Turn deserts green, feed hungry people and combat climate change!

[Reservoir_Dog]

…
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!?..

The southwest is a desert for reasons that not even the government can overcome, for one, you might want to look up the concept of “rain shadow”.

 

[DennisTate]

The southwest is a desert for reasons that not even the government can overcome, for one, you might want to look up the concept of “rain shadow”.

I’m glad you suggested looking it up because I didn’t know what it was.
I have actually experienced it though in Ecuador. As we drove around Ecuador we saw some desert areas that were on the other side of mountains.

A rain shadow is a dry area on the mountainside facing away from the direction from which the wind comes. The mountains block the passage of rain-producing weather systems, casting a “shadow” of dryness behind them.

This is a valid point Resevoir Dog, pumping vast quantities of desalinated water into the south west will not of and by itself cause it to rain moreso there, but at least it will raise the water table, which at least would mean that the higher water table meant water NOT being on top of New Orleans, or Holland or the Maldive Islands or Antigonish, or Florida or…

If the water table rose in the South Western USA then certain types of plants, perhaps bamboo could be planted and the entire area could be green, and more productive, and the plants would be both a WATER AND CARBON SINK…which lots of environmentally Americans would love.

You would think that the people there would be happy about that!?

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

I’m glad you suggested looking it up because I didn’t know what it was.
I have actually experienced it though in Ecuador. As we drove around Ecuador we saw some desert areas that were on the other side of mountains.

This is a valid point Resevoir Dog, pumping vast quantities of desalinated water into the south west will not of and by itself cause it to rain moreso there, but at least it will raise the water table, which at least would mean that the higher water table meant water NOT being on top of New Orleans, or Holland or the Maldive Islands or Antigonish, or Florida or…

If the water table rose in the South Western USA then certain types of plants, perhaps bamboo could be planted and the entire area could be green, and more productive, and the plants would be both a WATER AND CARBON SINK…which lots of environmentally Americans would love.

You would think that the people there would be happy about that!?

You’d need a lot more water than you can easily imagine. This area… the basin and range province, had been a land of pluvial lakes during the last ice age, when the climate had wetter summers. As a matter of fact, the dry lake beds in southeastern California and central and southern Nevada have gone through dozens of lake - marsh - playa cycles over the last 10,000 years as climate oscillated, as it tended towards drying out. Look up Lake Bonneville and Lake Manley.

For a good fictional account of how to turn a desert into green lands, you might want to pick up Frank Herber’s Dune.

 

[KarenElissa]

If the water table rose in the South Western USA then certain types of plants, perhaps bamboo could be planted and the entire area could be green, and more productive, and the plants would be both a WATER AND CARBON SINK…which lots of environmentally Americans would love.

You would think that the people there would be happy about that!?

I will again point out that not all deserts are an empty wasteland of sand. They already contain many things. Are they heavily wooded forests or flowing grasslands, no, but at certain times of year they can actually look quite green. And all of this without added water, the plants are adapted for our seasons (rainy vs. dry) and are able to deal with things like the heat and sun.
http://resizr.lord-lance.com/resized/399_sonora_des1ert.jpg

 

[DennisTate]

I will again point out that not all deserts are an empty wasteland of sand. They already contain many things. Are they heavily wooded forests or flowing grasslands, no, but at certain times of year they can actually look quite green. And all of this without added water, the plants are adapted for our seasons (rainy vs. dry) and are able to deal with things like the heat and sun.
http://resizr.lord-lance.com/resized/399_sonora_des1ert.jpg

Good points Karen.

On the other hand if this dream-vision given to a Rick Joyner has a basis in reality it seems that God is a lot more concerned about people than about deserts.

