Can we restore the earths deserts?
How? If possible, how come it hasn’t been tried yet?
Interesting question. I was under the impression the earth was undergoing “desertification” through deforestation. Are you telling me I have it backwards; the trees and other plants are encroaching upon the desert? Somebody alert Al Gore!
Big bottle of chocalate syrup and a really huge sack of nuts. That will restore the world’s deserts to their former glory. Or is that desserts?
It depends on why the desert was created in the first place. If the desert came into existence because of natural climate changes, then there’s probably nothing anybody can do to reverse it.
Also, it depends on how big a desert we’re talking about. A few square miles, sure, you could probably fix that. But something the size of the Gobi Desert, I doubt it.
And what would you do with a restored desert, once you had it? Farms? Subdivisions? Shopping malls?
What have you been reading, anyway, to bring this up?
Dune, obviously.
No reading, just thinking about the earth.
Vanilla, what were you referring to when you talked about ‘restoring’ the desert? Did you mean attempting to develop the land of the desert for other purposes, or preserving the desert that already exists?
Either way, some generic comments :
There are numerous ways to define ‘desertification’, but the worthy ones (as in worthy of discussion) describe the process of land degradation to the point where it can no longer support the life it once did. It becomes barren and may only recover after a very long time.
It would not become a desert as we know it unless the climate is appropriate. Thus, when this occurs in places like deforested land in Europe, the land is wasteland but still receives rainfall; after a long time it may recover. It is known that large deserts like the Sahara have shifted over time, but it is believed that the enlargement of the desert is due to human degradation of the land.
This sort of desert it would be best to ‘restore’, if it is even possible. It most likely isn’t, so we should rather try to prevent it.
Of course, then there’s the idea of developing land that is or once was desert. It’s hard to call this ‘restoring’; that’s like saying you’re ‘restoring’ the forest by turning it into arable land, since trees “didn’t always grow there”. The differences in our environment are primarily due to climatic differences as well as geography. We don’t have to necessarily be against developing this land (of course, we already have, viz. in the US much of Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico) but one consideration is the high cost of developing and sustaining life on this land (both economic cost and in terms of what will likely be done to the environment). Perhaps this was what you meant to discuss, though.
Another consideration is more prevention than restoration. Most deserts do sustain life, but it is a much more easily damaged ecosystem than others. There’s not a lot of people visiting the desert, though, so this doesn’t seem as much of a concern. Though maybe that’s what you were wondering.
Unless you were talking about after-dinner sweet stuffs. In which case, I’d look for caramels in Arabia, and pour camels on my desert.
panama jack