8 ms·

It took 46 years to create the 1,900 mile, ~3060 km green belt around the 130,350 square miles (337,600 km2) desert. The linked article doesn't say anything abo

It took 46 years to create the 1,900 mile, ~3060 km green belt around the 130,350 square miles (337,600 km2) desert. The linked article doesn't say anything about negatives, but the positives seem to be very beneficial for the area. I really wish other major powers would commit to similar projects. In my opinion, communities need larger goals to strive towards, to provide a sense of continued belonging and reinvestment for the future.

mdp2021 2y ago
> other major powers would commit to similar projects There is African Union's "Great Green Wall (for the Sahara and the Sahel)" initiative, the 8000x15km wall of trees to stop desertification of the Sahel from the Sahara. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa) https://www.sciencenews.org/article/africa-great-green-wall-trees-sahel-climate-change https://www.sciencenews.org/article/africa-great-green-wall-...
- xbmcuser 2y ago
  This a good video to show some of what they are doing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbBdIG--b58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbBdIG--b58
  - einpoklum 2y ago
    Note that if you follow the maps links at the bottom of the video, you'll see that the areas covered are tiny compared to the area necessary. The promotional videos which are presented with government sponsorship and supervision look great, but - is this project actually seriously progressing across the continent?
andrewflnr 2y ago
[flagged]
abeppu 2y ago
I've sometimes wondered whether arid parts of the American Southwest could, through the right kind of permaculture interventions, support more biological carbon sequestration, more plant life, drive development of richer soil etc. But I suspect if you said "we're gonna use this big section of BLM land to incrementally try to keep water in the landscape, and introduce a sequence of plant species that can increase carbon storage and soil cover" the immediate American political response would be "government overreach!" on one side and "what about threatened species X that thrives in the sparse desert?" on the other. And if you did get such a project approved, some elaborate supply chain would arise to provide plant seedlings at 10x the normal price and a consulting firm would be brought in for k million for a plan to administer the project, and the ratio of humans getting paid for the project to acres worked would be inexplicably high.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - nullstyle 2y ago
    Looking at your posting history, you shouldn't be telling others how to spend their time on the internet.
- just_1_comment 2y ago
  I agree that theres no hope of such a project ever happening in the USA unless it’s on private land, and even then someone is going to object and sue to stop it for some shortsighted and probably selfish reason.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- emptysongglass 2y ago
  That's kind of the point of democratic institutions, though: centralizing a lot of these directive powers leads to explosive efficiencies at the cost of liberty to, for example, surface objections as you illustrate. Or, more dramatically, throwing people who object into dark cells. That's how autocratic regimes can take on megaprojects without a lot of the red tape that leads to, for example, a paralytically slow rollout of Seattle light rail. You choose your poison.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> wish other major powers would commit to similar projects American engineering around the Mississippi River is massive. As is our hydroelectric engineering, and reclamation of urban and farm land. We don’t really have a lot of fucked territory that needs to be terraformed.
- maxglute 2y ago
  IMO Missippi shipping good example of lack of commitment. Low water levels already curtailing barge activity. It's a massive effort, but not really sufficient.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > not really sufficient Our barge use is crippled by the Jones Act, not water levels. Make it lucrative to ship by barge and the incentives will get the levels back up.
    - maxglute 2y ago
      Making shipping lucrative (which US should) can further increase utilization. Issue with Missippi traffic is existing shipping, i.e. those that operate under Jones, are already crippled by reduced water levels as result of heat/drought/climate change. So it's a water level issue, which translates infra commitment issue... not unlike the green belt. Climate change means you have to invest more just to stand still. E: Like don't get me wrong, internal waterways is a geographic blessing for US, but it also always required enormous/expensive (army) engineering efforts to keep it viable for modern operations (larger barges etc). It's one of those case where terraforming/technology has outstripped natural capacity, but it's possible to augment geography to facilitate more technology, but right now augmentation efforts are not sufficient, not just to improve through put, but to maintain it, because geography can decline.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > it's a water level issue, which translates infra commitment issue The point is with the Jones Act there isn't much value in barges. So other uses of the water are prioritised. Adding water doesn't have an ROI commensurate with alternative uses.
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Some stories I heard while living in China. A couple of decades ago farmers in china’s arid regions used to be tasked with planting trees, they would plant them upside down because they knew they didn’t have enough water to feed the trees and their crops. The Gobi was planted with trees a few times to reduce dust storms, but it takes a lot more than just planting trees, so the dust storms would always invariably return as the trees died out. There also used to be a graduation requirement that all students plant trees to graduate, they had farms dedicated to this, and they would dig out the trees planted by the last class so the next class could re-plant them. I have no idea how effective today’s efforts are compared to efforts of the past. They could have solved the water problem with irrigation or are using more drought resistant trees. It could be that the green belt is going to stick around this time, if the experience is different from the Gobi experience somehow.
- otikik 2y ago
  > they would plant them upside down That makes no sense. It takes more effort to plant a tree upside down and not irrigating it than it takes to plant it the regular way and not irrigating it.
  - wqnt 2y ago
    Maybe if the trees are planted correctly and are still alive, the government would requires the farmers to water them or face punishment, leaving no water for the crops.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    They didn’t want the trees to suck up limited water, but wanted to still say they planted the trees. My guess is that ground water and run off was involved, they weren’t going to irrigate it either way because they couldn’t.
enraged_camel 2y ago
One of the reasons for the decline of the Ottoman Empire was that sultans spent precious labor and resources on grand projects like this, for example around the Arabian peninsula as well as the Sahara. This ended up contributing to the bankrupting of the empire, which required them to take heftier and heftier loans from Europe and Russia.
- vondur 2y ago
  The Ottomans taking loans from the Russians, their traditional enemy, seems odd. I know they were reluctant allies when fighting Napoleon, but I've never heard of such a financial arrangement.
- mlinksva 2y ago
  I'd enjoy reading if you have any pointers to such projects. Not coming up with any from web search and asking a LLM. Closest might be the Hijaz Railway and maintaining a large military presence in desert regions.
  - SapporoChris 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire#Decline_and_modernisation_(1828%E2%80%931908) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire#Decline_and_mod... "As the Ottoman state attempted to modernize its infrastructure and army in response to outside threats, it opened itself up to a different kind of threat: that of creditors." That's the closest thing I found related.
timoth3y 2y ago
The US "Shelterbelt" project in the 1930s in response to the dustbowl was of a similar vein. It involved planting over 220 million trees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains_Shelterbelt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains_Shelterbelt
toss1 2y ago
It is being done in Africa, a 4000-mile wall south of the world's largest desert, the Sahara, called the Great Green Wall. Some references below. Pretty amazing stuff. [0] https://www.bbcearth.com/news/five-ways-the-great-green-wall-is-helping-to-reforest-the-sahel-region https://www.bbcearth.com/news/five-ways-the-great-green-wall... [1] https://sequoiares.org/research/posts/The-Great-Green-Wall https://sequoiares.org/research/posts/The-Great-Green-Wall [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)
- SapporoChris 2y ago
  Risk of Collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)#Risk_of_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)#Risk... Monitoring (or lack of) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)#Monitoring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)#Moni... That is amazing.
cleanerbob 2y ago
[dead]