//As I approached the Judgment Seat of Christ, those in the highest ranks were also sitting on thrones that were all a part of His throne. Even the least of these thrones was more glorious than any earthly throne many times over. Some of these were rulers over cities on earth who would soon take their place. Others were rulers over the affairs of heaven, and others over the affairs of the physical creation, such as star systems and galaxies. However, it was apparent that those who were given authority over cities were esteemed above those who had even been given authority over galaxies. The value of a single child was more than a galaxy of stars, because the Holy Spirit dwelt in men, and the Lord had chosen men as His eternal dwelling place. In the presence of His glory the whole earth seemed as insignificant as a speck of dust, and yet was so infinitely esteemed that the attention of the whole host of heaven was upon it.// (Rick Joyner, The Hordes of Hell Are Marching)

This idea would fit quite well with Psalm 138

Lord, thou hast proved me, and known me: [2] Thou hast know my sitting down, and my rising up. [3] Thou hast understood my thoughts afar off: my path and my line thou hast searched out.

 

[KarenElissa]

Good points Karen.

On the other hand if this dream-vision given to a Rick Joyner has a basis in reality it seems that God is a lot more concerned about people than about deserts.

I’m not sure how being concerned about people and deserts is a dichotomy. People have lived in the desert for thousands of years and have survived fine. The eat different foods, have different seasons, and use water differently, but it works fine. Even today there are ways to go about using water without having to pump it in from anywhere else. Most people here have little to no grass, we use native plants in our yards, design our gardens to use water wisely, collect rain water, and just generally conserve water.

Maybe instead of insisting that all of nature change to support our interests, we should adapt and learn how to use what we have.

 

[DennisTate]

I’m not sure how being concerned about people and deserts is a dichotomy. People have lived in the desert for thousands of years and have survived fine. The eat different foods, have different seasons, and use water differently, but it works fine. Even today there are ways to go about using water without having to pump it in from anywhere else. Most people here have little to no grass, we use native plants in our yards, design our gardens to use water wisely, collect rain water, and just generally conserve water.

Maybe instead of insisting that all of nature change to support our interests, we should adapt and learn how to use what we have.

You have a good point KarenElissa, but I’m a guy and I think in a linear manner and in terms of numbers as opposed to in a wave formation as you girls tend to do.

The fact that well over 200 cubic kilometers of ice melted of the LAND BASED Greenland Ice Pack in a recent year scares me because my house is so close to the ocean!

Combine this fact with the rapid melting of most glaciers worldwide and combine this with the rapid build up of ice in the central super cold region of Antarctica and I even tend to worry if the orbital pattern of the earth will be affected!?

I hope that I am wrong to be so worried!?

 

[DennisTate]

Could somebody tell me if it is OK to post a link into another discussion board here in this forum?

This is to the Richard Dawkins message forum and I sure would appreciate your prayers regarding this group.

facebook.com/topic.php?uid=8798180154&topic=19806
Topic: Will wobbling of earth’s orbit and an increase in earthquakes be first major negative consequence of climate change?!

Exactly as shown in Mr. Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth an astonishing amount of melting is occurring in the Arctic ice as well as in all glaciers worldwide.

I’m worried that we could soon see a wobble in the earth’s orbital pattern as ice is being lost in the north but significantly increasing in Antarctica!?

//The Greenland ice sheet had been losing between 150 and 200 cubic kilometers a year in 2002, and now is losing almost 300 cubic kilometers a year.// (Dr. James Hansen)
climateprogress.org/2009/12/02/climategate-newsweek-nasa-james-hansen-deniers-climate-science/

So why hasn’t sea levels rose significantly?

Because the super cold central region of Antarctica is acting like a black hole in that as soon as a cloud goes over it, the ice is three kilometers or more in altitude already in many areas, the clouds drop their moisture as snow or freezing rain. Once ice is added to the central region of Antarctica it can be stable for 650,000 years or more barring even further rise in global temperatures.

Could this present a problem?

I believe that it could!

//Let us consider Antarctica for a moment.
We have already seen that it is big. It has a land area of 5.5
million square miles, and is presently covered by something in excess
of seven million cubic miles of ice weighing an estimated 19
quadrillion tons (19 followed by 15 zeros). What worries the
theorists of earth-crust displacement is that this vast ice-cap is
remorselessly increasing in size and weight:'at the rate of 293 cubic
miles of ice each year–almost as much as if Lake Ontario were frozen
solidly annually and added to it.// (Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of
the Gods, page 480).

