A lot of interesting takes in the comments where growing more plants will somehow cause ecological disaster. The only exception I can see is diverting water to support it. Otherwise, I have never heard such a thing.
How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
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Re: How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
#42A lot of interesting takes in the comments where growing more plants will somehow cause ecological disaster. The only exception I can see is diverting water to support it. Otherwise, I have never heard such a thing.
Well, I’m sure they’re great programmers though.
Re: How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
#43My question is are there downstream effects? The planting techniques are fascinating but the water that they are capturing surely was going some where, right? However little the stream may be, how do they do this without messing up people who are downstream?
They discuss this in the video, and if you watched it you’ll notice that they’re doing these projects along a major river near the ocean. They only capture 15% or so of what is today run off into the river. Rivers ultimately flow into the ocean. There is no one really downstream depending on that small percent of runoff.
Re: How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
#44It seems crazy to me that after we've had so many unintended consequences preventing earth's natural processes using technology, the same crowd is now celebrating using technology to prevent yet another of earth's natural processes. Regardless of your position on the Sahara desert, it's been growing since Roman times. Personally, I'm in favor of the use of technology to affect the planet, but it seems to me that the…
Do hand-dug berms planted with native and non-invasive plants count as technology? And is increasing desertification one of earth's natural processes or is it an effect of technology, specifically technology we've used to pull massive amounts of carbon out of the ground and add it to the atmosphere? Not trying to be hostile, just questioning some of your assumptions.
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Re: How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
#45It seems crazy to me that after we've had so many unintended consequences preventing earth's natural processes using technology, the same crowd is now celebrating using technology to prevent yet another of earth's natural processes. Regardless of your position on the Sahara desert, it's been growing since Roman times. Personally, I'm in favor of the use of technology to affect the planet, but it seems to me that the…
> using technology to prevent yet another of earth's natural processes
I mean it's literally just planting trees, grasses, and shrubs. This isn't dumping a cargo ship of iron filings into the sea or putting a solar sail in front of the sun, it's putting seeds in the ground. If you want to call that "technology" I suppose it's technically true, but it's almost laughable.
Re: How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the big difference here is that the Qattara Sea would be a major engineering project involving specialized skills and machinery. The Great Green Wall is more open in that anyone can contribute to its construction. All you need is a shovel and some seeds.
Citation required and requested. I can plant a hundred trees, keep them up for a year, and find a hundred tree stumps in two. I genuinely would like to know where on the spectrum this is: - This is a fools' errand - This requires constant upkeep and detailed construction - This requires mild upkeep - This is self-sustaining, can be done with a shovel + seeds, and once started, is self-sustaining, with the forest turn…
The citation is the video linked to that you’re commenting on. This isn’t tree planting greenwashing. This is engineered and planned, but it involves local people tending the land and turning it into continuously productive soil for profit. Greenwashing tree planting fails because it’s untended unplanned work. In this video they go through all the steps they take, including analyzing contours and building the water retention berms along them, the phasing of the work from basic planting to trees with crops interspersed etc. It’s really worth watching it.
Re: How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
#47My question is are there downstream effects? The planting techniques are fascinating but the water that they are capturing surely was going some where, right? However little the stream may be, how do they do this without messing up people who are downstream?
They discuss this in the video, and if you watched it you’ll notice that they’re doing these projects along a major river near the ocean. They only capture 15% or so of what is today run off into the river. Rivers ultimately flow into the ocean. There is no one really downstream depending on that small percent of runoff.
I did watch the video but must have missed the 15% number. Thanks.
Re: How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
#48It seems crazy to me that after we've had so many unintended consequences preventing earth's natural processes using technology, the same crowd is now celebrating using technology to prevent yet another of earth's natural processes. Regardless of your position on the Sahara desert, it's been growing since Roman times. Personally, I'm in favor of the use of technology to affect the planet, but it seems to me that the…
Humans and technology have been around a lot longer than Rome. Do you think desertification is a completely natural process that has nothing to do with the humans who live in the area and what they do with the land?
Yes. There were deserts before humans.
Re: How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
hard to imagine a downstream effect that's worse than becoming part of the sahara
I think the concern is downstream effects negative to areas and people far away. Like how the Sahara feeds the Amazon rainforest. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/nasa-sat... i.e. greening your land might lead to browning mine.
ah right, but they're not looking to reduce the sahara, but stop it... so in theory they're avoiding any new downstream effects? though I guess it's possible that some necessary process results in the sahara's growth? that's not my understanding though, part of the reason it grows is due to surrounding areas becoming more susceptible to desertification through agriculture
Re: How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
They discuss this in the video, and if you watched it you’ll notice that they’re doing these projects along a major river near the ocean. They only capture 15% or so of what is today run off into the river. Rivers ultimately flow into the ocean. There is no one really downstream depending on that small percent of runoff.
I did watch the video but must have missed the 15% number. Thanks.
Np I’d also notice the placement along the river and the river proximity to the ocean. They specifically call out not over harvesting the water. I’m pretty impressed as an engineer how well thought out the program is.