Our biggest challenge? Lack of imagination.

[living sounds]

I like this story:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/20/our-biggest-challenge-lack-of-imagination-the-scientists-turning-the-desert-green

 

[Script]

Thanks. Somewhat interesting read, -very- long though. But made me watch the mentioned documentary on ecosystem regeneration called Green Gold - Documentary by John D. Liu.

Turning desert-like stretches of land into green landscapes again (and partially farmable). Quite astounding indeed what has been achieved in some places.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBLZmwlPa8A&feature=youtu.be

 

[user 37518]

Sounds like a great idea, don't know how much difference it will do in the end but I'm up for it.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Just saw a documentary the other day.
The biggest challenge here is access to water.
Most of the projects involve diverting resources from others, like the Ethiopian dam on the Nile, that will deprive Egypt and Sudan of a large part of their water resources, so there are a number of geopolitical issues to solve.
Other projects, like Qatar, rely on gigantic oil resources to distill sea water in order to terraform pieces of desert.
So I think accusing those who can't do one or the other of intellectual laziness is not fair.
Even using the eco-friendly method described in the link is bound to modify the environment. How is one sure it's not gonna hurt someone else?
The biggest challenge is there are too many living beings on earth.

 

[scott2000]

I recall hearing some conspiracy theories about various scenarios involving water and conflicts as well. Don't remember exactly what they were but it was interesting. Definitely seems a problem worldwide. Even my parents who live an hour away have vastly different water restrictions and prices compared to where I live.

Just saw this article as well... Fascinating challenges...

Making waves: Kabul launches novel plan to address water crisis

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1757096/world

 

[user 37518]

The biggest challenge is there are too many living beings on earth.

Don't know if by living beings you mean human beings or living beings in general, I agree with Jordan B. Peterson who argues that in the future, the problem will be that there will be very few human beings rather than lots of them.

Freeman Dyson (which is a shame that is now dead) used to say that carbon emission was actually good because it would create more plant life in the world. And when Freeman Dyson says something, it shouldn't be taken lightly.

I've always said, if you want a green earth, use electric cars (which were available since the 90s, I don't know why people think they are a new thing, watch on YouTube "who killed the electric car") and use nuclear power, people are afraid of nuclear but the fact is that now they are pursuing what are called micro reactors, which are much smaller reactors, easier to handle and less likely to cause a big catastrophe in case things go south, you can have several nuclear plants like that, baaam you have clean energy and very cheap BTW. I once read that the entire nuclear waste in history from the US can be stored in something like the size of a couple football fields.

Abbey, you are from France, France is betting on nuclear, and I totally agree. You can provide some cities with wind, maybe some with solar if you don't mind the huge footprint on the enviroment for having a lot of square kms full of solar panels which only work during the day and in certain parts of the world.  But the fact is that if you are projecting to the future, in a world with an expected popullation of 9 billion people, with more and more power hungry cities, nuclear is the only way to go.

You want a green earth? go nuclear and electric cars, simple as that. Then you can start planning on whether you'll turn a desert into a green oasis. Don't want to make over simplifications but climate change shouldn't be an issue any longer if we used nuclear and electric transportation. But hey, I'm not a climate scientist. However I would argue that the problem is deeper, first you have to convince Exxon and Texaco to let go, and also demand that corporations turn off their coal burning plants... well, that my friends, is the real  problem of climate change.

My 2 cents.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Making waves: Kabul launches novel plan to address water crisis

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1757096/world

I agree that solving this crisis involves many different actions, some of which are deemed not detrimental to others, the most significant being reforesting, but it is actually detrimental to the wood industries, agriculture and settlings. The decision implies a moral authority that doesn't exist IMO.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Don't know if by living beings you mean human beings or living beings in general,

I mean both. All living creatures are predators, motivated by instinct to "be fruitful and multiply". The Earth would be much quieter if animal life did not exist. Plants fight, though.