//Recent advances in the study of palaeomagnetism have proved that the
earth’s magnetic polarity has reversed itself more than 170 times
during the past 80 million years…// (Page 484)

//Scientists expect the next reversal of the earth’s magnetic poles to
occur around AD 2030// (Page 485)

 

[DennisTate]

This discussion over on this other group gives you a good idea of how much I really do worry about this subject and for a number of reasons. I admit that I need to have stronger faith but I feel called into government and it seems obvious that this subject has the potential to help religious people to have at least one area of common concern with skeptics on theology who at least are worried about Climate Change.

For my part, I must admit that President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Harper deserve tremendous credit for not reacting too quickly to the supposed experts because if they had gone too green too quickly, they could have essentially negated the global dimming effect, which masks/decreases global warming!?

Basically, if a carbon tax system had been adopted two years ago there is a high degree of probability that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would be much closer to full scale collapse than it is at this moment.

Has anybody read about what happened just after 9-11 when jet traffic in the USA decreased significantly.

A marked rise in temperatures occured.

Why you ask?

It is thought that simply decreasing jet traffic reduced the global dimming effect much more than we though that it would!? Which caused relatively fast positive feedback, warming!?

 

[Ridgerunner]

We need deserts more than we need crowded cities.

Of course, we have crowded cities in deserts, (not a truly wise choice in my judgment, but they’re there) and still have plenty of deserts. I still have not heard a persuasive argument in favor of “X” amount of desert versus “Y” amount, or why we should have more desert or less than we do presently.

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

Of course, we have crowded cities in deserts, (not a truly wise choice in my judgment, but they’re there) and still have plenty of deserts. I still have not heard a persuasive argument in favor of “X” amount of desert versus “Y” amount, or why we should have more desert or less than we do presently.

Understand that the Mojave, the Colorado Plateau and the Sonoran deserts are not dry and sparsely inhabited because of an evil satanic plan but because of climate patterns and rain shadows. Deserts don’t support large numbers of people because there’s not enough water falling as rain or running into these areas and there’s always a net loss of the water that is there from evaporation. In some years, none of the Colorado River reaches the Gulf of California because of diversion for agriculture and urban uses in the U.S. This is why Phoenix and Las Vegas have large populations and also why you’re not going to grow a Chicago between them.

Until the Magic Elf Whistle works properly and water can be summoned up from where ever it is summoned from, the deserts aren’t going to become the new home for the overcrowded parts of the world.

 

[DennisTate]

…

Until the Magic Elf Whistle works properly and water can be summoned up from where ever it is summoned from, the deserts aren’t going to become the new home for the overcrowded parts of the world.

drbo.org/chapter/27041.htm

I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water

I think that Isaiah has a great idea here on how to combat climate change!

 

[DennisTate]

Oh, I think that some of you will really have a laugh regarding this thread, and yes, I will sure appreciate your prayers because this is one seriously heavy subject:

facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2231653698&topic=133362
Topic: Do President George W. Bush and P.M. Harper deserve some CREDIT for their climate policies?!?!?!

For my part, I must admit that President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Harper deserve tremendous credit for not reacting too quickly to the supposed experts because if they had gone too green too quickly, they could have essentially negated the global dimming effect, which masks/decreases global warming!?

Basically, if a carbon tax system had been adopted two years ago there is a high degree of probability that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would be much closer to full scale collapse than it is at this moment.

Has anybody read about what happened just after 9-11 when jet traffic in the USA decreased significantly.

A marked rise in temperatures occured.

Why you ask?

It is thought that simply decreasing jet traffic reduced the global dimming effect much more than we though that it would!? Which caused relatively fast positive feedback, warming!?

The fact that I live at a very low sea level makes me rather biased on this subject I must admit! The road that I travel on to work is perhaps less than three meters above sea level.

Samuel C…//

They did react, but in such way that they undermined the debate about it.

