I dont like sand
That’s a very, very short time for such a major change. Makes me wonder what currently green ecosystems we take for granted a bit too easily.
But it also makes me wonder whether a reversal is within human reach. To start with, cheap solar potentially enables desalinization and irrigation at unprecedented scales… What a nice thing to feel optimistic about, if nothing else.
Ireland looked like the rain forest in Vancouver 8,000 years ago, but all the trees were cut down. Now it is flat and windy.
The Aral sea, drainage, happened in just a few years.
The South West in the U.S.A., might be going dry.
Chinese solar farms in their deserts suddenly went green due to the constant shade protecting rain water, plus the water from the automated cleaning spray systems. It grew grass, so they put goats there to keep it mowed for free.
Careful, goats is how chunks of africa got like that.
How was the Amazon? From my understanding it gets a substantial amount of benefit from the sands of the Sahara currently.
Wait what?
Did you confuse rivers (Amazon vs Nile) or do the sands of Sahara literally affect ecosystems on another continent?
Dust from the Sahara blows across over to the Amazon, enough of the stuff makes it across to be a factor when it comes to nutrient supply for the rainforest.
Damn, that’s a long way to move some dust, I need that vacuum cleaner in my life.
Fun fact: Saharan dust is also responsible for the fantastic, vivid sunsets that Florida and the Caribbean get.
The second one. The sands of the Sahara are vital to the Amazon rainforest. They blow all the way to the Amazon and deposit phosphorus which would totally get washed away without that deposit. The surface of the earth is hyper connected. You only experience yourself as a separate being from the rest of nature just because of the limited awareness we have, not because we are actually independent.
Pretty cool.
To be fair, I’ve never seen myself as separate from nature, just separate from nature on another literal continent, it boggles the mind that sand can reliably and consistently travel that far.
Arakkis moment
Including the fact that it will be green again
They are trying to combat desertification. They’re fighting against a strong feedback loop of dry soil causing water to not be retained, but by using crescent burrows, they’re able to soak water into the soil properly
How China Turned a Desert Green
Reversing Desertification A Green Blueprint for Kenya
Of course, a bunch of these efforts to forestall desertification and reverse the damage is being done with money loaned by Chinese state and private businesses. And (unlike when the IMF or western banks extend loans) we all know that this is how Evil Countries get their hooks in to do the Horrible Thing.
So I’m obligated to ask the question:
AT. WHAT. COST?!
Well, Carthage was the bread basket for the Roman Empire.
Egypt was, but also the Sahara was very dry by the founding of Rome. It’s looking like 1600 BCE for early settlements in the area that the city of Rome is now in, meanwhile the latest I’m seeing for desertification is 2100 BCE.
This difference in time is akin to claiming that Henry VIII had an air force. The Roman Empire is early ADs, so it’s closer to claiming Julius Caesar had nukes
Carthage was in coastal north Africa and is still pretty green. There are expensive suburbs on it these days.
Lake Chad used to be Lake Giga Chad. It’s currently a fraction of its former size.
There’s an ancient lakebed in Chad that supplies dust that blows across the Atlantic and delivers phosphorus to Amazon rainforests - phosphorus that is needed to support plant growth. Those long-dead organisms are still in the food chain. Life uuh finds a way.
This is the kind of stuff the “don’t tell me what to do with my land” crowd doesn’t know or care about. Everything affects everything on this planet.
Honest question is the Mediterranean supposed to empty 8000 years ago and just be land?!
That was the messinian salinity crysis 5 million years ago.
Not 8000 years ago, but both in the past and in the future it is.
Uh… it looks pretty sea-like on both maps.
Is that Radiant Historia?
Yep! It’s from the opening.
Isn’t this the place where mass agriculture was first implemented? What are the odds
I’ve heard it was goat domestication and that it caused an environmental crisis.
Isn’t that supposed to be Iran/Iraq?
Green Sahara/Desert Sahara is a cycle that happens.
I’ve heard people try to claim the garden of eden is a memory of the green sahara, but that’s not provable.
I also heard it has an effect on animal evolution - the desert acts as a wall, seperating north and south, then goes green and the two regions’ life mingle and compete for a while until it desertification seperates them to evolve independantly of each other until the next green phase.
I’ve heard people try to claim the garden of eden is a memory of the green sahara, but that’s not provable.
Early civilizations were routinely centered around lush green river valleys, with political strife forcing dissidents out into the dry and sterile periphery. So, I wouldn’t say it’s a memory of a green Sahara so much as a cycle of cultivation and degradation that has informed human storytelling for millennia.
“Eden” could just as easily be the Indus Valley in modern-day Pakistan. Or the Fertile Crescent of Iraq/Iran. Or the Göbekli Tepe of southeast Turkiye. Or the Nile Delta. Or the modern-day Gaza Strip. Or the rich soils along the slopes of Mount Kenya. Or the bountiful soil of Ukraine. Or yadda yadda yadda.
Maybe all of these places, with migrating peoples constantly looking for the next Promised Land of Fruit and Honey, settling for a time, and being uprooted again.
Yeah for sure, that’s all possible. Or eden could just be an idealized dream of an agricultural society and not a historical memory at all.
Well, it’s metaphorically one way or another. I don’t think there was a big tree with magic apples and talking snakes in any of these places.
Something about the wobble of the earth’s axis shifting every once in a while. Also the poles can switch too and our sun does it way more often.
That’s pretty cool. I’ve heard the idea that the Garden of Eden is where the Persian Gulf is now. It supposedly had incredibly rich soil and an immense supply of fresh water until the glaciers over Europe melted and eventually flooded the area.
Its a desert now because of global warming /s
I adore maps like these.
Imagine if human civilisation got to modern day’s level back then. I wonder what the climate change deniers would say about the desertification…
How did entire species evolve to live in the desert in just 8000 years?
Evolution happens in bursts when species are under pressure and a lot of animals are able to make quick adaptations within a few generations. Some animals don’t even need to change because of prior adaptations they never lost and they just thrive.
For example, if a species had previously adapted to arid conditions but was living in a more hospitable region they don’t tend to lose their ability to handle arid conditions without some kind of pressure. Access to water doesn’t mean they will lose those traits, they just don’t need all the water that is available. If the area turns arid they are not impacted by the lack of water like those that don’t have those traits. Or they might not currently express their genes in a way that causes that adaptation to arid conditions to show up normally, but they don’t necessarily need significant genetic changes to express those traits.
Look at dogs, who can have massive variation from breeding within a few generations.
edit: Link.
Desert already existed but wasn’t as widespread.
