The greatest battle on Earth has already begun and humans are losing it!

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!

Use of Wastewater Sludge for the Amendment of Crude Oil Bioremediation in Meso-Scale Beach Simulating Tanks

 Use of Wastewater Sludge for the Amendment of Crude Oil Bioremediation in Meso-Scale Beach Simulating Tanks
Authors: H. Maki; T. Sasaki; E. Sasaki; M. Ishihara; M. Goto; S. Harayama
DOI: 10.1080/09593332008616857
Publication Frequency: 14 issues per year
Published in: journal Environmental Technology, Volume 20, Issue 6 June 1999 , pages 625 - 632
Subjects: Biotechnology; Environment & the Developing World; Environmental Engineering; Environmental Geography; Environmental Sciences; Environmental Studies; Hydrology; Industry & Industrial Studies; Physical Geography; Waste Treatment & Disposal; Water Quality & Pollution; Water Supply & Treatment;
Formats available: PDF (English)
Previously published as: Environmental Technology Letters (0143-2060) until 1990

Abstract
We investigated the effects of the application of wastewater sludges on microbial degradation of crude oil. the experiments were carried out in four beach simulating tanks. In each tank, filled with gravel and seawater, crude oil was added on the surface of seawater. Dehydrated-wastewater sludge, liquid-wastewater sludge and synthetic fertilizers were added in tanks A, D and C, respectively. In tanks A and D, sharp increases in the bacterial number and the oxygen consumption occurred immediately while the increases in tank C was slower. The concentration of nitrogen was high during first few weeks and later decreased in tanks A and D. The synthetic nitrogen fertilizer was maintaining the nitrogen concentration above 1 mg l-1 for the whole experimental period. These observations indicated that the effect of the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer was more enduring than those of the liquid and dehydrated sludges. However, higher concentrations of phosphorous were supplied by both the liquid and dehydrated sludges than by the synthetic phosphorous fertilizer. No significant differences were observed between the biodegradation rates of crude oil in each amended tank. Thus, it was concluded that the wastewater sludges are useful as fertilizers for crude oil bioremediation.
Keywords: Crude oil; marine environment; microbial degradation; nutrient supply; wastewater sludge                                                                                

Tankers que for sewage plant

 
jaxtif — October 25, 2008 — these are the tankers filled with raw sewage water, and standing for minimum 8 hours to empty their tanks in Al Aweer sewage plant.
people will come to know the reason for the Tankers dumping water illegaly by watching this video. I captured it last week. and trust me this video is not from the starting. I ignored 1km of the que and started shooting from the midway. Enjoy!!! AND GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT

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Dubai sewage production rising

• United Arab Emirates: Monday, December 10 - 2007 at 17:07

Sewage production in Dubai is increasing by about 25 per cent a year and averages 480,000 cubic metres a day, head of sewage treatment plants in Dubai Municipality Aisha al-Abdooli told MEED's Wastewater Treatment & Reuse 2007 conference in Abu Dhabi.

• Doha North ponders sludge incineration
• Abu Dhabi to recycle all treated effluent
• Jebel Ali sewage plant to be built
• KSA pursues gradual water privatisation

She said that about 100,000 cubic metres a day of untreated sewage is being delivered in about 3,000 sewage tankers serving housing, industry and labour camps not connected to Dubai's main sewage system.

"The throughput in the Al-Aweer sewage treatment plant compares with its design capacity of 260,000 cubic metres a day," Al-Abdooli said.

One consequence is a deterioration in the quality of treated sewage effluent, she said. About 75 per cent is used in irrigation in Dubai and the rest is dumped in Dubai Creek.

Source: http://www.ameinfo.com/141407.html

Algeria burning the few trees left that enable clouds to cross onto the land?

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/8000/8007/Algeria_AMO_2007241_lrg.jpg
Click The image and study carefully this picture from Nasa Earth Observatory.

Those clouds from the ocean have crossed onto the land where the forest meets the ocean.

Look through the fires and see the tiny clouds crossing at the point where the forest abutts the coastline.

Now question why they burn the forests?

From Desert To Forest In Egypt Using Sewage and Wastewater

MINISTRY OF STATE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS EGYPTIAN ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS AGENCY Innovative Approach to Municipal Wastewater Management: The Egyptian ExperienceByDr. Mamdouh RiadMinister of State for Environmental AffairsMarch 2004
Introduction

The sustainable use of land and water resources is directly linked to food security, public health, and economic and social benefits. In many cases, the treated municipal wastewater represents an important water resource that could form a valuable national asset if properly and effectively used.

