FoE FREdome - can trees make it rain?

transcript

Agenda

1. Input

2. Interaction (Q&A, Suggestions)

3. The way forward

www.slideshare.net/GregPeachey/foe-fredome

www.FREdome.org

http://fredome.wordpress.com

Greg Peachey

Former management consultant

Get all stakeholders

…to pull together for collective benefit

organisation

communityworld

30 yrs

A shared way forwardA shared way forwardA shared way forward

V i s i o n a r y T r u s t

A shared way forward

What do these have in common?

Probability & Impact

OR Act?

POR Act

Definitely

Threats Benefits?

WasteDesert

ConflictP

FoodFuel

WealthJobs

Carbon

Limiting Capture

Re-use

Sustainability!

The The missing missing

link!link!

Carbon Cycling

The cyclic, as opposed to consume-and-dump, use of Carbon, Water and Macro/Trace Nutrients

(at local and global levels)

CCOO22

What’s the answer?

a) Surplus air-carbon

b) Carbon resources low

c) Crops turn a) into b)

d) Most of the world is wasteland

Proposal Summary• To combine and scale up the well-

proven technologies of Agriculture & Forestry – Agroforestry – on wasteland, to resolve Climate Change and Resource Depletion

Carbon Cycling

Arid world areasto convert for crops to turn

our CO2 into resources

Ancient human desertification• Civilisations destroyed by deforestation:

– Ancient Peruvians (http://www.naturalnews.com/028358_deforestation_human_civilization.html)

– Mayan Indians (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/06oct_maya/)

– Easter Island (http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0901-easter_island.html)

NASA ● Cambridge University ● Rochester Institute of Technology

Recent human desertification

• Aral Sea (once the world’s 4th largest lake)

1973 2003

Madagascar

http://www.jurassiccoast.com/downloads/Education/madagascar_resource_materials.pdf

Agroforestry

• 8% of world’s land productive, could be 75%

• Trees+crops 10 times the yield of monocultures

Earth could be 100 times as fruitful

Gorshkov & Makarieva(Under discussion)

• Global carbon cycle• Forests convert deep water

into water vapour in the air. It condenses, contracts and pulls water vapour from the sea to the interior of continents

• Logged coastal trees for shipbuilding

• Continents turned into deserts• Need to restore coastal forests

Kickstart: “Operation OASIS”

• Oil supertankers travel from deserts

• Return with seawater ballast• We dump sewage off coasts through

“outfall pipes”• Could turn sand back into soil + irrigate &

nourish coastal tree belts• Wetter microclimate will enable self-

sustaining agroforestry to proceed inland

Andrew K Fletcher

Plausible?

Key Steps

1. Tankering waste

2. Acceptance by desert nations

3. Wastewater to irrigate desert vegetation

4. Cloud formation above coastal vegetation

5. Trees “milking” rain from clouds

6. Spread of self-sustaining vegetation

1. Tankering Waste

Marine Environmental Protection Agency: “The Board of MEPA (UK) have now discussed the matter and fully back your project.”

http://www.best-maritime-employment.info/catalogue_companies_list/company_source_50063_1.html

2. Acceptance by desert nations• eg Kuwait:

“This is to confirm that the Public Authority of Agriculture and the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research are considering your Oasis Project…”

“With an open invitation to Kuwait to discuss your project further.”

• eg Israel:

“I greatly appreciate your extensive efforts to open the road to successfully harnessing adequately treated sewage effluents for irrigation in arid and semi arid region and as I mentioned before we will be very happy to support Oasis Irrigation in spreading the good values of irrigation with effluents, based on our large experience in the field.”

Arab Water ForumNovember 2011

3. Wastewater to irrigate desert vegetationhttp://www.unep.or.jp/ietc/publications/techpublications/techpub-15/3-2AsiaWest/2-4.asp

“In Egypt, the practice of reuse of wastewater started in Cairo city in 1911 to irrigate Jabal al-Asfar farms covering an area of 1260 hectares… treated wastewater production will reach a potential of 4.9BCM* per year. This amount is planned to irrigate an area of about 400,000 hectares of desert land.”

Newsletter and Technical Publications<International Source Book On Environmentally Sound Technologies

for Wastewater and Stormwater Management>

*MCM/BCM = Million/Billion Cubic Metres

“Wastewater is a rich source of nutrient”

“In Jordan, the volume of treated wastewater produced in 1998 reached 74MCM per year, of which about 95% is reused for irrigation.”

