Green Options

About two kilometers from the Dead Sea and two from where Jesus was christened, in the country of Jordan, Geoff Lawton of the Permaculture Research Institute and his crew created a near miracle turning desert into a lush permaculture garden.

In August in this location, Lawton says that temperatures could rise above 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). People farming there were farming under plastic strips and using tons of synthetic chemicals and fertilizers. The idea to grow a lush forest or garden of edible plants would probably make people laugh or roll their eyes. Nonetheless, the permaculture crew had exactly this vision in mind and a little funding to help them to do it.

Qatar’s Ministry of the Environment is working with Damascus-based Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands (ACSAD) to convert Qatar’s desert regions into pastoral and agricultural lands. Greening the Qatari desert is a priority for the government, attempting to undo the effects of modern rangeland management techniques.

Image Dave Otsubo

Ever imagine scenarios of possible futures based on different trajectories we seem to be on?

One such scenario is a Mad Max America in the 2200’s. The Southwest has succumbed to desertification from climate change. Peak oil peaked centuries ago. The US was too late to transition to the post oil age. What’s left of us compile hand-cranked vehicles from ancient industrial scraps.

To get around in the 23rd century, we would put together the kind of mutant makeshift creations you see at Burning Man. Simple tech vehicles for a Mad Max future.

A recent post described the Desert Rhubarb, which uses large leaves, that lie flat on the ground to funnel whatever rain falls to its roots effectively increasing the rainfall. There are many other adaptions in deserts - this post looks at five, found in the Namib desert.

Flying Water to the Nest

The Namaqua Sandgrouse (Pterocles namaqua) needs to spend much of its life in a highly organised quest for water and food. This can involve a daily round trip of more than 80 kilometres (50 miles). The daily activity starts just after sunrise when small flocks of Namaqua Sandgrouse from different areas congregate at favoured waterholes.

The Sandgrouse lays two to three eggs in a nest that is a mere scrape in the ground between tufts of grass. To get water to their newly hatched young, the male dips his breast feathers under the surface of the waterhole and allows them to absorb water like a sponge, absorbing up to 8 times their weight in water. With his cargo complete, he flies back to the chicks, and they drink the water directly from his breast feathers.

Scientists from the University of Haifa have shown that Desert Rhubarb, has evolved to ensure that it makes more of the limited rainfall in the Negev Desert than other competitor plants.

Desert Rhubarb (Rheum palaestinum) grows in Israel and Syria, but was studied in the Negev desert by the University of Haifa. Desert Rhubarb is a perennial hemicryptophyte, that grows during the rainy winter in mountainous desert areas where the average annual rainfall is only 75 mm (just under 3 inches).

Where can you buy healthy fresh food in your neighborhood? Where are the grocery stores and farmer’s markets, how is the quality of food that is there, and which food options do you actually have access to? Are there nearby food banks or community gardens? Can you grow your own food? What local food choices are available to you in your community?

I took this photo in the meat section of my neighborhood grocery store earlier this week.

My favorite Bayview corner sandwich shop, Upper Crust Deli on Third Street in San Francisco, has just started carrying fresh seasonal produce. They are now selling a variety of melons, potatoes, apples, bananas and many other healthy fruit and vegetable options.

Would you like a stroke with your cheeseburger? Scientists have found that your chances of having a stroke may actually be related to how many Burger Kings and KFCs are operating in your town. Researchers at the University of Michigan have found that the risk of stroke increases with the number of fast-food restaurants in a neighborhood. In the study, Texas residents with the highest number of fast-food restaurants had a 13 percent higher relative risk of suffering strokes than [...]

Experts say only a fraction of the Sahara, probably the size of a small country, would need to be covered to produce enough energy to supply the whole of Europe. Written by David Adam at the Guardian.

In the Sahara, life hangs in the balance. As nomadic lifestyles vanish, urbanization threatens one of the desert’s last elephant populations. Conservationists must work fast to quell human-elephant conflict in the most arid habitat on Earth.

“I started to see two Americas: the mythic America and the real America. There was a harsh reality to America as well as the dream. I wanted to describe this era of prosperity and Savings and Loans scandals as a spiritual drought. I started thinking about the desert.” - Bono, from the rock band, U2

There’s “a place, high on a desert plain, where the streets have no name,” a place marked by bizarre rock outcroppings and the almost magical forests of the crooked and spiky Joshua trees — a metaphor U2 adeptly used for America’s prosperity and greed of the 80s, as relevant then, as it is today. In December of 1986, the four members of U2 and photographer Anton Corbijn captured the rocky and mountainous terrain and a lonely Joshua tree, summoning us with their The Joshua Tree to call upon our inner spirit to come together for peace, harmony, and love.

Here we are today, more than twenty years later, where such a commitment for change is never more needed. Perhaps a little time in the desert might clear my mind, settle my soul, I thought. Perhaps I can muster the strength we need to move toward a more sustainable and just tomorrow. Located 140 miles east of Los Angeles and just north of Palm Springs and west of Death Valley, the 792,726-acre Joshua Tree National Park provides an escape from urban pressures, a place to experience solitude and wilderness, to reconnect with our hopes and dreams.

The photogenic Joshua trees are neither tree nor cactus; they’re a giant version of a species of yucca, belonging to the lily family, many living for hundreds of years.  Unfortunately, if the U.S. Geological Survey scientists are correct in their modeling, the Joshua trees may not be around in fifty to a hundred years from now thanks to climate change altering the fragile desert ecosystem, average temperatures, and precipitation patterns. The trees they need cool winters and freezing temperatures in order to produce flowers, release their seeds, and reproduce.

To experience the park, my family and I meandered but a few of the 191 miles of hiking trails for our own spiritual walkabout roughly the same time as President-elect Barack Obama was sworn into office. The desert foray was a dramatic ecotourism adventure — a safe one, so long as you bring lots of water with you.  There are also four visitor centers positioned to help guide your enjoyment of the park, depending on where you enter it. Many argue that the best time to visit is during the spring bloom of wildflowers and other plants.

My bet is that U2 never anticipated the global impacts of climate change, now calling into question the long term survival of the namesake Joshua Trees in the Joshua Tree National Park. That Joshua tree made famous by U2 is gone. Others will likely follow.  Besides climate change, invasive exotic species, increasing incidence of wildfires, and nitrogen deposition originating from emissions hundreds of miles away in Los Angeles are also impacting the trees, according to Alice Miller who is involved with on-going research in the park.  “There is no single cause of their decline,” says Miller.  “Everything is interconnected.”