To Save the Planet From Global Warming-Turn the Sahara Green

[mrzed]

Have any of you commenting on the cows ever been to India?

The 'cows' you see in the pictures are mostly bulls. Yes, they are venerated in India, and mostly protected from slaughter, but they are protected primarily as providers of plenty. So narrow a view to think the only way for a beast to feed us is to eat its (admittedly tasty) flesh. You can get more from a cow such as:

- milk
- butter
- fertilizer
- labour (most males are castrated and used to pull ploughs and carts)
- fuel (rural indians still use dried dung as cooking fuel - inefficient though that is)

The large majority of cows in India are providing these services in exchange for their farts. After providing all this, most Indians (the Hindus) feel that killing the creature is wrong. Isn't calling this out in the face of feedlot beef to fill the already overfed mouths of the world's richest a little . . . rich?

 

[amberwolf]

Regarding the solar desal canal, it would also be possible simply to run such a canal from the sea to a lower location inland but with inlet controlled in such a way that the seawater never really reaches the end of it, with evaporation rates and drainage of freshwater from the edge canals considered.

Then the only issue is periodically closing the inlet and "mining" the salt deposits out, to be put to use wherever such salts would be helpful.

The system could automatically compensate for predicted insolation and evaporation rates vs inlet rates, day/night cycles, etc., to ensure that inlet is always the same or less than evaporation rates and drainage of freshwater.

 

[dogman dan]

That's an intriguing design. The same principal they taught us in boy scouts. Here in the desert, it's not find water, it's make some. They taught us to dig a pit and use cactus for moisture and a dry cleaner bag to make a solar still. The same sea water aqueduct could be used at the Salton Sea near Palm Springs.

 

[ElectricEd]

...that the seawater never really reaches the end of it, with evaporation rates and drainage of freshwater from the edge canals considered.

Then the only issue is periodically closing the inlet and "mining" the salt deposits out, to be put to use wherever such salts would be helpful.

The system could automatically compensate for predicted insolation and evaporation rates vs inlet rates, day/night cycles, etc., to ensure that inlet is always the same or less than evaporation rates and drainage of freshwater.

Brilliant! Another example of a simple idea being expanded on by using common sense, engineering and science based thinking. 8)

What a pity that our lobbyiest shielded dumb-arsed political leaders are too stupid and corrupt to recognise the possibilities of such a system. ...or their criminal banker mates can't make a buck out of it.

 

[amberwolf]

I always liked the dew-eggs from Dune.

 

[OneWayTraffic]

Earlier this year a friend said to me "with the floods in far North Queensland causing the flooding of the inland and filling up Lake Eyre, I bet we have a wet Spring in Victoria this year."
Guess what? For September so far I have had 205.7mm measured with my rain gauge which is nearly three times greater than anything in the last 5 years.
All of the evaporation from the Lake Eyre basin has to go somewhere. The low pressure zones rotate clockwise down here in Oz, so any moisture picked up in the Northen part of the low gets carried down to the South East dumping rain on Victoria with warm blustery storms and a bit of thunder and lightning.

Here in Victoria our dumb, know nothing, good for nothing Premier and his water minister are building a desal plant that is going to need another WET LIGNITE COAL fired power station just to run it.
So, a proposal. (Putting aside the very big ecological issues for a moment). Lake Eyre is a salt basin that is 49 ft below sea level. It covers about 1/6 of the continent of Australia, how much of this is below sea level must be an enormous area.
Cut an aqueduct from the Spencer Gulf in South Australia and flood the basin with sea water. As Lake Eyre is a salt lake, sea water would actually dilute the salt content somewhat.
If my friend's theory is true, then this would ensure an increased rainfall over the South Eastern states where much of the Australian food bowl is located.
For irrigating the the surrounding land for trees, a system of desalinating aqueducts could be used...
A cross section of the aqueduct.
I apologise for not knowing who the inventor is and being able to credit him/her. The aqueduct works by running saltwater along the middle, the heat from the sun causes the water to evaporate which condenses on the film and runs down into gutters on the side which carry the fresh water to discharge points.
As Lake Eyre is below sea level, no pumping would be required for the main salt water supply, only for the fresh water take-off pumps which would be run by solar electricity. The economics might put the kibosh onto it regarding kilometres of channel/litres of fresh water, but I reckon the capital cost must be a lot less than a conventional desal plant and associated power station.

Now back to the ecological issues:
Unique flora and fauna around the basin.
The Great Artesian aquifer underneath.
Mound springs developed over millions of years.
Migratory birds.

