From Madoi county, a settlement near the headwaters of the Yellow River, our two-car convoy headed out to visit a desert Yang Yong had first viewed through binoculars in 1997. From the roadside, the geologist had seen a small, wind-blown patch of sand surrounded by greenery. This time, from the same vantage point, Yang looked out past a stretch of sloping grassland to where a new desert now extended beyond the horizon. That sandy expanse, Yang told me, was where we would sleep that night.
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