On the other hand, the uncontrolled municipal sewage discharge is one of the most serious forms of environmental pollution, and represents a clear threat to both human health and to sustainable development. In the majority of the low-income countries worldwide, the sewage effluents are normally disposed of through direct discharge into local waterways, rivers, lakes, or to the sea, sometimes without treatment.

Therefore, addressing the threats of uncontrolled municipal wastewater discharge has been identified as a priority for action in the 1995 Global Programme of Action (GPA) for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-Based Activities. This priority was further reconfirmed at the 2002 Millennium Summit and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.

Description of the Initiative

Egypt produces an estimated total of 2.4 billion cubic meters of municipal wastewater every year. The partial treatment of this large amount of sewage costs the government some 600 million Egyptian Pounds (the equivalent of US$100 million) annually.

In addition, Egypt has about 90% of its land area as desert, and suffers from an obvious lack of green cover and of forestry in its deserts and coastal areas. The green cover is largely needed for environmental reasons (climate change, desertification, etc.), and the forestry for economic reasons (Egypt now imports wood for its wood industry at an estimated value of about US$ 900 million annually).

Traditionally, there are two options to deal with the sewage problem: (a) to dispose of the treated sewage water by discharging it to a nearby desert land, where there is a high risk of land and ground-water pollution, or (b) to discharge the treated sewage to the sea and coastal lakes, either directly or indirectly through inland waterways and drainage canals, where there is also a high risk to human health and to the marine environment.

However, Egypt opted to take an innovative approach in responding to these daunting environmental challenges that, while will enable it to deal with such a huge amount of municipal wastewater, will also help transforming its “wasted” desert land into forests and hence increase its green cover.

To this effect, the Egyptian Government, has, since the early 1990s introduced its national plan for the re-use of its wastewater, and developed the practice of establishing on a pilot scale man-made forests of timber trees that are irrigated using treated sewage water in various desert sites nationwide, adjacent to some highly or moderately populated towns.




These pilot experiments were carried out at several locations, under different soil, weather, and environmental conditions. At present 13 forests have been established in different areas in the Governorates of Ismailia, Menoufia, Giza, Alexandria, and Dakahlia, in Lower Egypt, in Luxor, Qena and Aswan in Upper Egypt, as well as in the New Valley in the Western Desert and in South Sinai (see Map), with a total planned area of about 6,000 Feddan (equivalent to about 2700 Hectares).

The pilot experiments undertaken thus far have proved to be extremely successful, and demonstrated very promising results, with numerous environmental, economic and social benefits.

Several partners and stakeholders have been involved with the Egyptian Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs in this initiative, mainly the Ministries of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Local Government, Electricity, Water Resources and Irrigation. The local communities and farmers have been actively involved in the different stages of establishing and in operating these forests.

Mainstreaming and Sustainability of the Approach

The Egyptian approach described above could be summarized by the following formula:

WASTEWATER + WASTE LAND = GREEN TREES
(Treated Sewage) (Sandy Desert Soil) (Forest Plantation)

Applying this innovative approach of re-using treated sewage water is considered a safeguard against human and environmental health problems caused by the traditional approach to the sewage problem by discharging it either to land or water bodies. The Egyptian Government plans to expand and build upon the success of the pilot phase and mainstream this practice into national policies for combating pollution and increasing green areas as stipulated in the National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP).

This practical approach, in addition to dealing with the problems of sewage and desertification, and further to its obvious economic benefits, it effectively addresses several important environmental and sustainable development objectives, including:

- Reduction of pollution loads to the marine, coastal and desert environment
- Protection of coastal and marine habitats and biodiversity
- Increase availability of water for development
- Reduce CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere
- Build and Enhance capacity of local and national expertise
- Use of innovative and effective approaches in municipal wastewater management
- Achieve the objectives of the GPA and the Strategic Action Plan on Municipal Wastewater at the national level.
- Insure long-term sustainability of the project through the use of the income generated from the forests’ timber wood and the associated supplementary projects.

The beneficiaries of such forests cover a wide range of public and private sectors of the society, including:

a) the general public through providing cleaner and healthier environment,
b) the professionals working in this field, by providing details on the design and management of environmentally-sound wastewater-irrigated timber tree plantations,
c) the private sector investors involved in the implementation of the project through creating investment opportunities,
d) The local citizens, through providing a wide range of job opportunities and training,
e) the local municipalities through enhancing its role in environmental management.