mdp2021 2y ago

> other major powers would commit to similar projects There is African Union's "Great Green Wall (for the Sahara and the Sahel)" initiative, the 8000x15km wall of trees to stop desertification of the Sahel from the Sahara. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa) https://www.sciencenews.org/article/africa-great-green-wall-trees-sahel-climate-change https://www.sciencenews.org/article/africa-great-green-wall-...

xbmcuser 2y ago
This a good video to show some of what they are doing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbBdIG--b58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbBdIG--b58
- einpoklum 2y ago
  Note that if you follow the maps links at the bottom of the video, you'll see that the areas covered are tiny compared to the area necessary. The promotional videos which are presented with government sponsorship and supervision look great, but - is this project actually seriously progressing across the continent?

andrewflnr 2y ago

[flagged]

abeppu 2y ago

I've sometimes wondered whether arid parts of the American Southwest could, through the right kind of permaculture interventions, support more biological carbon sequestration, more plant life, drive development of richer soil etc. But I suspect if you said "we're gonna use this big section of BLM land to incrementally try to keep water in the landscape, and introduce a sequence of plant species that can increase carbon storage and soil cover" the immediate American political response would be "government overreach!" on one side and "what about threatened species X that thrives in the sparse desert?" on the other. And if you did get such a project approved, some elaborate supply chain would arise to provide plant seedlings at 10x the normal price and a consulting firm would be brought in for k million for a plan to administer the project, and the ratio of humans getting paid for the project to acres worked would be inexplicably high.

dingnuts 2y ago
[flagged]
- nullstyle 2y ago
  Looking at your posting history, you shouldn't be telling others how to spend their time on the internet.
just_1_comment 2y ago
I agree that theres no hope of such a project ever happening in the USA unless it’s on private land, and even then someone is going to object and sue to stop it for some shortsighted and probably selfish reason.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
emptysongglass 2y ago
That's kind of the point of democratic institutions, though: centralizing a lot of these directive powers leads to explosive efficiencies at the cost of liberty to, for example, surface objections as you illustrate. Or, more dramatically, throwing people who object into dark cells. That's how autocratic regimes can take on megaprojects without a lot of the red tape that leads to, for example, a paralytically slow rollout of Seattle light rail. You choose your poison.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> wish other major powers would commit to similar projects American engineering around the Mississippi River is massive. As is our hydroelectric engineering, and reclamation of urban and farm land. We don’t really have a lot of fucked territory that needs to be terraformed.

