Climate Basics Podcast Episode 11 notes

 



So in 2007 the great green wall project started. AU, UN, etc. all working together to plant 100 million hectares of trees.

All sorts of issues get in the way: war, coups, militant groups
Climate too: this whole thing started because the Sahara is growing, taking farmland and livelihoods with it. Droughts, Heatwaves, Fires all convene with social factors to make it an extremely difficult place to do development.


Since 2007, the UN has had a program called the African Green Wall, which is an initiative to stop the Sahara desert from growing in the Sahel region, which is a section right across the continent, from east to west, located in the upper third of the continent.

In that region spanning various countries, the desert has grown over time and forced many peoples to leave because as the land loses vegetation, becomes brittle and non-arable, the ground is unable to absorb much water from the monsoon season, leading to wash-outs of the topsoil and further erosion.

1. This Program is Needed.

Although progress is not linear, the overall concept of the idea is good, though with many challenges.  Each country has unique issues (including localized conflicts) but each country does want to reclaim desert land and to make their land more productive and more livable.

2. New Tech can help the Program Succeed.

Only recently, there are two new monitoring systems which are using satellite images to track whether participant countries are, in fact, doing the planting they report / receive funding for, etc.

Different from 2007, there is now CHEAP SOLAR which can provide some relief in these areas seeking to reforest.  Whether it is agrovoltaic (growing crops / vegetation under panels, which are offering shade) or simply providing electricity to regions that are seeking to stabilize, solar will be and is a game-changer.

3. The Techniques are Simple but the Effect is Large.

At its core, reclaiming desert is about creating slight berms to capture some monsoon rain runoff, to allow the ground to properly absorb water.  This provides important water to the topsoil, as well as helping to replenish the water table (underground).

Then you "seed" the berms.

That's it, job done.

Visiting the earliest sites (i.e. closer to 2007) shows heavy vegetation (after rainfalls) in the most successful areas.

These simple, age-old remedies to slightly sculpt the land to receive and retain water...are important and they work.

Shownotes for Ep. 11:
https://www.zeroby2050.ca/post/climate-basics-podcast-ep-11-africa-s-great-green-wall 

"Good News" segment's introduction song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGg2oQ4mrzY - kidsrhymes  
@kidsrhymesp

https://earth.org/the-great-green-wall-legacy/ 


https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/45305-doc-AU_GGW_Axis_4_Summary_21_08_25_ONLINE.pdf 

https://www.tralac.org/documents/resources/african-union/5848-au-great-green-wall-initiative-strategy-and-ten-year-implementation-framework-2024-2034/file.html 


https://standrewseconomist.com/2025/01/31/progress-or-empty-promises-the-realities-of-africas-great-green-wall/ 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ep 16 Show Notes: Could Big Insurance Become a Climate Ally? Risk Assessment & Adaptations to Climate Change

How is the insurance industry being impacted by climate change?  TLDR - it’s bad.  Insurance has started a process of contraction - withdrawing coverage from policies and areas of high risk, like flooding, wildfires, and storm damages, in order to protect their own bottom line. Companies insuring high-risk homes have cancelled contracts with paying customers or reduced that their contracts will cover, cutting private insurance out of whole regions - leaving homeowners uninsured or dependent on state-sponsored insurance alternatives.  Meanwhile, Insurance as a whole is still growing. That isn’t because they’re covering more properties, but because they invest in stocks, bonds and mutual funds just like any other private equity, and they make good money more reliably doing that than they could from the increasingly unstable insurance sector. Just the life insurance sector alone reached 35 trillion dollars in assets back in 2022. They are making money from the money they alr...
Read more

Deep Dive: Insurers Warn Themselves, the Old Models Likely Wrong, as Earth is Warming Faster (March, 2026).

  Summary of this Deep Dive: This video discusses a 2024 report titled Climate Scorpion , a collaborative effort between the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) and the University of Exeter . The report examines how the insurance and risk assessment industries are re-evaluating their models in light of accelerating climate change. Key Takeaways: Shifting Risk Curves:  The video uses an infographic ( 0:51 ) to explain how weather event distributions have changed. A "century storm"—previously a rare, low-probability, high-severity event—is now becoming a standard expectation for annual occurrences ( 2:40 - 3:00 ). The "Sting" of Climate Change:  The report highlights that global warming is driving more frequent and severe weather, such as floods and hurricanes. This is caused by increased thermal energy in the oceans converting into kinetic energy ( 0:35 - 0:53 ). Insurers Reassessing Models:  The insurance industry is warning itself that historical models used...
Read more

Climate Basics Podcast Episode 20 notes

Water scarcity & Desalination: First, let’s talk about why desalinisation is necessary. Essentially water - fresh water drinkable water - has always been a key factor in survival, that's for anyone, humans especially. Traditionally, when you look back on history where there's water, that's where people have put their settlements. That's why so many of the greatest cities in the world are coastal or on huge rivers. The default regular supply of fresh water is what allowed those big populations to flourish and go centers of industry to take hold. You might not realize it but machines actually use a lot of water too, especially in construction and materials fabrication as well as in the production of various chemicals. You can only grow so large until you get to a point where you're utilizing all of the fresh water that's available to you nearby that's when Society started building aqueducts in rome, qanats in arabia and persia, canals in china and sout...
Read more