I was raised in an area that was mined without any environmental controls in the early 1900's.  The area was left cratered and desolate, with the river running bright orange every spring from the mine runoff.  It took a century for the wildlife to come back.  Of course looks can be deceiving, since the area is still toxic to human.  My home town is a cancer node and I've watched about a  lot of people die horrible deaths.

As long as we live in an industrial civilization there will be mining.  

Oaksmoke: Don't know anyone who lives on the old mine sites, but the minerals that drew the miners in the first place tend to end up in the drinking water even in undisturbed areas.

On the bright side, I will not live along enough to fully experience this hell hole we used to call the earth.  

For those reading this who were born without the sarcasm detection gene, that first part was, indeed, sarcasm.

Of course we've done a hell of a lot of damage with mining.  Only a moron would claim otherwise.  But only someone equally (and perhaps willfully) out of touch with reality would suggest that ALL mining has such a horrible environmental impact.

But I suppose that really wasn't your intent, was it?  You just wanted to manufacture a chance to hold your breath and kick your feet and throw a little anti-American tantrum in the middle of a serious discussion.  By all means, continue; I'm the last person to try to stifle someone else.  But I've reached my limit with this kind of mindless BS, so I will fight back as the spirit moves me.  

re-claimed mine land: you don't seem to get the point that even re-claimed the land is not even a fraction of what it once was. i have seen pictures, what was once forest becomes life-less park land with a few trees scattered about in semi grid like pattern or they just make it grass land while zoning it for development.

as for your global warming comment, you have to be absolutely nuts to think a little bit more farm-able land in a desert is worth more then all the other farm-able land which will disappear along with the death of millions of people etc.

[rant warning]
on a side note, after reading some of the purposed solutions  to many of our problems 'global warming, po, etc' i am starting to think that to save the health of the planet we might have to be taken out or reduced in population by about 90%. i shudder when i think of what will happen after we do any of the following.

massive dumping of chemicals to encourage algae growth to suck up c02.

massive seeding of the air with particulate matter to block out sunlight.

building 'artificial trees' to suck up c02 while not giving out all the good things that trees give us.

As explained to me MANY years ago.

Coal is only as clean or dirty as the methods we choose to exploit it.  Currently, the US produces an ungodly amount of CO2 from butning coal, just under 2,100 million metric tons in 2004 alone.  (Source: DOE Annual Energy Review, table 12.3.)

Energy conservation isn't the only place where there's a lot of low-hanging fruit.

while  grappling with severe water shortages ... so bad that one town may end up recycling sewage water ie drinking its own pee.

I would just like to point out that fish also shit... and we drink that after treatment! ;-)

[...] so bad that one town may end up recycling sewage water ie drinking its own pee.

This isn't that big a leap from the status quo where the town/city downriver typically reuses the effluent from its upstream neighbours.

Frankly, recycling sewage water makes a lot more sense to me than the status quo. Then again, I no longer produce blackwater when I'm at home and instead produce a useful product with what would otherwise become society's liability (http://weblife.org/humanure/default.html).

Of course, some of these super-eco-friendly in-house water treatment systems are such energy pigs that it would make more sense to forego reuse altogether. It's not easy being green.

If you are planning on moving to Chad, you should know that

There are three basic types of land tenure in Chad. The first is collective ownership by villages of croplands in their environs. In principle, such lands belong to a village collectively under the management of the village chief or the traditional chef des terres (chief of the lands). Individual farmers hold inalienable and transmittable use rights to village lands, so long as they, their heirs, or recognized representatives cultivate the land. Outsiders can farm village lands only with the authorization of the village chief or chef des terres. Renting village farmlands is possible in some local areas but is not traditional practice. Private ownership is the second type of tenure, applied traditionally to the small plots cultivated in wadis or oases. Wells belong to individuals or groups with rights to the land. Ownership of fruit trees and date palms in the oases is often separate from ownership of the land; those farmers who plant and care for trees own them. State ownership is the third type, primarily for large enterprises such as irrigation projects. Under the management of parastatal or government employees, farmers enter into contractual arrangements, including paying fees, for the use of state lands and the benefits of improved farming methods.

The arable land figure has shown a gradual increase since 1961.

When you say the Sahara is getting greener, in fact you mean the Sahel... which is the region to the north of the tropical zone but south of the actual "desert".
And as cautioned in your first link The Gaurdian

Professor Haarsma cautioned against reading too much into the new results. The computer models were simple and did not include confounding factors like vegetation.

... "This looks like an interesting study. However, the conclusion that Sahellian rainfall will increase under climate change must be considered as highly uncertain. Models differ in their predictions, with about as many showing decreases in rainfall as increases."

The second link New Scientist cites...

a team of geographers from Britain, Sweden and Denmark has spent the summer re-examining archive satellite images taken across the Sahel. Andrew Warren of University College London told New Scientist that the unpublished analysis shows that "vegetation seems to have increased significantly" in the past 15 years

Note: Sahel and unpublished. Bold emphasis mine.

So, indeed we can speculate that that the Sahel is getting greener, ie some more water. But to imply that this "greening"  somehow produces whole swathes of productive land is a stretch. Almost as good as Lomberg citing plantations as forests. As the Guardian article you cite states, there is confusion over the meaning of this. Is it the rain, or is it changing farming practices to preserve the soil (that was blowing away before)?

NOW add to this the hypothesis that the effect of climate change is to push the arid zones north and south, and you find stories like Scorched earth from The Guardian. Where the concern is that Southern Europe is facing more severe and frequent drought conditions... exacerbated by societies "...insatiable appetite for golf, swimming pools and freshly picked salads."

Alarm bells are ringing. In France last week, the environment minister Nelly Olin called the situation "very tense and fragile", as more than half the country's departments put restrictions on water use and the government considered closing some nuclear and hydroelectric plants; the Portuguese government has declared that 97% of of the country is experiencing "severe" drought conditions and yesterday said that it may declare a public disaster; the EU, meanwhile, says that cereal production will fall by more than 20m tonnes this year.

So, to call these changes a benefit is I think unhelpful pot stirring.  Is it really a benefit that less productive soil in the Sahel (the local advantage not withstanding) is put into production while rich soil becomes unproductive? What of those Nuclear Power plants? Have to have that safe supply of cooling water ready - or are we going to rely on oceanic desalination for that?

Now extend this scenario to the rest of the world?  If the arid zone moves north in the US what then for your rich farmland? What of the Australian wheat zone if it moves south? What of the changes in water supply in all of these regions?  If the snow falls further north in North America, will the US have sufficient irrigation flows? Or will it drain to the north thru Canada?  In the more arid regions of the US what does this mean for the US Ogallala Aquifer?

From an Australian perspective, the prospect of increased extremes and variability of rainfall (see chapter 4)is not something I would consider a benefit... the increaed rainfall is just as likely to erode the thin soils we have as to provide some kind of miraculous "desert blooming" scenario. The ramifications of the radical landscape modification and the resultant salinity and water problems in some areas is a lesson still being learnt in this country.