If we are to survive on this planet, we will need the help of all nations pulling together. Those barren lands we call deserts are the key to global warming and without the cooperation of people living in arid lands we are well and truly screwed. Eventually we will realise the need to manage our soils and lands better than we have ever done in the past and convert them into fertile lands to help cool the planet and feed the ever increasing populations. The Sahara Desert covers an area of approximately 3.5 million square miles. Imagine if this was restored to fertility and instead of sand and rocks we had forests, lakes and rivers.
History tells us that It is politicians who determine whether we are at peace or at war. Soldiers do not want to kill people and risk being killed. They would be equally comfortable with melting down their weapons and turning them into the tools to make this world a far better place. As a child in the UK, we were all taught that the cowboys were the good guys and the Indians were bad. We were taught that the Zulu’s were savages and our soldiers were brave and outnumbered. As the years roll by we gather evidence to suggest the contrary is reality where cowboys and cavalry are the true invaders commanded by the politicians to grab the land from the indigenous peoples and farm it. The Africans were slaughtered in their tens of thousands to pave way for the “civilised world” to rip the heart out of Africa. Slash and burn mentality impoverishes the soils which are blown away on the wind or washed into the ocean by flash floods. One would think that we might have learned something, given the history of mankinds miserable attempts at soil stewardship. Ancient civilisations have all perished leaving behind their monumental pyramids and stone pillars as epitaphs to their follies, as a warning for all to see. Is Dubai yet another modern version of those follies? Did the dinosaurs overexploit their own environment and initiate global warming just as we are now doing?
Politicians can and have done a great deal of good work, so let us hope that a concerted assault on the worlds impoverished soils will transform them into fertile productive lands for the greatest battle on Earth has already begun and humans are losing it!
