[ExI] Greening the Sahara

[Brent Neal]

On 16 Jul, 2009, at 14:39, Dan wrote:

> Any ideas on how to do this?
>
> An idea I had was to cover strategic swaths of it with dark  
> material, thereby causing its daytime temperature to rise causing  
> the air to rise faster pulling in more moist air from the costs.  
> Once rainfall is higher, it seems the greening would take care of  
> itself.
>
> Any thoughts on this?
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>
>

Geoff Lawton, of the Permaculture Institute, was able to reclaim  
desertified/degraded land in Jordan. An adaptation of his methods  
would work, presuming that you started in the Sahel and started  
reversing the desertification process.

Without organic matter in and on the soil to collect the moisture, the  
greening will not take care of itself efficiently. You get more bang  
for your buck by finding ways to concentrate and retain that moisture.

There's a video on YouTube of an interview with Lawton.

B



--
Brent Neal, Ph.D.
http://brentn.freeshell.org
<brentn at freeshell.org>