maxglute 2y ago
IMO Missippi shipping good example of lack of commitment. Low water levels already curtailing barge activity. It's a massive effort, but not really sufficient.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > not really sufficient Our barge use is crippled by the Jones Act, not water levels. Make it lucrative to ship by barge and the incentives will get the levels back up.
  - maxglute 2y ago
    Making shipping lucrative (which US should) can further increase utilization. Issue with Missippi traffic is existing shipping, i.e. those that operate under Jones, are already crippled by reduced water levels as result of heat/drought/climate change. So it's a water level issue, which translates infra commitment issue... not unlike the green belt. Climate change means you have to invest more just to stand still. E: Like don't get me wrong, internal waterways is a geographic blessing for US, but it also always required enormous/expensive (army) engineering efforts to keep it viable for modern operations (larger barges etc). It's one of those case where terraforming/technology has outstripped natural capacity, but it's possible to augment geography to facilitate more technology, but right now augmentation efforts are not sufficient, not just to improve through put, but to maintain it, because geography can decline.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > it's a water level issue, which translates infra commitment issue The point is with the Jones Act there isn't much value in barges. So other uses of the water are prioritised. Adding water doesn't have an ROI commensurate with alternative uses.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago

Some stories I heard while living in China. A couple of decades ago farmers in china’s arid regions used to be tasked with planting trees, they would plant them upside down because they knew they didn’t have enough water to feed the trees and their crops. The Gobi was planted with trees a few times to reduce dust storms, but it takes a lot more than just planting trees, so the dust storms would always invariably return as the trees died out. There also used to be a graduation requirement that all students plant trees to graduate, they had farms dedicated to this, and they would dig out the trees planted by the last class so the next class could re-plant them. I have no idea how effective today’s efforts are compared to efforts of the past. They could have solved the water problem with irrigation or are using more drought resistant trees. It could be that the green belt is going to stick around this time, if the experience is different from the Gobi experience somehow.

otikik 2y ago
> they would plant them upside down That makes no sense. It takes more effort to plant a tree upside down and not irrigating it than it takes to plant it the regular way and not irrigating it.
- wqnt 2y ago
  Maybe if the trees are planted correctly and are still alive, the government would requires the farmers to water them or face punishment, leaving no water for the crops.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  They didn’t want the trees to suck up limited water, but wanted to still say they planted the trees. My guess is that ground water and run off was involved, they weren’t going to irrigate it either way because they couldn’t.

enraged_camel 2y ago

One of the reasons for the decline of the Ottoman Empire was that sultans spent precious labor and resources on grand projects like this, for example around the Arabian peninsula as well as the Sahara. This ended up contributing to the bankrupting of the empire, which required them to take heftier and heftier loans from Europe and Russia.

vondur 2y ago
The Ottomans taking loans from the Russians, their traditional enemy, seems odd. I know they were reluctant allies when fighting Napoleon, but I've never heard of such a financial arrangement.
mlinksva 2y ago
I'd enjoy reading if you have any pointers to such projects. Not coming up with any from web search and asking a LLM. Closest might be the Hijaz Railway and maintaining a large military presence in desert regions.
- SapporoChris 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire#Decline_and_modernisation_(1828%E2%80%931908) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire#Decline_and_mod... "As the Ottoman state attempted to modernize its infrastructure and army in response to outside threats, it opened itself up to a different kind of threat: that of creditors." That's the closest thing I found related.

timoth3y 2y ago

The US "Shelterbelt" project in the 1930s in response to the dustbowl was of a similar vein. It involved planting over 220 million trees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains_Shelterbelt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains_Shelterbelt

toss1 2y ago

It is being done in Africa, a 4000-mile wall south of the world's largest desert, the Sahara, called the Great Green Wall. Some references below. Pretty amazing stuff. [0] https://www.bbcearth.com/news/five-ways-the-great-green-wall-is-helping-to-reforest-the-sahel-region https://www.bbcearth.com/news/five-ways-the-great-green-wall... [1] https://sequoiares.org/research/posts/The-Great-Green-Wall https://sequoiares.org/research/posts/The-Great-Green-Wall [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)

SapporoChris 2y ago
Risk of Collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)#Risk_of_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)#Risk... Monitoring (or lack of) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)#Monitoring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)#Moni... That is amazing.

cleanerbob 2y ago

[dead]