This brought a couple of things to mind besides the fact that it's ok to eat our hamburgers. Gross as it may seem, it could be useful to scrape the sidewalks where so many homeless are fouling the areas and add the results to specific areas for porta-potties to be dumped for even more fertilizer! As we keep adding to our population we should be better at recycling.
This desertification process could be what happened to Mars. There are vague signs that it may have supported life in the distant past. i.e. underground water for one.
Hmmmm.