Countries build 9 mile wide tree wall across Africa to prevent Sahara advancing (2014)
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Re: Countries build 9 mile wide tree wall across Africa to prevent Sahara advancing (2014)
#2Now that’s a wall I can get behind.
Re: Countries build 9 mile wide tree wall across Africa to prevent Sahara advancing (2014)
#3The world is turning into a desert. Run for the hills!
"Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert," begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it's happening to about two-thirds of the world's grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
Back on planet Earth, a review of the current scientific literature would appear to disprove this thesis. IF the Sahara desert is expanding, it is a local issue. Elsewhere, the deserts are retreating and on average the trend is to global greening.
E.g.
Greening of the globe and its drivers - Nature 2016 https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004 "Satellite records from 1982–2009 show a persistent and widespread increase of leaf area (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing leaf area (browning). Ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilisation effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (4%)."
Elevated CO2 as a driver of global dryland greening - Nature 2016 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep20716 "Recent regional scale analyses using satellite based vegetation indices such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), have found extensive areas of “greening” in dryland areas of the Mediterranean, the Sahel, the Middle East and Northern China, as well as greening trends in Mongolia and South America. More recently, a global synthesis from 1982-2007 showed an overall “greening-up” trend over the Sahel belt, Mediterranean basin, China-Mongolia region and the drylands of South America."
Global Greening Is Firm, Drivers Are Mixed - Harvard 2014 http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFM.B31A0515K "Evidence for global greening is converging, asserting an increase in CO2 uptake and biomass of the terrestrial biosphere. Global greening refers to global net increases in the area of green canopy, stocks of carbon, and the duration of the growing season. The growing seasons in general have prolonged while the stock of biomass carbon has increased and the rate of deforestation has decelerated. Evidence for these trends comes from firm empirical data obtained through atmospheric CO2 observations, remote sensing, forest inventories and land use statistics."
Rise in CO2 has 'greened Planet Earth' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36130346 Prof Judith Curry, the former chair of Earth and atmospheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, added: "It is inappropriate to dismiss the arguments of the so-called contrarians, since their disagreement with the consensus reflects conflicts of values and a preference for the empirical (i.e. what has been observed) versus the hypothetical (i.e. what is projected from climate models).
I hope all you empiricists will join me in celebrating this good news. Cheers!
Re: Countries build 9 mile wide tree wall across Africa to prevent Sahara advancing (2014)
#4Now that’s a wall I can get behind.
Unfortunately the Great Wall doesn't seem to be doing so well.
This article is from 2024. I looked for updates and found the Wikipedia page.
It contains some contradictory statistics but this is the most recent: "In September 2020 it was reported that the Great Green Wall had only covered 4% of the planned area".
Re: Countries build 9 mile wide tree wall across Africa to prevent Sahara advancing (2014)
#5Now that’s a wall I can get behind.
Unfortunately the Great Wall doesn't seem to be doing so well. This article is from 2024. I looked for updates and found the Wikipedia page. It contains some contradictory statistics but this is the most recent: "In September 2020 it was reported that the Great Green Wall had only covered 4% of the planned area". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall
That's common in the region. You announce major new projects, start them, and don't finish them. New leadership comes in, ignores the old projects, and starts a new set. You don't fix or finish old things started by your predecessor. You start building new ones.
Re: Countries build 9 mile wide tree wall across Africa to prevent Sahara advancing (2014)
#6The world is turning into a desert. Run for the hills! "Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert," begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it's happening to about two-thirds of the world's grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI Back on planet Earth,…
Thanks for presenting this "contrarian" view about desertification. I was surprised to learn about global greening due to rising CO2.
Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds - https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer...
While it sounds like good news for the ecology, I think the overall destructive effects of human activity on the global environment far outweighs any accidentally beneficial effect of rising CO2. Celebrating it as "global greening" seems to be just as much of an oversimplification as the fear-mongering of desertification.
Re: Countries build 9 mile wide tree wall across Africa to prevent Sahara advancing (2014)
#7[deleted]
Re: Countries build 9 mile wide tree wall across Africa to prevent Sahara advancing (2014)
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately the Great Wall doesn't seem to be doing so well. This article is from 2024. I looked for updates and found the Wikipedia page. It contains some contradictory statistics but this is the most recent: "In September 2020 it was reported that the Great Green Wall had only covered 4% of the planned area". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall
That's common in the region. You announce major new projects, start them, and don't finish them. New leadership comes in, ignores the old projects, and starts a new set. You don't fix or finish old things started by your predecessor. You start building new ones.
> in the region
Nah, that happens everywhere (at least where governments change every few years).
Re: Countries build 9 mile wide tree wall across Africa to prevent Sahara advancing (2014)
#9So what does protect this wall from human nature on a economic downturn? Everyone can build a wildlife preserve from thrust-fund money, that will be a paradise/oasis, until the money runs out. What makes this project sustainable? As in, when the money runs out, the dessert will return because its human nature to turn all but the sturdiest surroundings into a war-torn desert. Where does this redirect/change human nature?
Re: Countries build 9 mile wide tree wall across Africa to prevent Sahara advancing (2014)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's common in the region. You announce major new projects, start them, and don't finish them. New leadership comes in, ignores the old projects, and starts a new set. You don't fix or finish old things started by your predecessor. You start building new ones.
> in the region Nah, that happens everywhere (at least where governments change every few years).
There's a difference of scale. EU, US, China, Korea, Japan, etc. have some of this, but also successfully have long-running projects. Things build up over time. You have major institutions and infrastructure maintained over multiple administrations.
This problem is common everywhere, but it's extreme in most ECOWAS countries.