Miscellaneous:
Enormous geothermal potential 4-5Km below.
Gas and mineral deposits.

Very few things are simple "no-brainers" but if the environmental and miscellaneous problems could be catered for (and I can't say how), this must come close.

Comments anyone?

http://www.k26.com/eyre/The_Lake/Ideas/Fill_Lake_Eyre_/fill_the_lake.html

Been thought of. It would be fantastically expensive. The benefits may or may not be worth it.

 

[paultrafalgar]

I urge yall to watch this brilliant Stanford University video about Solar Thermal Energy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjwKIQ2ON-M
Particularly poignant is the slide at about 8.5-9.5 minutes in. I can't capture it in high enough definition to make the legends clear, if you can please post it here.

 

[SpeedEBikes]

Back to the original scheme of greening deserts... I wonder if the schemers did an analysis of the soil conditions in the Sahara or the Australian outback? Sandy soils have excellent drainage and poor mineral retention. Fast growing trees are going to need more than just water to thrive in a typical desert biome.

 

[julesa]

I urge yall to watch this brilliant Stanford University video about Solar Thermal Energy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjwKIQ2ON-M
Particularly poignant is the slide at about 8.5-9.5 minutes in. I can't capture it in high enough definition to make the legends clear, if you can please post it here.

Wow, that was a great presentation. Thanks for the link!

 

[restlessnative]

I don't know if I am in the minority here, but I don't believe that our fossil fuel usage has/will impact the planet climate enough to worry about. The earth has so many climate changes already, and we have been on an upswing for the past few hundred years.

I do think that renewable resources are important however. The Sun is where it all comes from, we should just try to tap it directly.

Oh $#!@+, PLEASE don't turn this into another thread on whether human carbon emissions are changing the climate.

We are the minority... global warming is a crock, the reason for it, an alternative to war spending... war spending is prevalent in countries who's greatest desire is retaining national sovereignty. And complete globalization can't be achieved when national sovereignty exists. There is no conclusive proof, only attempts to indoctrinate. I'm curious about alternatives for one simple reason and none other... freedom. Plain and simple, telling the world to that I don't need their oil.

 

[Link]

(I really want drip hoses, but I have no freaking idea where to find them.)

What backwater place do you live where you can't find some at your typical home-improvement store? :| Or have them shipped to you from an online retailer...

(Implications surrounding the first part I could find favorable; not being able to buy stuff from the internet...not so much.)

 

[julesa]

There is no conclusive proof, only attempts to indoctrinate.

LOL there's no conclusive proof for climate change the same way there's no conclusive proof smoking causes lung cancer.

And the exact same people that the tobacco companies hired to create so much doubt about the causes of lung cancer (TASSC, Stephen Milloy) are now being paid by Exxon to create doubt about climate change. You are being lied to.
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/junkman.html
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/usual.html

[youtube]bsQH3q8rIKQ[/youtube]

 

[SpeedEBikes]

There is no conclusive proof, only attempts to indoctrinate.

LOL there's no conclusive proof for climate change the same way there's no conclusive proof smoking causes lung cancer.

...

What kills me are the insane statements of the deniers. Stuff like CO2 rises after heating occurs, not before.

Physics shows that CO2 functions like glass. It is more permeable to visible light than to infra-red. Greenhouses built out of glass get hot inside when the sun shines. The more layers of glass used, the better then insulation and the more it will retain heat. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more heat this planet will retain too. That's unarguable.

However, once you get sufficient heating going the Earth will start belching out huge amounts of methane that dwarfs our own prodigious greenhouse out gassing. That methane is a far stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 and in time it oxidizes into CO2 and water. So a heating spike can be followed by increasing CO2 but it is absolutely idiotic to use that as an argument that adding CO2 to the atmosphere won't warm the planet.

Finally, paleontology shows definitively that the planet has gone through REPEATED mass extinctions the worst of which reset life back so seriously that little survived and only the simplest most robust life forms like anaerobic bacteria actually thrived. The extinctions are correlated with massive changes in climate and the chemistries of both ocean and atmosphere. Our planet is fit to bouts of wild instability and we are bashing away at it with the biggest stick we can muster.

And people are stupidly obsessed with heating/non-heating while mostly ignoring the fact that we are acidifying our oceans. The changing chemistry affects the life the oceans support. If blue green algae give way to hydrogen sulfide emitting bacteria it's game over for humanity regardless of the temperature.