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Reservoir_Dog
Guest
Many of us don’t want the desert ecosystem destroyed.
Turn deserts green, feed hungry people and combat climate change!
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kimmielittle
Guest
You do know the CRU is funded by oil/ big energy don’t you?
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020304/climategate-peak-oil-the-cru-and-the-oman-connection/
nctimes.com/app/blogs/wp/?p=5776
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Holly3278
Guest
No, I do not like this idea. The deserts are a vital part of the worldwide ecosystem!
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
The thing with deserts is that they expand and contract naturally and normally based on long-term climate transitions.
For example, the Sahara Desert was once a savanna with trees, lakes, and vast gren pasture areas, all filled with wild-life. We see this in the fossil records and the cave paintings, etc.
In addition, the continental drift, over time has changed major bodies of water … in Europe and else where. And some day part of the Great Rift Valley will fill with sea water.
There have been proposals to pipe sea water to the Dead Sea and to the Qtarra Depression to provide hydro power and water for mineral development and to encourage rainfall.
There are plans to convey water from the Pacific North West of the U.S. to the Sacramento and other areas of California … ad there are existing sites for additional reservoir capacity in the area. All that is required is to focus a bit. If the Pacific Northwest has surplus water, which it does, then that water could be tapped for use in irrigation.
Look up the Sites Ranch Reservoir:
norcalwater.org/pr/?id=24
In addition, there are floods in many places, which means there is plenty of water; all that is needed is to store it for droughty periods.
Humans are alreading turning deserts green with irrigation and there are many forms of irrigation that are feasible and already in use in some places. All that is needed is for knowldged of those systems to become more widely disseminated and put into use.
For example, the Sahara Desert was once a savanna with trees, lakes, and vast gren pasture areas, all filled with wild-life. We see this in the fossil records and the cave paintings, etc.
In addition, the continental drift, over time has changed major bodies of water … in Europe and else where. And some day part of the Great Rift Valley will fill with sea water.
There have been proposals to pipe sea water to the Dead Sea and to the Qtarra Depression to provide hydro power and water for mineral development and to encourage rainfall.
There are plans to convey water from the Pacific North West of the U.S. to the Sacramento and other areas of California … ad there are existing sites for additional reservoir capacity in the area. All that is required is to focus a bit. If the Pacific Northwest has surplus water, which it does, then that water could be tapped for use in irrigation.
Look up the Sites Ranch Reservoir:
norcalwater.org/pr/?id=24
In addition, there are floods in many places, which means there is plenty of water; all that is needed is to store it for droughty periods.
Humans are alreading turning deserts green with irrigation and there are many forms of irrigation that are feasible and already in use in some places. All that is needed is for knowldged of those systems to become more widely disseminated and put into use.
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DennisTate
Guest
Hi Holly: This is a valid concern but as a Christian who feels called to be involved in politics I have to make judgments that will minimize the loss of life over the long term. I believe that just about the only theoretically possible way for humanity to prevent ocean levels from rising drastically in the event that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to collapse would be to invest heavily in projects that would result in water being taken out of the oceans, desalinated, and somehow added to the water table of areas that are in need of more water.
suite101.com/content/pine-island-glacier-and-the-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-a272924
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Reservoir_Dog
Guest
Don’t you think you should ask permission from those living in the desert southwest?
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portarica
Guest
Like the gas companies did before starting their fracing techniques that contaminate the water table?
digitaljournal.com/article/297727
Peace
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Reservoir_Dog
Guest
Is this how you justify destroying our ecosystem? One wrong deserves another? Is this a Catholic notion of morality?
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portarica
Guest
I was just elaborating on your comment, perhaps private corporations should undergo the same scrutiny as you suggest for projects for the common good.
Peace
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Reservoir_Dog
Guest
These days, development is allowed or barred after environment impact assessments are done.
I reject your demand that we sacrifice the desert ecosystem. Sacrifice your own neighborhood to feed the hungry.
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portarica
Guest
Actually that is not the case Cheney got oil and gas exploration exempted from the clean water, clean air and superfund acts.
Peace
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Reservoir_Dog
Guest
What does Cheney have to do with destroying the desert?