Having spent several years talking to Doctor Eldaz at the Egyptian Embassy In London, about the logic of using sewage and waste water to reclaim vast areas of desert by turning them into forests, I was delighted to find that several pilot reforesting projects have been conducted and proven very productive, solving pollution, desertification, and providing fodder and timber while the sandy soil is returned once again to fertile soil.

Looks like my hardwork paid off eventually. Now for the next innovative move and use the massive waste water problem from Europe to reclaim massive areas of coastline.

I am absolutely delighted at finding this paper.

Financial Viability and Economics of the initiative

Feasibility studies undertaken in connection with pilot experiments have shown that man-made forests, besides being environmentally sound, are of enormous economic benefit. The tree varieties selected for plantation have high economic value in timber production, and the forest can yield wood production in a period ranging from 10 to 15 years, depending on the type of tree and the weather conditions in each area. The experiments have been successfully implemented at different sites on a pilot scale.

Replicability

The ultimate goal is to further develop and introduce this practical approach in other areas of the country, where municipal sewage represents a current and potential problem and threat to the health and well being of the humans and the environment. The outputs and the experience gained from the project could be replicated in other sites, and the know-how transferred to other countries with similar environmental and social conditions.

Expanding deserts are "The Real Cause Of Global Warming"!

Forget Co2,methane, etc.

The real problem is the loss of vegetation from vast areas of once fertile and productive land, now transformed into arid environments that have a huge resulting deficit in rainfall, and when it does rain in these areas, flash floods cause even more of the fertile soil to be washed away. Arid lands heat up and return the suns energy to the atmosphere and cool rapidly at night. The returned heat to the atmosphere than goes on to have a serious effect on the weather patterns.

Hell, if it's not raining in the new deserts where is all that extra rain going to fall? You got it! on a land that has tree and grass cover, producing the now ever more familiar floods, while other parts of the world experience the opposite. Cutting co2 output isn’t going to do jack to help the changing weather patterns, in fact making the air cleaner is going to help the suns energy to reach the sandy soils more effectively if anything.

But there we go.

Address the ever expanding deserts by arresting their progress and reversing the loss of vegetation and we shall see a more even distribution of annual rainfall, while at the same time provide areas of land for growing food, oil crops, and forestry to feed the starving millions, generate employment and wealth.

None of the past great civilisations realised this simpe code of survival! All of them perrished by over exploiting the soils! We are now doing it on a global scale so where the feck do we go? Mars?

Every house built, every road layed, every driveway, every runway, every car park,every factory, every warehouse,every vehicle roof and bonnet, all return heat back to the atmosphere. This needs to be offset now by reforesting the deserts!


Andrew K Fletcher

Bones In The Sand

The ice age was probably brought about by changes in weather due initially to global warming and the removal of vegetation, for example the giant freshwater lake in Canada released onto the ocean surface down the St Lawrence river is thought to have caused the Atlantic conveyor system that drives not only the ocean currents but the world’s weather to grind to a halt, this is said to have caused a catastrophic drop in temperature following the warming that released it.

Here again the temperatures are rising and the caps melting spilling onto the oceans surface, diluting the surface water and interrupting the saline flow and return system that effectively drives the massive flow of sea water to the equator and back.

Huge volcanoes and Earthquakes fail to come close to mans disease on the soil. Deserts and desertification pose more problems than any short-term catastrophic disaster, no matter how spectacular. Take the dustbowl in America for example. Ignore the signs and continue to overexploit the soils and they will blow away leaving behind a desert.
The ancient Egyptians, the Anastasian Indians, the Incas, the Chinese, the Mesopotamians, have perished and their bones tell the story of impoverished diets, disease and starvation. Many more have left their feeble irrigation channels buried beneath the drifting sands.

The dinosaurs became exports at degrading their environment, impressive sizes were reached as more and more efficient plant eaters evolved. Is it a coincidence that many of their bones are found not in lush green forested areas but in sands devoid of vegetation?

If we don’t address the expanding deserts soon we won’t be on this planet for much longer!

Wind power is a smart move to generate electricity reducing pollution significantly but with all due respect it cannot address the worlds inherent lack of fertile soil and failing rainfall, coupled with the all too familiar flash floods and imbalance in rain distribution.

More forests planted along the desert coastlines will permit the ocean born moisture to cross onto the land and cause rain to fall where it is needed most and therefore relieving the burden of too much rainfall in other areas that are still forested.

As the forests grow with or without mans help rain clouds will begin to pass inland to feed more forest rather than falling where they are not needed by vegetation. As the clouds cross the dry deserts the air will cool and the suns energy will be prevented from heating up the sandy soils shaded by the airborne moisture. Then global temperatures will fall.

