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It is much too slow and would eat arable land which we already do not have enough of. To make replanting successful you would have to reverse desertification o
by AstralStorm 8y ago
It is much too slow and would eat arable land which we already do not have enough of.
To make replanting successful you would have to reverse desertification of Africa and then replant perhaps. That is over 100 years timeframe.
If you need something now and green, the about only option is algae. That still takes huge capital investment.
- jacobush 8y agoReverse desertification is very doable, IMHO. From the ocean shores - a combination of passive water trapping engineering, akin to what the British did here: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/ascension-island-terraformed-biology-evolution-conservation/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/ascension-island... edit: as well as active Seawater greenhouses at the shores with humid air pumped: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater_greenhouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater_greenhouse Attacking the sand dunes themselves - pin them down so less sand gets blown around. Solar powered rovers can roam the dunes and sinter (with concentrated light) long reams in a pattern in the dunes. This will slow down dune movement both in the short term - what is held down by the sintered reams of glass, can not blow around - but also in the long run - when new sand inevitably blows over the reams of glass, the reams will remain inside the dune, acting as a structural enforcement - rebar in effect, stabilizing the whole dune. Rinse, repeat. Perhaps the roaming rovers can even etch mini-structures into the sand giving local shadow which can trap moisture.