I agree with Jordan B. Peterson who argues that in the future, the problem will be that there will be very few human beings rather than lots of them.

Knowing Peterson only in broad strokes, I'm not familiar with this claim. I'd be curious to know why it would happen, considering the projected demographic curve.

Freeman Dyson (which is a shame that is now dead) used to say that carbon emission was actually good because it would create more plant life in the world. And when Freeman Dyson says something, it shouldn't be taken lightly.

I'm not in a position to challenge Dyson, but I think this assertion is valid in an infinite world, but needs to find if it works at the limit, which is mandatory to be done when considering a theory.

Abbey, you are from France, France is betting on nuclear, and I totally agree.

Used to... Chernobyl and Fukushima have given such bad examples, most of the population is against nuclear now. And the problems in the current EPR will not help.

 

[ruffrecords]

You want a green earth? go nuclear and electric cars, simple as that.

All that gets you is a lower carbon earth, not a green one. There is so much more that needs fixing before we get anywhere near green and as usual, the minor problem that gets all the news is not the one we should be tackling.

Cheers

Ian

 

[fazer]

  the minor problem that gets all the news is not the one we should be tackling.

To many fruit flys in the jar?  Now that’s the root of the problem.  It plays out in the social media dilemma in an odd kind of way with to much communication or miscommunication maybe.

 

[living sounds]

The projects in the link aim to "re-green" what has been transformed into deserts by human activity (a lot of it not recent, but over millennia). They are rebuilding a self-sustaining ecosystem, it is not a zero-sum game (taking water from somewhere else long-term where it will be "missing").

Freeman Dyson was not a biologist, ecologist, climatologist etc. Expertise in one sphere (pun intended) or some spheres does not by itself transfer into expertise in other spheres. So this is merely a misplaced argument from authority.

Same goes for Peterson, who is a psychologist and not an expert in population dynamics, ecology etc. Envisioning a "problem" of too few humans on the planet is a very peculiar notion, certainly driven more by political ideology rather than actual insights.

Climate change is not even the issue with these projects. Again, the changes the engineers are aiming to reverse have been brought about by human activity long before significant amounts of hydrocarbons were unearthed by humans. We are talking about soil erosion caused by the chopping down of trees in ancient times.

Nuclear power can be safe with modern and upcoming reactor types. We should have started building them years ago...

"Living creatues" have transformed the earth into what it is now. Without plant life there would be no oxygen for us to breathe. The issue is balance, which is lost with too many humans and the crops and livestock and infrastructure to support them vs. the rest of the planet.

 

[Script]

I'd expect those re-greening engineers to know what they are doing with regard to the weather. As far as I understood, the idea is to try and nudge the local weathers in the mid- to long run. With the Poles melting, there should be enough water around , but it seems to be in the wrong places.

The article in the OP or the documentary by Liu cited the coast of Spain being concreted over (yes, the Spanish Meditarrenean coast has become very grey and ugly since the 1980s) as a/the reason for generally little rain in the Spanish midlands and sometimes torrential rains in central Europe -- sort of an imbalance. Also, the desert-like Sinai was mentioned as directing moisture in the air from the Meditarranean Sea to the Indian Ocean, instead of raining down locally. I'd assume they know well what they aare talking about. So it is about positive effects -- such as with the project in China allegedly having reduced flooding of the Yangtse downstream. Yet another example is Israel and their successful attempt at re-greening an area around the Dead Sea, a small farming area only but very impressive. They grow dates there and the still a little too salty farm ground makes for fruits that are extraordinarily sweet and sell well.

As for taking resources from others on an indiviual level (forest and farming industries) I guess the question for some of those farmers (China, Rwanda etc) has been whether changing their habits and starting to re-green is probably the better option as opposed to watching their land turn from desert-like into fully dead.

But the biggest problem I see is that bigger (international) projects require not only moral authority but also massive funding --which is extremely difficult...

