Geoff Lawton: Permaculture & The Tipping Point

Over the past several years I have watched several absolutely fascinating films by this man.

He is clearly attempting to improve our lives………… and save the lives of our children and grandchildren.

I have got to find his film about how simply getting farms to NOT burn the stocks from the previous year's crop….. but instead use them as a mulch that holds in water…… can profoundly alter how we view the possibility of turning deserts green.


Geoff Lawton: Permaculture & The Tipping Point
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1la9ik-MscM

 

This nine minute video altered my view of the world, climate change, and the possibility of feeding the hungry people of the world within a decade or three or so!

Combined with initiatives like the Sahara Forest Project this could well turn out to be the least expensive way to protect cities like New Orleans from the threat of rising ocean levels.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzTHjlueqFI
Greening the Desert with Geoff Lawton, Original and Update: 1 of 4
(69,993 views)

"You can fix all the world's problems, in a garden." (Geoff Lawton)

 

Or you could build a wall.

Deserts are vibrant ecosystems already so I am astonished at how you treehuggers are so willing to wipe out thousands of species for your global warming cause.

Absolutely sickening how you have no respect for nature.

Just like how you are willing to slaughter our eagle population for your stupid windmills.

 

I admit it!

I am a hypocrite when it comes to climate change……. i would gladly support a plan that would wipe out perhaps half of the population of
Fattail Scorpions from North Africa and the Middle East, IF……. by doing so we could save the lives of millions of children who are likely to perish due to malnutrition!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fattail_scorpion

 

Do you realize that Antarctica is the second largest continent in the world and is completely covered in ice? If that ice were to go away and we turned that into nothing but farmland that nobody would ever go hungry?

Try thinking outside of the box here.

 

LOL!

In a way…… the cracking and sliding of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet gives us a powerful motivation to want to desalinate ocean water on a massive scale and divert it into the water table of North Africa, the Middle East, Australia, Nevada and Mexico.

More effectively using that desalinated water by applying the Geoff Lawton Permaculture principles……. will make the whole venture more cost effective.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090205142132.htm
Collapse Of Antarctic Ice Sheet Would Likely Put Washington, D.C. Largely Underwater

 

I admit it…………….. my grandmother's last name on dad's side of the family was MacDonald……… i am partly Scottish…….. and I am cheap…….. I figure it is less expensive to desalinate water…… produce food….. sell the food………. as a possible lower cost alternative to building walls???!

Also…….. getting people in the Middle East distracted by farming and making money………. is less expensive than wars over the long term?!

http://www.politicalforum.com/opini...saving-new-orleans-florida-rising-oceans.html
The Sahara Forest Project...and saving New Orleans and Florida from rising oceans!
Did you know that there is an Islamic prophecy that the Islamic desert regions would be turned green in the latter days?????

This topic is of special interest to me because I live about a hundred miles from the Bay of Fundy. I live five kms from the ocean on the eastern part of Nova Scotia. In my area the difference between low tide to high tide is about one meter! The land form of the Bay of Fundy has a funnelling effect on tidal waters and so parts of the Fundy have a difference of fifteen to seventeen meters between low to high tide!

The question on my mind would be if ocean levels were to rise about thirty centimeters in my part of Nova Scotia, would they rise by four or five meters along parts of the Fundy????

There are 143,000 acres of farmland taken back from the Fundy by dikes that are probably in the position of the proverbial canary in a coal mine in relation to rising ocean levels!

Every cubic meter of H2O added to the water table of nations in the Middle EAst will NOT be on top of New Orleans, Florida, Holland, Bangladesh or those 143,000 acres along the Fundy!!!!!

I felt a huge sense of relief when I first heard about The Sahara Forest Project!


https://www.facebook.com/SaharaForestProject
Sahara Forest Project
April 19

http://www.angelfire.com/moon2/koran/index.blog?topic_id=1021110

 

The you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. One of the things that is driving desertification and pollution is the insistence on trying to force things to grow in less than optimal conditions for the vegetation being grown. If you want children to not die from malnutrition, then support removing immigration barriers that leave children living in the desert because they are black or Muslim or whatever. The whole idea of us feeding people instead of them being able to feed themselves is patronizing. Do you even feed yourself anything, or do you exist from the shelves of a grocery store or a table at Ruby Tuesday's or other processed corporate illusion that you are somehow feeding yourself by working for one corporation for paper to give another corporation?

 

Good points!

I find myself too busy to bother with a garden…… and the fact that the land near my home is highly acidic and seems to only support spruce trees doesn't help?!

Plus I kind of suspect that some of what I write might just turn out to be a far better investment of my time????!

http://www.politicalforum.com/canad...ts-take-937-those-syrian-refugees-canada.html
Mr. Justin Trudeau, let's take 937 of those Syrian refugees to Canada?

 

This post is highly confusing to me.

You want these people to take care of themselves or else feel we are being patronizing. However in the same post, almost the same sentence, you state that you want to knock down borders so hey can come to places like here, all so we can take care of them.

