Greening the desert saves the world, or costs too much?

[Eclipse Now]

I really like this video

"Greening the desert"

, a Youtube 5 minute video about hell on earth being turned into a permaculture garden paradise with 1/5 the water usually required. The positive implications are enormous.

Add concentrated solar thermal power, some desal, and we just developed a way to make many deserts on earth into bread baskets and timber producing regions. Or maybe the Australian Solar Updraft tower will be adopted to collect all that water from the air itself? (I think CSP is more economical with both the sunlight / meter and cost at this stage, but if a test model "Solar Chimney" produces more water than thought, maybe it will prove economically viable after all. Truly awesome engineering though, and a tourism generater as well!



Add a sustainable timber industry to this method and our deserts could help store Co2 in timber and beautiful furniture. (Indeed, pan down that page and look at the "before and after" shots of the hills they replanted! Amazing!)

Add a biochar biofuels plant and waste products would generate some biofuels and store Co2 in the biochar enhanced soil.

ISSUES
However, to my mind it looks like labour intensive farming, so will the food produced be pricier?

Or would it require those nations that adopted this method to have far too high a percentage of their population working the land?

Maybe a different hi-tech automated approach will be taken, with Valcent's greenhouse High Density Vertical Growth technology filling up our deserts, providing both food and algae for 1/20th the water normally taken to grow these crops. (Partly because the indoor environment can be so tightly controlled).


Bioreactor grows algae without the contaminants or water loss of the open pond system. (Maybe it could run off the nutrient stream of the local town growing the desert crops?)

One thing is for sure, there are bold new markets, technologies, and city plans available for a "Hot, flat, and crowded" global warming middle-class overpopulated post-oil world —*if we act soon. If in Australia we built Tim Flannery's "Geothermia" solar & geothermal city out in the desert, these technologies could be used to feed that enormous town. (And provide a job for every poor underground coal miner out in the clean, open air). There is hope, if we act soon. It's getting politicians to put these solutions together wholistically that seems to be the barrier.

[Moontanman]

Is it any better for us to green the desert than it is for us to cut down the rain forests? Both habitats have their own ecology. Should we interfere by wholesale changing the environment to suit us at the expense of the environment? many years ago it was a good idea to drain worthless swamp land to make dry land for people. After much of the wetlands were destroyed it was found that wet lands are very important to the environment. Should we risk the same mistake with deserts?

[freeztar]

I think it's a good idea, but I agree with Michaelangelica. It should not be done to every desert. Certain parts of the Sahara would benefit from a greening, but other parts should be left alone to preserve the life that lives (and is adapted to) there.

MTM, this is quite different from draining wetlands. It's more like creating wetlands. It could provide carbon sinks in areas that presently do not have any (or very few). It could provide food for tribes that are currently struggling for food/fiber/etc. It could provide micro-climate ecosystems that serve just as well as natural desert oasis. If done correctly and with proper foresight, the greening of deserts could be a really good thing for people and the planet.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by freeztar

I think it's a good idea, but I agree with Michaelangelica. It should not be done to every desert. Certain parts of the Sahara would benefit from a greening, but other parts should be left alone to preserve the life that lives (and is adapted to) there.

MTM, this is quite different from draining wetlands. It's more like creating wetlands. It could provide carbon sinks in areas that presently do not have any (or very few). It could provide food for tribes that are currently struggling for food/fiber/etc. It could provide micro-climate ecosystems that serve just as well as natural desert oasis. If done correctly and with proper foresight, the greening of deserts could be a really good thing for people and the planet.

I agree that on the face of it greening the deserts looks like a win win but so did draining swamps many moons ago

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

I agree that on the face of it greening the deserts looks like a win win but so did draining swamps many moons ago

That's comparing apples to oranges. Like I said before, this is more akin to *creating* (or restoring) wetlands.

Why do you think it would have negative results?

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by freeztar

That's comparing apples to oranges. Like I said before, this is more akin to *creating* (or restoring) wetlands.

Why do you think it would have negative results?

I can't really say for sure, i do know that dust from the Sahara is a significant source of fertilizer for the Atlantic ocean and that hurricanes (most of them) are spun off fronts blowing off the hot sands of the Sahara. Stopping these two things might have some unknown consequences.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

I can't really say for sure, i do know that dust from the Sahara is a significant source of fertilizer for the Atlantic ocean

I recall hearing something similar. But, I thought it was S. America that benefited from the sand somehow.

and that hurricanes (most of them) are spun off fronts blowing off the hot sands of the Sahara.

Are you sure about this? I thought that Atlantic hurricanes mainly spawned off the west coast of Africa (Ivory Coast).

Stopping these two things might have some unknown consequences.

Indeed, which is where the foresight part comes in. I don't think anyone is suggesting that we convert the entire Saharan desert. Little patches here and there should not have a significant global effect.

[Eclipse Now]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

I can't really say for sure, i do know that dust from the Sahara is a significant source of fertilizer for the Atlantic ocean and that hurricanes (most of them) are spun off fronts blowing off the hot sands of the Sahara. Stopping these two things might have some unknown consequences.

That is an important point you raise there MTM, and Tim Flannery and many others talk about it in their analyses of global warming. The planet getting drier raises concerns about what will happen with this pattern and the impact it has on our oceans. (I forget what the concern was... that the oceans might become over-fertilized?) But the point was that global warming would shove that system "out of balance".

I don't know that they were saying it would happen for the Sahara, in those fantastically shifting dune fields. I also completely agree that we need certain ecologies left alone. Extinction is forever, and there are creatures adapted to every ecology on the planet. So we don't just need to save individual species, but intact ecosystems for those species to survive.

But my gut tells me that there is MORE than enough desert to go around. We could create "desert parks" the same way we have created rainforest reserves.

And while we are on it, think about those rainforests. Think about the deserts providing all our lumber, the deserts providing valuable biofuels, solar energy, jobs, rural economies, bio-plastics, etc. Wouldn't that take the pressure off the wetlands and forests? I say give the wetlands and forests a break, and "spread the pain" around a bit. We have more than enough deserts. We'd of course have desert ecology bodies that monitored the health of unique species in that region and development would have to be approved on a case by case basis.

I think it would be a great idea, IF the economics of the project add up. If not, then there's no hope for our forests and wetlands.

[Roadam]

If I get it right the system stores water in the sand and humus around the channel and releases it to plants throughout the year. So it does have to rain occasionally. And it doesnt seem labor intensive to me, at least if you are mainly just planting trees.

I heard that they plant wheat in the Maroccan desert (north Africa). Supposed they plough the soil one year, wait a year until the soil catches enough humidity and then plant wheat.

But imagine Las Vegas having green surroundings all around.

[Eclipse Now]

My labour considerations were not even about planting the system out, it was maintaining and harvesting the crops. Straight lines of trees in "normal" plantations allow certain customised tractors to move down the line, wrap a catcher around the tree and "shake" the tree. Depends on the crop though... some fruits are harvested by hand, even here in Australia, so I guess the economics probably comes down to other considerations.