From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@together.net>
>Most of the Northern Sahara is a desert because the poor
>agricultural methods of the Carthaginians and the Romans wiped out
>the northern savannah. The highest level of lead pollution in
>history occured during the Roman Empire, not today (some say that
>is why the empire fell, they wound up with a generation of lead
>poisoned imbeciles).
Iraq, once the ultra-fertile cradle of civilization.
Imagine if Sadahm used the cash to re-green that former paradise.
Not that deserts are all bad, the Amazon rain forest is fertilized by the millions of tons of dust that originally comes from the Sahara. The dust plume is actually tracked by satelite.
Brian
Member, Extropy Institute
www.extropy.org