They were the other side to climate scientist who trumped data, they ignored it al

l.//

Yes Samuel, they ignored it all…but was it partly because they knew that there was more to the subject. What do you think they thought when the read about the subject of global dimming?

bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml

//NARRATOR: September 12th 2001, the aftermath of tragedy. While America mourned, the weather all over the country was unusually fine. Eight hundred miles west of New York, in Madison, Wisconsin a climate scientist called David Travis was on his way to work.

DR DAVID TRAVIS (University of Wisconsin, Whitewater): Around the twelfth, later on in the day, when I was driving to work, and I noticed how bright blue and clear the sky was. And at first I didn’t think about it, then I realised the sky was unusually clear.

NARRATOR: For 15 years Travis had been researching an apparently obscure topic, whether the vapour trails left by aircraft were having a significant effect on the climate. In the aftermath of 9/11 the entire US fleet was grounded, and Travis finally had a chance to find out.

DR DAVID TRAVIS: It was certainly, you know, one of the tiny positives that may have come out of this, an opportunity to do research that hopefully will never happen again.

NARRATOR: Travis suspected the grounding might make a small but detectable change to the climate. But what he observed was both immediate and dramatic.

DR DAVID TRAVIS: We found that the change in temperature range during those three days was just over one degrees C. And you have to realise that from a layman’s perspective that doesn’t sound like much, but from a climate perspective that is huge.//

I AGREE THAT THIS IS HUGE!!!

A one degree raise in temperature for about a three day period is nothing less than ASTONISHING in its implications.

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

drbo.org/chapter/27041.htm

I think that Isaiah has a great idea here on how to combat climate change!

Good idea. Have at it.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

The Soviet Union reversed a river flow, drained the Aral Sea. Good thing or bad thing.

Saddam Hussein did something similar with his political opponents by drying up the place where they lived.

And remember the Sahara was not always a desert. But that was a natural change.

And some desert islands are created by volcanic eruptions. And then eventually sometimes, they bloom … even when they are thousands of miles from nowhere.

 

[crazzeto]

There’s no good option for me…

1. “Turning deserts green” is a bad idea, us trying to control God’s creation is something that never works out. We’re stewards not lords.
2. I think that climate changes is a bunch of sensational junk science.

Environmentalism is a good thing, but only when it is prudent and ordered towards God and our role as stewards of his creation.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There’s no good option for me…

1. “Turning deserts green” is a bad idea, us trying to control God’s creation is something that never works out. We’re stewards not lords.
2. I think that climate changes is a bunch of sensational junk science.

Environmentalism is a good thing, but only when it is prudent and ordered towards God and our role as stewards of his creation.

I’m not persuaded of Point #1. As Monte said, there are lots of deserts that have turned green over time. But for man’s intervention, the Nile, for instance, would just be a river with two narrow swamps alongside. All of Egypt, including the very productive parts of it, is a natural desert otherwise. So is Iraq and a good part of Syria and even Turkey. But for its effective artificial water use, Israel would be a fly-blown desert, and has been one within human memory. Lots and lots of places on earth are like that.

Evidently the biggest part of the Amazon Basin, not a desert of course, has been altered perhaps thousands of years ago by man, and was once even more altered than it is now.

I agree with your last point, which is that we should be good stewards of the earth. But that does not mean we should not alter the environment. Again, there is essentially no habitable place on earth that has not been profoundly altered by man millenia ago.

But I also have misgivings about things like undertaking to water the whole desert southwest. Given that it really isn’t needed for agriculture, one has to wonder about the expense as well as the salinization that can occur in such places with irrigation. We are irrigating a lot of desert land in the west right now, at huge expense, both in terms of maintaining water projects and in terms of destruction of agricultural production in other parts of the U.S. where it actually does rain. We don’t really need them for food, though it must be admitted that they serve the purpose of providing things like hard, grainy strawberries and pale, mealy tomatoes in January. Well, and they do provide massive amounts of alfalfa for subsidized corporate dairies. A person does need to wonder about such things. Hard to argue against irrigation in the Nile valley, but the case favoring using every drop of the Colorado is more difficult to maintain.

I might add that if we stopped irrigating deserts, we can all kiss Idaho potatoes goodbye. One has to think that’s worthwhile.

