Positive
News Release 13/02/12
Operation OASIS
Operation OASIS
The
FREdome Visionary Trust is convening a second All Party Parliamentary
Meeting at the Houses of Parliament on the 7th
of March 2012 at 4pm, in the Jubilee Room, House of Commons, Palace
of Westminster, LONDON SW1A 0AA UK, on the economic
and environmental merits of Operation OASIS. Contact:
Greg Peachey to reserve your seat with CEO's and business leaders
from Leading Companies and hear what they have to say about our plan
to lead us out of recession with sustainable growth. Tel:
+441727823131 Email: Greg AT FREdome.org
Summary
(Are
we flushing our chances of recovery down the toilet?)
- For thousands of years humanity has farmed the land and failed to stop the onset of desertification due to poor soil and irrigation water management.
- Food and fuel prices are out of control as crops continue to fail and fossil fuels are being exhausted.
- Drought and famine are becoming acceptable failures and millions of people are again staring death in the face.
- Deserts are expanding and farmers are forced to migrate to cities; pollution is inevitable from our consume-and-dump-lifestyle.
- Unemployment is rising and economies are teetering on the brink of economic meltdown.
- Flash floods and forest fires are becoming all too familiar as uneven distribution of rainfall wreaks havoc. Erosion of top soil spills into rivers and pours into the ocean along with wastewater from our toilets.
- If business as usual continues unchecked and these trends continue, our very survival is threatened and we are destined to go the way of the dinosaurs!
U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon We are running out of time! Davos, Switzerland, 28 January 2011 - Secretary-General's remarks to the World Economic Forum Session on Redefining Sustainable Development
For
most of the last century, economic growth was fuelled by what seemed
to be a certain truth: the abundance of natural resources. We mined
our way to growth. We burned our way to prosperity. We believed in
consumption without consequences. Those days are gone. In the 21st
century, supplies are running short and the global thermostat is
running high. Climate change is also showing us that the old
model is more than obsolete. It has rendered it extremely dangerous.
Over time, that model is a recipe for national disaster. It is a
global suicide pact. So what do we do in this current challenging
situation? How do we create growth in a resource constrained
environment? How do we lift people out of poverty while protecting
the planet and ecosystems that support economic growth? How do we
regain the balance? All
of this requires rethinking.
Super
Tankers to become the environment’s best allies
The
Solution
Operation
OASIS is a project that solves each of the above problems by taking
the surplus treated wastewater from countries that produce excess to
arid coastlines in returning supertankers as ballast. 1/3 of a
tankers capacity is used to transport sea water as ballast in
segregated ballast tanks, back to countries affected by
desertification where it is discharged into distant coastal waters
often introducing invasive species which destroy marine life and fish
stocks.
Our
proposal is to substitute sea water for treated wastewater, which
will ultimately be used for restoring coastal forests and vegetation
in arid coastal zones, to restore soils and increase rainfall,
removing the wastewater that pollutes developed countries’
coastlines.
Are
We All Doing our Business in line with natures plan?
Animals,
through digesting seeds and depositing them in the soil, assist the
natural regeneration of many tree and plant species. If we copy their
example, our own manure and urine (Humanure) would return the water,
nutrients and organic matter required to transform the arid sand and
stones into rich, life-supporting, water-retaining soil, putting an
end to marine pollution and building sustainable farming and forestry
industries to provide employment that supplies food, fuel and energy
for our expanding populations.
Operation
OASIS approaches the desertification problem from the coastlines and
focusses on restoring coastal forests to draw in moisture from the
ocean by moving the thermal barrier inland to draw in further
moisture and precipitation to support reforestation and agriculture.
In addition we intend to use fog nets to recycle ocean borne fog,
transpiration and evaporated irrigation water back to the soil, and
for producing potable water. Everyone
knows you can't make it rain in the desert but you can turn the
desert into a rainforest!
More
details:
The
return ballast capacity of tankers is currently used for transporting
billions of tonnes of sea water a year, which ultimately is
discharged back into the ocean at great cost to the environment and
to our fuel prices. Sterilisation of sea water ballast is a primary
concern for the reduction in the introduction of invasive species.
Sterilisation plants are being installed on VLCC's and ULCC's costing
£billions to shipping,
Together
with running costs and delays caused by processing the sea water,
this is a significant burden on bulk shipping, that adds to the cost
of fuel and an unnecessary waste of resources.
A
third of all land claimed by desert is an understatement of the
severity of arable soil losses; even in East Anglia we can see this
effect with prolonged droughts due to the removal of trees and
hedgerows, intensive monoculture cash crops and farming's over
reliance on chemical fertilizers.
