going desertification of the Sahel, including changes in weather patterns and the temperature of the sea.
Desertification is but one threat to the global environment that has become all too real.
Air pollution, abnormal weather, and the loss of tropical rain forests are others, with many of the causes directly attributable to us, the inhabitants of this small, fragile planet. Once, there was harmony between people and nature. But the current age of mass consumption, where the economy gets priority and convenience is often the only consideration, may be likened to the idle squandering of a family fortune accumulated over millions of years. Worse than that, our unsustainable destruction of resources is running up environmental debts that future generations will be forced to pay. If a rich natural heritage is in fact to belong to our children, if we are to pass on to them their entitled share of the resources of our earth, now is the time to fade the facts and do something about them.