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

I’m not persuaded of Point #1. As Monte said, there are lots of deserts that have turned green over time. But for man’s intervention, the Nile, for instance, would just be a river with two narrow swamps alongside. All of Egypt, including the very productive parts of it, is a natural desert otherwise. So is Iraq and a good part of Syria and even Turkey. …

Very wrong. The Nile naturally flooded its banks each year that’s why there was an Egyptian civilization. Same with the civilizations in the Fertile Crescent; this is a common pattern of emerging civilizations worldwide. Huge flood control projects like the Aswan High Dam or the Hoover Dam the Three Gorges Dam cause huge environmental damage with unintended harmful consequences for the populations they’re intended to serve.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Very wrong. The Nile naturally flooded its banks each year that’s why there was an Egyptian civilization. Same with the civilizations in the Fertile Crescent; this is a common pattern of emerging civilizations worldwide. Huge flood control projects like the Aswan High Dam or the Hoover Dam the Three Gorges Dam cause huge environmental damage with unintended harmful consequences for the populations they’re intended to serve.

Maybe a “little bit” wrong at most. Nile valley farmers have irrigated from time immemorial. Among some of the ancient ruins, thousands of years old, are huge reservoirs where flood waters were captured for irrigation when it turned dry, as it inevitably does there. Extensive canals along the banks carry water a long way from the river, and from which farmers irrigate. Yes, the annual floods deposited rich silt and watered the land it reached, but you can’t plant during a flood, and any farmer will tell you that land dries out very quickly in hot, dry air when the water (name removed by moderator)ut stops. Without irrigation, the Nile valley would be nothing but a river with a narrow strip of swamps alongside, and would never have been.

Farmers in Egypt irrigate and farm essentially the same land they always irrigated and farmed, with the addition of a lot of newly irrigated land along Lake Nasser. Otherwise, what has changed due to the Aswan high dame are two things: First, the controlled flooding does not now deposit the layer of silt the uncontrolled floods once did; something that now requires more fertilizer and will also contribute to the eventual silting-up of Lake Nasser. Second, the lack of flooding has increased the population of schistosomiasis-carrying snails in the Nile and irrigation canals, which is most definitely not a good thing.

The Aswan high dam(or any other dam) may be critiqued on its own merits, but it is not what brought riverside irrigation to the Nile valley thousands of years ago.

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

Maybe a “little bit” wrong at most. Nile valley farmers have irrigated from time immemorial. Among some of the ancient ruins, thousands of years old, are huge reservoirs where flood waters were captured for irrigation when it turned dry, as it inevitably does there. Extensive canals along the banks carry water a long way from the river, and from which farmers irrigate. Yes, the annual floods deposited rich silt and watered the land it reached, but you can’t plant during a flood, and any farmer will tell you that land dries out very quickly in hot, dry air when the water (name removed by moderator)ut stops. Without irrigation, the Nile valley would be nothing but a river with a narrow strip of swamps alongside, and would never have been.

Farmers in Egypt irrigate and farm essentially the same land they always irrigated and farmed, with the addition of a lot of newly irrigated land along Lake Nasser. Otherwise, what has changed due to the Aswan high dame are two things: First, the controlled flooding does not now deposit the layer of silt the uncontrolled floods once did; something that now requires more fertilizer and will also contribute to the eventual silting-up of Lake Nasser. Second, the lack of flooding has increased the population of schistosomiasis-carrying snails in the Nile and irrigation canals, which is most definitely not a good thing.

The Aswan high dam(or any other dam) may be critiqued on its own merits, but it is not what brought riverside irrigation to the Nile valley thousands of years ago.

Civilizations that grow up alongside flood plains anticipated and needed the yearly cycle of flood, silt deposit, flood recession, planting, harvesting and flood (which also destroys weeds). This was the fertile crescent and the Nile valley before the big dam. You can irrigate more surface area with impounded water from a massive dam or bring water to urban areas, but you disrupt the flow of silt and amount of water coming down from the watershed and that causes more problems upstream and in the delta estuaries.