Utopian policies simply don't work, there is never a nice and tidy answer.

I am actually impressed by the OP, he is a realistic treehugger. You don't run into many of these, but he/she realizes there is a greater good in some decisions than in others.

To the OPs point, is a scorpion more important than X amount of human lives?

Extrapolate and you see how real world decisions are made. Is decision A with X casualties more optimum than decision B with Y casualties.

This is life

 

Also, OP.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying building desal plants where these "desert people" live is cheaper than building a wall to keep them out.

This is absolutely false, desals are horrendously expensive.

It may not be as humanitarian, but then it's back to my old post.

Is building a wall at X expense to save A Americans, more (fill in the blank) than building desal plants at Y expense to save B "desert people"

Now it becomes not only a mathematical choice, but a moral choice. How do you judge the cost of each life? Can you?

Such a tough problem it's easy to see why there are massively differing opinions.

 

we could adequetly feed 9 billion people with just the existing arable land in africa alone, world hunger would still exist if you turn the deserts green

 

There are parts of the Sahara Desert that are virtually impossible to turn green due to the air currents but…………. it still could be possible to raise the water tables even in these areas and perhaps make it possible for some types of plants, (perhaps some types of bamboo that grow their deep root structure for nearly five years, before they shoot rapidly upward above ground).

Fear over the rapid cracking and sliding of the W. A. I. S. could lead to us altering our our economy to place a much higher value on human life.

The more I research climate change the more surprises I run into.

http://www.politicalforum.com/science/394228-ocean-acidification.html
Ocean acidification...



This trend of the oceans becoming more acidic could in fact be more dangerous even than global warming.

A number of breeds of snails now have very weak shells.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

 

Ok, sure, all looks like great science and it could actually work.

But you really think you can sell this massively expensive ordeal to Americans, instead of building a simple wall?

The cost is flat out enormous for a terraforming project you are thinking of.

Sadly people are selfish, depending on our resources people will get more and more selfish. When ish really hits the fan, the idea of "kill them instead of feed them" will start to take root.

There are literally dozens of examples of this in history.

The only reason Americans and many westerners are so giving is because the have so much. When we start to lose it, it's gone change.

 

A perfect example of this is Italy.

When it gets bad enough, people shut the doors and burn their passage ways (boats).

Humanitarianism is great until it starts to actually affect people. Even liberal places such as Europe look incredibly two faced when they turn away Libyans, yet lambast us for not taking Mexicans.

 

Arid ares will support some people, just not as many people. Borders also interfere with seasonal migration. The nomadic culture evolved out of necessity.

 

Seasonal migration? That's your stance now?

Well my answer would be as a person who doesn't seasonally migrate, I don't care. They feel they have a right to the resources I use, and I don't.

Hence we have conflict. Actually it would make more sense for the nomads to figure it out and start their own city centers.

Nomadic cultures evolving out of "necessity" is completely false. Basically the only nomads left on earth do so out of choice

 

It's not environmental it's political and economic. Political systems that employ command economies are inefficient except in starving the human with in them.

Cheers
Labour

 

My position is unchanged. With open borders people who want to stay can stay; people who want to leave can leave; and people who want to seasonally migrate can do that. Animals migrate with the weather. People who eat animals had to migrate with the animals. There is nothing "completely false" about it. Your idea that people in the desert should just start cities is laughable.

 

Where are these nomads you speak of that "follow game". I would like you to post where this problem is happening. And a couple thousand years ago doesn't count.

Because no people have ever built a city in the desert?

It's sad how little respect you have for these people, very bigoted

 

A couple thousand years ago was where the culture was born so I can see why you are displaying such ignorance. You must think people migrated from west africa to south america on some Mountain Dew inspired road trip while in college.

 

Have you read about the Sahara Solar Breeder project?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Solar_Breeder_Project

http://www.ssb-foundation.com/

 

Having 50% of the world's electricity generated in a single location would present huge security and integrity issues.

 

Very true……… but we are talking here about doing this in ten or more separate nations………… and the actual facilities could be spread out over 2000 to 3000 miles just thinking in terms of east to west…………. not to mention north to south.

 

Thank you!

I would be honoured if you would take a look at the two submissions that I wrote up for the twenty five million dollar Virgin Earth Challenge that Sir Richard Branson, Mr. Al Gore, Dr. James Hansen and several others put together.

Yes…… I was being a little bit tongue in cheek but……. I was also actually being quite serious.

My second submission includes a quotation from New Mexico biologist and coach Carl Cantrell.


http://www.politicalforum.com/humor...ssions-25-million-virgin-earth-challenge.html
My two somewhat humorous submissions for $25 million Virgin Earth Challenge.

Back in 2007 Sir Richard Branson and Mr. Al Gore announced the Virgin Earth Challenge!

I had watched "An Inconvenient Truth" several times already and I was thinking about another angle on the subject that would fit better with Isaiah chapter 35.


http://www.virginearth.com/

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