The
reason that water transportation to arid areas is not yet a major
issue is that no one as yet is addressing this most fundamental
requirement for sustaining life in arid coastal regions affected by
an inherent and obvious lack of water! Israel, who currently lead the
field of irrigation and desert reclamation have seriously depleted
ground water and rivers in a bid to reforest arid land. Israel are
also using waste water as are many other countries, including Egypt,
Spain, Italy,
Morocco, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Portugal etc. The main
problem is that despite this, there is simply not enough indigenous
irrigation and waste water to address the massive problems of drought
and desertification.
Reusing
treated waste water in countries affected by desertification is in
wide use, becoming more common and is proven to work well with soils
devoid of organic material for both reforestation and agriculture.
We
are proposing a pilot project in Andalucia Spain using towable
flexible water barges to move waste water from source to reforest and
restore the soil as a sustainable economical solution to increasing
worthwhile employment in this region. The City of Santa Pola are
behind the project and have already suggested suitable areas. History
of desertification in the Mediterranean:
http://www.operationoasis.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=4&id=158&Itemid=80
Instead
of depleting underground water supplies, our approach will help to
restore already depleted and contaminated aquifers and drive out the
saline water that has rendered vast areas of farmland infertile.
Operation
OASIS will make use of gully irrigation, which has been tried and
tested over thousands of years and is ultimately the most
cost-effective methodology for transporting many thousands of cubic
meters of water to trees and crops. This is how nature moves water!
Towable water bowsers and semi-permeable irrigation pipework (which
resists blockage from algae) to reach areas beyond the gravity flow
of irrigation water.
Lagoons
will also be established to provide low cost storage for water and to
create new wildlife habitats. The project will introduce biosolids
(solid waste from water treatment plants) to condition the soils to
store water and prevent run-off.
Farming
and Forestry
Agroforestry-based
practices are by far the most productive and sustainable solution for
shielding crops from the sun and providing fuel, timber, fruits, nuts
and animal fodder.
http://wbro.oxfordjournals.org/content/10/2/151.abstract
Our
main concerns are restricting over-grazing by goats and cattle and
providing an education resource for best practice soil management.
By
engaging and empowering local communities in the techniques required
to succeed, Operation OASIS will be rolled out in many countries and
this feasible approach will ultimately lead to a significant positive
effect on local and global climate.
We
are fully aware of the failures as well as the successes with
reforestation of arid land, particularly the low survival of trees in
China. There is another Great wall of trees that is successful in Sub
Sahara Africa. Here the Hadley Cell provides the precipitation
essential for supporting their efforts. This system is supported by
Dr Jibunoh and Fade Africa:
http://www.operationoasis.com/index.php?limitstart=9
Who
are fully supporting Operation OASIS.
Our
approach is different.
Humanity
for thousands of years has been fighting a losing battle against the
deserts. Irrigation channels can be seen in satellite images, etched
in the sands around past civilization remnants. You cannot make it
rain in the desert but you can convert the desert into rainforests!
The
opposite effect is self-evident when the world’s mightiest rivers
run dry!
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/photos/rivers-run-dry/#/freshwater-rivers-syr-darya-1_45431_600x450.jpg
The
FREdome Visionary Trust, which supports and sponsors Operation OASIS
is an NGO with a charitable constitution. Together we have put
forward an application for funding from the E.U. Communications
strand of the Life Plus Initiatives and have raised £250k matched
funding led by Liverpool University. Seville Uni, City of Santa Pola,
Green Europe and FREdome. Provided matched funding, Cranfield
University, who are the leading soil experts in the UK have also
joined our funding application as consultants.
FREdome
sponsors
Operation OASIS because it is a beautiful common sense approach that
encompasses the facts that rainforests need access to airborne
moisture from the coastlines and that vegetation transforms carbon
emissions and waste into food and fuel. These facts are as obvious,
simple and fundamental to our very existence as the facts that we
breathe oxygen, drink water, eat food and burn
carbohydrates/hydrocarbons.
However,
because humanity has lost
sight of them, vast swathes of the globe have been desertified,
photosynthesis no longer occurs on a sufficient scale, there is a
build-up of carbon emissions, waste and a serious shortage of natural
resources, now causing our primary industries to falter.
Operation
OASIS will help restore the carbon, water and nutrient cycles. This
restoration needs to be elevated to at least the same level as the
mantras of cutting carbon emissions, carbon sequestration and
solar/wind/wave power. We need to secure international funding to
drive forward this crucial programme.
FREdome
Blog: http://fredome.wordpress.com/