Raining In The Main Hollidays In Britain

An observation over 21 years living in Paignton.

Holiday main seasons down comes the rain. It can be dry for weeks on end and as soon as the motorists arrive in their drives the rain arrives. Now it could be a coincidence but it happens too often IMO.

So what changes have occurred that might be responsible for causing it to rain?

1. Sometimes along our particular part of the coast we are privileged to be visited by some unusual clouds rolling along the coastline. They do not cross over the hot dry coastline beyond the black tarmac road. So one side is shrouded in mist, the other side is a bright sunshine day with clear air. This can last for many hours as the mist rolls around like washing in a tumble dryer and is channelled along the coast.
2. Where the trees meet the sea mist rolls inland and hugs the wooded areas but goes no further than the tree line does. Walking in the trees on these particular days the temperature is several degrees below that outside of the trees and the air is saturated with water, the trees are dripping and the ground is moistened.
3. When the mist finally vanishes it remains shrouding the trees and the trees milk the remaining water from the air over several hours more
4. Thermals rising from the hot tarmac road can be seen as you drive along it. You can see the wavy thermal pattern as the heat rises. These thermals rise high into the atmosphere and form an invisible barrier against ocean born humidity. These same thermals cause the same barrier along desert coastlines and are undoubtedly responsible for the inherent lack of rainfall in these areas.
5. Trees transpire vast amounts of water into the atmosphere and in doing so remove the thermal barrier that prevents cloud and mist from crossing onto the land. They lower the temperature and as warm moist air rises it is cooled causing a downdraught which causes warm air to rise in a density flow and indeed this can be seen happening at times when dew point has been reached.
6. The holiday traffic involves a massive increase in vehicles cruising along the hot roads. These obviously provide some shadow and while they are moving along they remain cooled by the moistened air flowing over them from the exhaust emissions of other vehicles so an overall reduction in temperatures due to traffic is offset against the heat generated by the engine and the friction from the transmission, brakes and tyres.
7. The exhaust emissions contain collectively a vast amount of warm water released into the atmosphere along with particles which rise due to the heat from combustion. These gasses quickly cool transferring the heat into the atmosphere and fall back towards the ground while the dry hot air rises again generating the same flow and return system that the trees perform.
8. This additional water from exhausts also blocks out some of the suns energy and like the trees removes the thermal barrier so moisture from the ocean can again cross onto the land and fall as rain, and rain it does with incredible regularity.

So the old adage said to holiday makers with regularity “you have brought the bad weather with you may have a lot of truth in it after all.

GLOBAL WARMING ACT NOW!

Heard on the radio this morning, Radio 4 that is :) (if I heard correct) the pollution equates to around 450 thousand vehicles over one year of driving.
There is a huge plume of black smoke over California apparently and people are urged to stay indoors and not to exercise outdoors.

Where on earth did they come up with the figure 450 thousand vehicles? Do they mean trucks, cars, or motorcycles? So I did a quick sear using these terms radio4 pollution 450000 and low and behold the figure 450000 appears quite a lot over a whole heap of subjects, possibly some statisticians favourite number.

I doubt we shall see the true figure. For example, if it rains heavily the pollution is removed from the air, unlike 450000 vehicles used daily for a year where the pollution is constant.

I also heard that to prevent fires happening and causing as much damage in the future, huge swathes of trees need to be removed from around properties?

They just don't get it do they. The problem is not the trees, it is the human encroachment. That Old song, It never rains in California rings true here, but why? Because these stupid people have removed the forests from the coastlines which cause it to rain by removing the thermal barrier along the coast that lowers air pressure sufficiently to allow moisture from the ocean to cross on to the land!

Remove the trees? Right, does history tell these morons anything? What happens now the fires have ravaged the lands? More trees and scrub will establish itself over the next few years and more fires will happen more frequently eventually causing the soils precious remaining organic material to be dedicated and blown away in the wind. REMEMBER THE AMEICAN DUST BOWEL? http://www.learningfromlyrics.org/dustbo8%5b1%5d.jpg

The magnificent Giant Californian Redwoods stand as witness to the logic of maintaining coastal forest, These ancient trees when left alone do not burn down, but continue to grow spectacularly, year in year out. Moisture is observed to cross over onto the land here and provides the huge volumes of water these wonders of nature require.

