Dust and 4x4 vehicles threaten global ecology

The amount of dust in the air has increased ten times over the recent 50 years

The report from the British professor of geography, Andrew Goudie, became a sensation at the recent International Geographical Congress in Glasgow. According to the Oxford professor, so-called 4x4 SUV vehicles represent a real danger to the global ecology, no matter how paradoxical it might seem.

The professor said that all SUV vehicles raise clouds of dust. Deserts, which enjoy great popularity among extreme tourism fans, may perfectly exemplify the situation. When SUV vehicles drive on the sand, the sandy surface does not recover completely from weight and wheels. One may still find tracks of WWII tanks in Libya, the professor said.

The number of off-road vehicles is growing rapidly in the world today, especially in the south-west of the USA and in the Middle East. The professor referred to the process as “toyota-ization.” Four-wheel drives raise up to three thousand million tons of dust in the atmosphere every year. The amount of dust in the air has increased ten times over the recent 50 years in North Africa alone. As a result, dust storms have become more frequent on the planet, which exacerbates the ecological situation even more. Such phenomena, the professor of geography believes, exert disastrous influence on coral reefs and deserts. First and foremost, the increased global dust emission worsens the ecological situation in the world.

Modern science can not boast of having sufficient knowledge about dust as a component of the Earth's atmosphere. The influence of dust on the climate change of the planet is probably a lot more considerable than people might think.