Global Warming Forcing Millions to Flee Homes?

A reader sent us this link and we wanted to pass it on:

50 million on the run from deserts, warming?
Desertification represents one of the "greatest environmental challenges of our times" and could set off mass migrations of people fleeing degraded homelands, a United Nations report warned Thursday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19479607/from/ET/

This is a quote from the article:

The report said about 2 billion people, a third of the Earth's population, are potential victims of desertification, which is defined as land degraded by human activities like farming and grazing.

If the problem is left unchecked, some 50 million people could be forced from their homes over the next decade, the report said.

The report, the work of more than 200 experts from 25 countries, said policies on preventing desertification are often inconsistent, frequently not implemented at local levels or inadvertently fuel conflict over land, water and other resources.

This article reminds us of a conversation we had a with a friend last week who said that he didn't see what all the problem was with global warming because if the predictions are true, he will be able to play golf more of the year. When it was pointed out to him that Florida might be underwater, he said that since he didn't like Florida, that really didn't strike him as a big problem. We were shocked at his answer and so didn't ask him if he felt that way about Iowa, Nebraska, and other states that are our and the world's granary.

Thanks for Ed U. for sending us this article.