Can we not learn how to live in harmony with nature? Australia has completely devastated its natural living resources. Slash and burn has been long admired as land management by the Aborigines and adopted by the sheep farmers. The end result is always the same, massive deserts growing now at rates we could never have anticipated in the past. But we should have been able to anticipate them! There are many fossils of plant eating creatures found in deserts. What happened to the lands?

They did exactly the same as stupid humans are doing now but much slower. They removed the vegetation from the coastlines and then the rains stopped just as they are stopping all over the world right now! Once the rains no longer fall on the inland forests they become tinder dry! Sound familiar yet? After many fires the soil becomes so poor the wind blows away the remaining organic matter until all that is left is dust and sand, eventually the dust is all blown away into the ocean or on our car windscreens here in the UK and the rest of Europe until all that remains are the larger particles SAND!

Deserts can be both hot and cold. Hot deserts heat up the air around them to scorching temperatures this causes thermals to rise and more air to be sucked in to replace it. This is known as the Hadley Cell. Again it is a density flow system using gas rather than fluids but the principles are exactly the same. This causes air to be recycled within the desert rather than cooling cloud cover blocking out the suns energy. This is the real source of global warming. The deserts are the cylinder heads of this vehicle to our own extinction and just like the dinosaurs our own bones will be buried in the sands just like those found in the Atacama desert, one of the driest places on earth. http://www.extremescience.com/images/mumia2.jpg

I was in Spain a while back, it rained every night, but only once in the day. The weather was very warm and dry, yet at night rain came in from the ocean and covered an amazing forested area that runs right up to the coast stretching for more than 25 miles of the most amazing picturesque landscapes, this was as far as we travelled miles. The area was East of Loret da Mar, Costa Brava, along the coastal road. Friends were staying West about 40 –45 miles from us at the same time. While it didn’t rain at all for them, they had clear blue cloudless skies and scorched landscape and very little precious tree cover close to the coast in Reus, a tightly packed heavily built up area with lots of buildings, tarmac and concrete, (Manufactured deserts)

In deserts when it does rain it often rains hard as a rapid cooling effect takes place on the hot air sucking in huge volumes of moisture which cools rapidly and delivers vast quantities of rain rapidly. The ground is not able to deal with deluges of this nature as the capacity of the organic material in the soil to hold onto the water has long since gone. The results are devastating flash floods and sure enough this had happened near where our friends were staying, there was much evidence of destruction, cars washed over the edges of roads etc. But while our friends stayed there not a drop of rain fell in this area when a week before it was pelted with torrential rain. The same has happened in many places throughout the world.

Reducing emissions is child splay compared to the real task at hand if we are even to begin slowing down global warming we must act now and reclaim desert coastal areas by planting billions of trees along the edges of the worlds deserts. To do this we need water and organic material in order to create a fertile crust above the deep sands, otherwise irrigation water will simply evaporate from the surface leaving behind a crust of salt or sink below the surface and cause the ground water to become salty. Replacing organic material in the soil can be done by using the excess human and animal bodily waste in sewage and waste water, which is currently dumped in rivers and oceans throughout the world, or processed expensively where the effluent is still released into the oceans and rivers and the solids are disposed of in landfill.

We currently have a network of huge crude oil carrying ships, VLCC’s and ULCC’s that use sea water as ballast in order to lower their massive structures back into the water after delivering massive cargoes of crude oil to the developed and developing countries. It would be so simple to fill these ships with a cargo of humanure and animal manure enriched water full of essential fats and organic materials to replenish the lost material from the desert sands. And more to the point will eliminate the need to treat this sewage problem other than the removal of unwanted plastics etc and reduce our phenomenal water rate bills into the bargain, while eradicating pollution at a stroke.

Ironically these crude carriers are returning to deserts in North and South Africa and the Middle East where the inherent lack of water prevents reforesting huge areas. Even so many of these countries are using their own wastewater to reforest and reclaim deserts by growing trees in soils irrigated with the waste water from populated areas.

Once sufficient coastal areas have been covered in trees, the thermal barrier that is in place at the moment will be effectively gone. Moisture from the ocean can now cross onto the land and the tree cover vastly reduces the surface temperature of the land enabling moisture to be milked from the sky by the low pressures that develop from irrigation and forestry.

If we only realised now that the deserts represent some of the biggest challenges for humanity and in fact our own salvation, we might begin to address this impending Armageddon we have unleashed upon this fragile world and all its inhabitants.

I have written a book about this whole scenario and require a publisher in order to progress it to the minds of people that can change policy and put this amazingly simple project into practice for the benefit of everyone.

Andrew K Fletcher