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portarica
Guest
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Ridgerunner
Guest
I’m reminded of Prince Faisal’s comment to Lawrence in “Lawrence of Arabia”. It went something like this. “Are you one of those desert-loving Englishmen, then? Arabs do not love the desert. There is nothing in the desert.”
How much desert does anyone think we really need?
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KarenElissa
Guest
Despite what many people think, deserts are not simply empty areas with nothing but sand. They are actually very unique and diverse ecosystems. They have their own animals, plants, seasons and people have succeeded in living in them, it just requires adaptation. And I say all of this as someone who lives in a desert.
I’d also point out that introducing plants and animals into places where they don’t belong never seems to work out as well as planned.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Agreed, and I don’t particularly support the notion of piping water from Tennessee to Arizona or whatever.Despite what many people think, deserts are not simply empty areas with nothing but sand. They are actually very unique and diverse ecosystems. They have their own animals, plants, seasons and people have succeeded in living in them, it just requires adaptation. And I say all of this as someone who lives in a desert.
I’d also point out that introducing plants and animals into places where they don’t belong never seems to work out as well as planned.
But, just as a theoretical thing, how much actual desert do we really need? Every bit that’s desert now, and if so, why?
I agree that introducing plants and animals into places where they weren’t native changes the nature of the place. But that would be essentially every habitable place on earth and much that is not regarded as particularly habitable now. Outside the Arctic and the Antarctic, there is virtually no place on earth that is truly “original” in its flora and fauna, in the sense of being unchanged by man, and there hasn’t been for thousands of years.
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KarenElissa
Guest
I think this is the problem, it isn’t really about need. Are we really able to predict the consequences, local and global, if we start trying to to change significant areas of an ecosystem? Some how I doubt it. So is it a good idea to go messing around with things when we have no idea what will happen?
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Ridgerunner
Guest
I understand the concern. And, when one considers grandiose and probably impossible projects like watering the Sahara, one might wonder how it would all play out notwithstanding that it was once green and one would think people could figure out how things were then.
But it’s really a moot point in a way, because, as I mentioned before, the ecosystems of the entire globe have been altered very significantly and for probably thousands of years. There really isn’t any such thing as an “unaltered ecosystem” anywhere humans live. In most places, the changes are so dramatic and so longstanding that nobody even knows what they looked like before man altered them thousands of years ago.
Possibly not even much of the desert is “natural”. This is anecdotal, of course, but I remember reading, long ago, about the Indians of the southern plains and how they followed the buffalo herds south into what is now a horrid stretch of nothing but mesquite and cactus around and south of San Antonio. I wondered why in the world humans, let alone buffalo, would ever go into that nasty, impossible country. Well, then one time as I was driving through that “desert” from San Antonio to Corpus Christi, I came across a very large “field” of waving green grass. It was a stretch perhaps three to five miles long, with “desert” all around. Clearly, someone had gone to the expense of restoring grassland there, and there was no indication of irrigation at all.
One reads very old accounts of ranching activity in what presently amount to deserts, and it becomes fairly clear that a lot of our “deserts” weren’t really deserts until they were horribly overgrazed.
Therefore, since it does seem that at least some “deserts” can be “restored” to a less “desertified” state, the question is still relevant. If some deserts can be converted to a more useful state, how much actual desert do we really need in order to satisfy our desire to have some “undisturbed” deserts?
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Reservoir_Dog
Guest
We need deserts more than we need crowded cities.
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DennisTate
Guest
No, I am thinking that this is like one of those cases where the government simply grabs land in a specific area when that land is needed to join a road or power line connection or some other truly necessary public service. I do not think that the opinion of the people living in deserts should stop something this important…on the other hand in a case where a project could go forward in a number of nations, then in that case a positive opinion by the public would be an important factor to consider in choosing which nation to construct the project in!?
In the case of the South Western USA, I think that the government should grab the land that is to be turned green if necessary!?
On the other hand I admit that I could be wrong!?
Maybe if people in the south western USA are profoundly against this project we should start in Algeria where wage levels are lower anyway …and they are closer to the European market…and…(Heh, heh, heh)!
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