 

[user 37518]

Well to be honest, the comment about Dyson on carbon emissions creating more green life doesn't seem crazy to me, specially if you consider that plants "breathe" carbon dioxide. He might not be climatologist but he was one of the brightest minds of the 20th and 21st centuries, he was much more than just a guy who proposed the Dyson sphere, he proposed many biological ideas even if he was not a biologist like biotechnology and genetic engineering, space exploration, engineering, mathematics, etc.. he wasn't your run of the mill physicist, he didn't even have a PhD but he was absolutely brilliant, If you ask me I believe Dyson more than your average climatologist, watch the interview before judging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQHhDxRuTkI Jim Williams didn't have a degree of any kind and he is perhaps considered the greatest analog guru of all time, John Lennox is one of the greatest theologians and he is a professor of mathematics from Oxford, Dirac was an electrical engineer and not a physicist, yet he came up with some of the greatest theories of physics, he even won the Nobel, do not dismiss someone just because he didn't major in a specific field of study.

I mentioned climate change because the article does mention climate change, my thoughts on the desolation of previously green areas I believe it has to do with other factors rather than climate change, climate change might play a role but I don't think its the most important one.

I don't want to hi-jack the thread, I would love a greener earth, but there are more pressing matters if you ask me, regarding climate change and just pollution in general, I have argued before, nuclear is the way to go. My friend Brian Roth is proud that his state of Kansas is powered mostly by wind, the state of Kansas has around 2 million inhabitants, but take for instance were I live, what is refered to as Greater Mexico City, it is a city that has a population of almost 22 million people, it is one of the largest and most populated cities in the world, there are really no green areas with the exception of some parks, not particularly much wind, no open spaces where you can put a lot of solar panels, so all of that would have to be placed in the adjacent states, but even if they do it, how many solar panels and wind mills do you need to power a city of 22 million?  we are talking about a city which has a higher population than entire countries like the Netherlands, Norway, Croatia, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland, Uruguay, Chile, Israel, Switzerland, Austria, and many others, its easier to use renewable energies and reforest areas if your entire country has 4 million inhabitants. The US has 328 million people, and its no wonder that its also the country with the most number of nuclear power plants in the world, followed by France.

Abbey argued about Chernobyl and Fukushima, which I agree are great disasters, but even those disasters do not compare to the damage done by coal burning plants, and also, like I said, the new reactors reduce the risk of that happening again.

Lets take it to the extreme, what about India or China? those two countries alone make up for 50% of the human population in the entire earth, do you really think you can power those countries with some wind mills and solar panels?

I'm not saying that using renewable sources of energy is not something good, what I am saying is that its not a replacement but rather a complement. Nuclear should be our main focus. We should be promoting China and India to build nuclear power plants, they are already nuclear powers so whats left to loose?. My country has 2 nuclear reactors with plans of installing more, and I support the idea.

If you ask me, I wouldn't spend water on making the earth greener unless it is recycled water, drinking water availability will be a problem in the near future, also, the oceans having less fish is also a bigger problem, watch the documentary "The end of the line" it is old but good. We should start figuring out how to polute the enviroment less and to save the ocean life, my motives are selfish because I sure like eating fish and would like to be able to continue to do so.

I love Jordan B. Peterson, these are his thoughts on climate change, and I agree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfZgf-YecQ

 

[living sounds]

It's not a question of who to believe, it's about methodology.

Non-experts, even and especially those highly qualified, have a very high probability to be wrong outside their fields whenever they contradict the actual experts. There's a name for the phenomenom: The intelligence trap.

It's advisible to read the relevant experts in their respective fields rather then watching youtube videos.

Nuclear power is not a black-and-white thing. There are (more recent) designs with favorable attributes in many respects.

Renewables can and do contribute greatly. Germany, with its half-assed transition to renewables still managed to produce more than 50% of electric power from renewables. And we are a very densely populated country north of the sun belt.

