Dwain Northey (Gen X)

With all that crap in the news, Trumps impending indictment, gun violence, you name it… it is all gloom and doom. I want to talk about my water idea, and the positives and negatives of terraforming some, not all deserts.

I know sounds like a grandiose idea but terraforming arid land has been done, in fact it was done way before today’s technology.

In the 3^rd Century BC, the ancient wonder of Petra in Jordan terraformed the desert and created an oasis that supported 20,000 people. The Nabataeans developed a way to collect and store water in watertight holes or cisterns. Hidden underground, these cisterns kept water safe from both evaporation and enemies. Rock-cut channels along the Siq were used to carry water. The Nabataeans used underground cisterns to collect and store water. They used the collected water and built canals that brought water to man made terraces to grow crops to sustain their people. This monumental achievement was done with hand forged tools back in the Iron Age.

With the technology he have now why can’t we develop ways to sequester water in California when the rains come, saving it for utilization instead of it just filling rivers and flowing to the pacific. Hell why can’t we do that everywhere seems like a no brainer. That could be a big step in securing our water future.

But what about desalinization and the possibility of terraforming deserts making them fertile areas for crop growth. There are tons of arguments against turning the deserts green most center around the potential to change the climate. I find that a strange claim considering the continuing use of burning fossil fuel is doing to the global climate. The proponents of terraforming want to perfect it in a small scale then move it to Mars making it inhabitable. Why must we use up this planet just to relocate and mess up another one.

My terraforming idea isn’t to change the Sahara into a rainforest or anything that grand it is to potentially created oasis’s that could feed the local population and possibly produce renewable resources like bamboo. Making multiple man made areas on every continent that could improve the quality of life for the region that they are in.

I know it is human nature to overdue, not keep things to a reasonable scale but I think this could be one of those global initiatives that could pull us back from the brink. I know that the last part statement sound like exactly what I was warning against. The plan would have to be region specific, start with a reverse river in the Senora Desert in Mexico and the South West U.S. Next establish the same process in Australia. Use the water sequestration in parts of Africa and places that large saline bodies of water aren’t close enough to employ the reverse river technology.

This is my pie in the sky vision for the future that I am sure that I won’t witness but hopefully someone with the means and motivation will come across this blog in the future and make it a reality.