“In Kuwait, about 25% of its agriculture and green areas is irrigated using 52MCM of treated wastewater.”

and so on…

BUT irrigation with ground water creates salt deserts

“Salinization – buildup of salt in surface soil layers. It is more common in arid areas where precipitation is minimal and evaporation rates are high. This happens because of irrigation.”

Must use waste water that originates as rain

Leticia Neves - University of Sao Paulohttp://aboutenvironment.com/category/soil/

4. Cloud formation over coastal vegetation

http://www.aviationweather.ws/097_Sea_Breeze_Soaring.php

Aviation Weather

For Pilots and Flight Operations

Personnel

FAA Advisory Circular AC 00-6A

“Over vegetation where air is usually moist, sea breeze cumulus are the rule. Over arid regions, little or no cumulus development

may be anticipated with a sea breeze front.”

• Abrupt temperature differential, get cumulonimbus (storm) clouds & sea breezes to 75 miles inland

5. Trees “milking” rain from clouds (or coastal fog)

Charles Darwin's ecological experiment on Ascension isle

Howard Falcon-Lang Science reporter, BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11137903

• 1850 – a barren volcanic island, buffeted by dry trade winds

• Darwin got Hooker of Kew Gardens & Navy to deposit trees regularly to capture rain & reduce evaporation

• By late 1870s vegetation had run riot on “Green Mountain”

ALSO: Green Deserts CharityAbu Dhabi: Tree planting project “first rainfall in living memory.”

Rodrigues: Removed trees, rains stopped. Re-planted, rains returned.

http://operationoasis.com/

Growing interest in the effect of re-vegetation on rainfall

6. Spread of self-sustaining vegetation

Ascension Island Governmenthttp://www.ascension-island.gov.ac/about

ASCENSION ISLAND TODAYPhoto by Simon and Tracey

Watts (TheWatts on Flickr CC)

http://www.greenfudge.org/2010/09/03/how-charles-darwin-transformed-a-desert-island-into-

a-lush-green-oasis/

“The highest point, Green Mountain, at 2818 ft is covered with lush vegetation most of which was introduced in the 1800s.

Much of the island has become green in recent years…”

Local endorsement of potency & plausibility

Plausible

Economics• Tankering over 20-times cheaper than

local processing(South West Water, Baltic Exchange, Port World)

• Value of local biogas pays for tankering 1½ times over (Thames Water)

• Agricultural profit/15km2 £3.5M in first two years, times 12 in 12 years (SAIIA)

• Land value increase/15km2 £80M (Civilization's Future)

4 PhasesNett economic & social benefits

Cost Value Nett Gain

Phase 1 - Preparation

-£439,537 £583,000 £143,463

Phase 2 - Infrastructure Assembly

-£766,498 £773,000 £6,502

Phase 3 - Establishment of Coastal Vegetation *

-£7,597,093 £111,881,000 £104,283,907

Phase 4 - Extension of Agroforestry Inland *

-£4,287,874 £90,886,750 £86,598,876

* Repeat for 15 km2 plots

Presented at…

15-21 Nov 2010

18th November 2010

Social Enterprise DayGlobal Entrepreneurship Week

It emerged that…

Scientific & Technical Advisory Board

1st February 2011

Currently…

InternationalFunding

Application

A shared way forwardA shared way forwardA shared way forward

A shared way forward

Potential to unite behind positive action

• Climate sceptics & activists

• MEDCs & LEDCs (More/Less Economically Developed Countries)

• Oil companies & critics

• Oil states & western nations

• Excess CO2 scarce resources

• Develop economies in partnership, our CO2 needed supplies

• PR + future energy

• Remove pollution, create successor to oil

Threats Benefits?

WasteDesert

ConflictP

FoodFuel

WealthJobs

What do these have in common?

George Osborne’s budget speech

“…we should resolve that the rest of the country becomes a world leader in advanced manufacturing, life sciences, creative industries, business services, green energy and so much more…”

“So this is our plan for growth. We want the words: ‘Made in Britain’ ‘Created in Britain’ ‘Designed in Britain’ ‘Invented in Britain’ To drive our nation forward.”

Government response, so far (simplified)

APPCCGEmployment

http://tinyurl.com/govt-resp

£££££££££££££££££££££££

After 6 months…

Please sign our letter…