China and India have enough space (even vast desert regions) for renewable energy production.

The problem with overreliance on renewables (besides the technically solveable issue of short-term storage) is its vulnerability to outlier events.

If you "love" Jordan Peterson this is likely to cloud your thinking. He's an intelligent ideologue who clothes his gut feelings into pseudo-scientific narratives. Maybe OK for personal philosophy (and certainly not without merit on some issues) but not a reliable source for actual information (which must be based on a deductive, science based approach) and thus not reliable to be extrapolated into reasonable policy proposals.

Anyway, the issue in my OP is not about "spending" water but about restoring an ecosystem that will sustain itself. There is more than enough water in the world, the challenge is to make it stay where it is needed to keep an area "green".

 

[ruffrecords]

If we diverted all the silly money from Climate Studies into Fusion Research  we could have limitless carbon free energy within a few years. And no need to store toxic waste products for thousands of years.

Cheers

Ian

 

[fazer]

Any ideas to green up areas of devastation to green areas again is welcome direction. 

WHILE reading the Guardian article I found a link to and another article from Bill Gates calling the 12 year green new deal as a fairy tale.  This article has purposed changes to make by 2050 in the manufacturing of steel and concrete which accounts for 30% of world wide emissions.  It is a more realistic assessment of possible issues to address. 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/15/bill-gates-carbon-neutrality-in-a-decade-is-a-fairytale-why-peddle-fantasies

 

[JohnRoberts]

In my judgement the problem may be too much imagination, namely how many existential threats we face.

Anyone who has been paying attention for more than several years has heard the end of the world predicted multiple times. Those tend to come and pass harmlessly (so far).

It is interesting to look at demographics for long game players. China is starting to worry about birth replacement rate, and some out of favor groups are making babies as fast as they can. 

==
I saw a financial article about mining uranium for nuclear reactors, they cited something like 50 new reactors currently in production around the world, but those can have a tendency to get delayed and/or completely cancelled due to cost over runs. 

If the green new deal crowd was following actual science they would be hugging reactors instead of trees.

JR

 

[scott2000]

This article has purposed changes to make by 2050 in the manufacturing of steel and concrete which accounts for 30% of world wide emissions. 

“Most people don’t understand what cement is,” says Gates, igniting with interest. “And I spent literally weeks understanding why it’s so miraculous, and could we use less of it?”

Here's one of his investments....

https://heliogen.com/

 

[user 37518]

I saw a financial article about mining uranium for nuclear reactors, they cited something like 50 new reactors currently in production around the world, but those can have a tendency to get delayed and/or completely cancelled due to cost over runs. 

If the green new deal crowd was following actual science they would be hugging reactors instead of trees.

JR

Finally ! thank you!

If you "love" Jordan Peterson this is likely to cloud your thinking. He's an intelligent ideologue who clothes his gut feelings into pseudo-scientific narratives. Maybe OK for personal philosophy (and certainly not without merit on some issues) but not a reliable source for actual information (which must be based on a deductive, science based approach) and thus not reliable to be extrapolated into reasonable policy proposals.

He did work for the UN on this topic, so he is not pseudo-scientific. Besides that, If you ask me, he is one of the greatest thinkers of the 21st century. You may not fully agree with him, but he is. He is much more than a psychologist, he is a philosopher, a scientist, a good theologian, a free thinker and of course, a great public speaker.

I wouldn't judge someone just for their academic qualifications, many forum members here, even the veterans, do not have a degree and they are extremely knowledgeable.

 

[living sounds]

Anyone who has been paying attention for more than several years has heard the end of the world predicted multiple times. Those tend to come and pass harmlessly (so far).

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”


You are looking at a very limited data set in a very short timespan. In other words, it has no bearing on the actual situation, which is unfolding according to indicators from a multitude of fields.

And climate change has massive effects right now, for instance many of the migrants arriving at the US southern border are there because of it.