(Carl Cantrell):
I Told You So 287
Sahara Desert
Remember that I told you about what I call continental drying creating and increasing the size of deserts and that we could and should increase the carrying capacity of the planet by returning water to these drying areas, especially the deserts?
I am not the only one now thinking about this as you can see in this
video. The difference is that my plan uses desalinated water as artificial rainfall to control the process, you know, the way God uses rainfall, and their ideas are just flooding large areas with salt water and hoping evaporation will take care of it, you know, kind of hit and miss based on ignorance.
Their idea was tried decades before I was born (I'm 70), it was a terrible failure and my idea was developed based on that failure in relation to science. Yeah, it really helps to learn from other people's mistakes so you don't repeat them.
What they did was they found a desert valley just off of the Nile River in Egypt that had once been a very productive agricultural valley a few thousand years ago and the geniuses decided to flood that valley floor with water from the Nile River to turn it back into agricultural land. Well, all of that standing water just stood there and became stagnant (surprise, surprise) and it turned into a disease infested swamp they ended up having to drain because it was killing people.
That is what the people in the above video are talking about doing except, instead of using fresh water, they are talking about using salty sea water and just kinda sorta hoping that water will either seep into the soil and/or evaporate and return as rain to magically turn the area into a tropical paradise, you know, the ignorance based, simple minded fairies riding unicorns over rainbows thinking.
"Why, if we just do this one little simple minded, ignorance based thingy, utopia will just magically happen...poof!"
Did you know that, without the tides created by the moon and sun, your sea shores will become so stagnant that most life can't exist in the salt water?
What happens is the gravity of the moon and sun cause the waters to rise by drawing in more water called a high tide. As the Earth rotates away from the moon and sun, their gravities pull quite a bit of that water away from our shores, called a low tide, taking quite a bit of the waste deposited along those shores out to sea where it is either processed by organisms at sea or sinks into the mud at the bottom of the ocean, keeping your sea shores clean and healthy.
Now, if you flood a big hole in the ground in the middle of a desert the way they say, I don't care how big it is, there will be no cleaning tides taking waste out to sea because your body of water will be land locked. If you want to see what that will be like, just go to any land locked body of salty water like the Dead Sea or the Salt Lakes in Utah in the US, where there is almost no life. Hint, it ain't going to be no tropical paradise, baby.
If you want to recover these drying continents, especially the deserts, you have to use clean rainfall and running water. You
CANNOT use standing or stagnant water because that never works. Even the Great Lakes in North America have a running water flow through that keeps them clean, washing waste out to see via the St. Lawrence River.
Therefore, the common sense and scientifically sound thing is to use desalinated water, pipe it to the tops of "water sheds", which are land areas like valleys where the rainfall runs down towards the same streams and rivers, use old style water sprinklers to generate artificial rainfall that will not only increase the water in the soil but also increase the water in the air, which will decrease heating and drying of the area.
The science behind hydrating the air is a little complex but I will try to keep it simple. Remember this is the nutshell version.
The higher the humidity or water in the air, the less water the air will absorb from the soil, plants and animals and the more sunlight will be reflected back out into space so that less sunlight will reach the soil and be turned into heat, which means the increased air humidity will cool the area. Yes, you will be changing the weather or climate on a local basis from desert weather to a more habitable climate.
Therefore, we need to increase the water in the air around our watershed as well as the water in the soil and the best way to do that is with water sprinklers, which will achieve both goals at the same time.
Now, by using artificial rain on mapped out watersheds, we will be using running water to gradually increase the water in the soil so that water doesn't go stagnant and remains fresh or the soil becomes saturated and causes mudslides, which is a
MUST.
You need to do this gradually over a period of at least 3 to 5 years and not just flood the area. What will happen is that, as the water in the soil increases, grass and small plants will grow establishing roots in the soil to prevent erosion and mudslides (grass, not trees, prevent erosion) and begin developing increasing biomatter in the soil so more and larger plants can eventually grow. You start by growing, farming, or developing the soil and the air to where they can support an ecosystem. To work, this has to all be done scientifically and not just ignorantly flooding an area with water.
This increasing water in the soil will begin to build aquifers, which, when their water level reaches the surface, will begin to develop streams, which will grow into rivers and lakes, which will develop riparian areas, for which you may have to introduce species because, in case you have not noticed, there are no riparian areas or species in deserts. Then you will begin to develop grassy fields and hills and, as animals such as birds spread seeds, you will start getting larger brush and occasional trees, especially near surface water.
As the plant life increases, herbivores from surrounding areas will migrate to your project area, which will draw predators to your area, which will do most of the developing of the ecosystem for your area with you only having to introduce a few specialized species like water plants and animals, some of which will be brought into the area by migrating animals like birds, but you will definitely have to introduce things like fish or aquatic animals based on the plant life you see developing in your area.
It is like carving a stone statue, you have to do it one carefully placed hammer stroke at a time and don't just hit it once with a really big hammer.
You
DO NOT want to plant any trees for at least the first 5 to 10 years pending the development of the ecosystem because trees use way too much water, would slow the development of the water system in your ecosystem and possibly stop its development. A few trees brought into the area because of seeds spread by animals like birds will be fine.
What you need to grow for those first 5+ years is indigenous grass and small plants to prevent erosion. You
DO NOT want to do any farming of any type or herding for at least the first 3 to 5 years pending the development of the ecosystem or it could setback or destroy your reclamation project and you will be right back where you started with a desert wasteland. You have to increase or grow the biomatter in the soil until the soil can handle farming and herding, after the grass lands mature.
This project has to be controlled and it has to be based on science. When you finally do start farming or herding, you want to start with light herding and, if the soil handles that well for a few years, then you can start farming or heavier herding.
Now, before you even begin your project, you have to send in teams of scientists to map out your watersheds so you will know where to run your pipelines and place your sprinklers, especially in relation to trade winds. You need to setup entire strings of wet areas cutting across the trade winds to increase air humidity and precipitation while decreasing sunlight hitting the ground downwind to begin claiming even more of the desert. The "downwind" areas will develop more naturally from the precipitation caused by the increasing air humidity increasing water soil, forming aquifers, streams, rivers, and lakes to grow grasslands.
You will need to study the local plants and animals to know what plant and animal populations will begin to grow as the water and food supplies increase, you have to study all areas within 100+ miles of your project so you will know what plants and animals will migrate to your habitats as the water and food supplies increase, and then you can decide what plants and animals you will need to introduce for your ecosystem to function by making it a balanced ecosystem. What they will find is that they will have to introduce very few species to achieve a balanced ecosystem, mostly aquatic life.
You will need to study the meteorology and geology of your project area so you can monitor changes in soil biomatter and weather patterns for the project area.
Some people have complained that research is showing that waste from desalination plants is 50% greater than they had previously thought, often dumping the chemicals they use for desalination back into the sea, polluting the sea.
That is for chemical and mechanical desalination and not solar desalination. The only waste you will get from solar desalination is the salt and other minerals you will cook out of the sea water with the heat generated by sunlight, which can be returned to the sea or even sold as "sea salt" to health food nuts to help cover the costs of your project and save tax payers and investors money.
...... (Carl Cantrell, continued)......