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Europeans describe kidnap ordeal
European tourists who were kidnapped for 10 days in the Sahara desert have described their experience; one said that at one point she "thought it was all over." European tourists who were kidnapped for 10 days in the Sahara desert have described their experience; one said that at one point she ... more
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Incredible Sahara Forest Project could generate fresh water, solar power, and crop...
Can you imagine being able to produce enough water in the Sahara to grow crops there? Can you imagine harnessing sufficient quantities of solar power to supply electricity to cities in Africa and cities in Europe? Can you imagine producing a sustainable bio-fuel that doesn’t impact on world food supplies? Charlie Paton, Michael Pawlyn and Bill Watts can and what’s more they can imagine all these happening in the same place at the same time.
This week this trio of visionaries launched the Sahara Forest Project: their proposal to combine two innovative technologies, Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and Seawater Greenhouses, to produce renewable energy, water and food in an area of desert known to be one of the hottest places on earth.
Multitasking renewable solutions
It has often been said that there will be no one solution to solving the climate crisis and all those issues that surround it, such as energy sources, food prices and water supply. We need a portfolio of technologies to help us to combat these advancing problems. The Sahara Forest Project is one of the first projects we’ve seen that proposes not only to combine technologies to optimise performance and production, but also aims to tackle all of the serious challenges mentioned above. It is a bold and ambitious plan that, if realised, could have a powerful positive impact not only for the Sahara region, but also for Europe and the rest of the world.
Positive Collaboration
The most exciting aspect of the Sahara Forest Project is not specifically the use of these technologies. We’ve read about Seawater Greenhouses and Concentrated Solar Power and how they’re being used to great effect. It is the fact that they are being used together in the same place, to support each other and optimize their operating capacities to produce energy and water and by proxy vegetation.
This sense of collaboration is echoed in the team of people behind the proposal: an inventor - Charlie Paton, creator of the Seawater Greenhouse; an architect - Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture, previously of Grimshaw and the lead architect on the iconic Eden Project; an engineer - Bill Watts of Max Fordham & Partners, an engineering firm that focuses on energy efficient systems for the built environment. These three men have brought their considerable expertise together to create a truly innovative proposal.
Continued... Can you imagine being able to produce enough water in the Sahara to grow crops there? Can you imagine harnessing sufficient quantities... more -
Seawater greenhouse project could turn deserts into fertile land for food and wate...
The planned project would use solar power to evaporate salt water, generating cool air and pure water thereby allowing food to be grown.
Vast greenhouses that use seawater to grow crops could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and clean energy in deserts, under an ambitious proposal from a team of architects and engineers.
The Sahara Forest project would marry huge greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP), which uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays and generate heat and electricity. The installations would turn deserts into lush patches of vegetation, according to its designers, and without the need to dig wells for fresh water, which has depleted acquifers in many parts of the world.
*continues* The planned project would use solar power to evaporate salt water, generating cool air and pure water thereby allowing food to be grow... more -
Amazing 5,000-year-old skeletons laid on bed of flowers found in Sahara
A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert.
Researchers discovered the slender arms of the youngsters still extended to the woman in a perpetual embrace.
The remarkable cemetery is providing clues to two civilisations who lived there, a thousand years apart, when the region was moist and green.
Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago and colleagues were searching for the remains of dinosaurs in the African country of Niger when they came across the startling find.
Some 200 graves of humans were found during fieldwork at the site in 2005 and 2006, as well as remains of animals, large fish and crocodiles.
'Everywhere you turned, there were bones belonging to animals that don't live in the desert,' said Sereno.
'I realized we were in the green Sahara.'
The graveyard, uncovered by hot desert winds, is near what would have been a lake at the time people lived there. It's in a region called Gobero, hidden away in Niger's forbidding Tenere Desert, known to Tuareg nomads as a 'desert within a desert.'
The human remains dated from two distinct populations that lived there during wet times, with a dry period in between.
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More at link.
Few people know that not all that long ago, a few thousand years ago, the Sahara was a lush green garden with girafes, lions, elephants, etc., roaming and prospering in it. There are cave-paintings and carvings on rocks in the Sahara depicting a rich fauna. A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert. ... more -
Stone Age graveyard shows Sahara was once green
A Stone Age graveyard on the shores of an ancient, dried-up lake in the Sahara is brimming with the skeletons of people, fish and crocodiles who thrived when the African desert was briefly green, researchers reported on Thursday.
The 10,000-year-old site in Niger, called Gobero after the Tuareg name for the area, was discovered in 2000 but the group has only now gathered enough information to make a full report, said University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno.
The team stumbled onto the assortment of human and animal bones and artifacts while looking for dinosaur fossils.
"I realized we were in the green Sahara," Sereno, who discovered the site while working for National Geographic, said in a statement.
The site contains at least 200 graves that appear to have been left by two separate settlements 1,000 years apart.
Perhaps the most dramatic is a woman and two children, their arms entwined, laid to rest on a bed of flowers around 5,000 years ago.
The older group were tall, robust hunter-gathers known as Kiffians who apparently abandoned the area during a long drought that dried up the lake around 8,000 years ago, Sereno's team reports in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE.
A second group settled in the area between 7,000 and 4,500 years ago, they said. These were Tenerians, smaller, shorter people who hunted, herded and fished.
Both left many artifacts, including tool kits, fishhooks, ceramics and jewelry, the researchers said.
"At first glance, it's hard to imagine two more biologically distinct groups of people burying their dead in the same place," said Chris Stojanowski, a bioarchaeologist from Arizona State University who has been working on the site.
The Sahara is the world's largest desert and has been for tens of thousands of years, but changes in the Earth's orbit 12,000 years ago brought monsoons further north for a while.
The team sampled tooth enamel from the skeletons, pollen, bones and examined soil and tools to date the site, artifacts and remains.
"The data from Gobero, when combined with existing sites in North Africa, indicate we are just beginning to understand the complex history of biosocial evolution in the face of severe climate fluctuation in the Sahara," the researchers wrote in their report. A Stone Age graveyard on the shores of an ancient, dried-up lake in the Sahara is brimming with the skeletons of people, fish and croc... more -
occhi negli occhi - memorie di viaggio
Un racconto di viaggio intimo, viscerale, una pagina del proprio diario e un invito a guardare. "Occhi negli occhi" è un richiamo alla visione, un tuffo dello sguardo su un altro mondo, l'Africa, e anche l'incontro straordinario con gli occhi di chi da questo mondo ci guarda. Un racconto di viaggio intimo, viscerale, una pagina del proprio diario e un invito a guardare. "Occhi negli occhi" è un ric... more
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Il Sahara ci illuminerà
Il costo è alto (50 miliardi di euro) e il progetto ambizioso ma, con il petrolio alle stelle, sembra l’unica prospettiva di una via d’uscita. Un’immensa distesa di pannelli solari nel deserto del Sahara produrrà un giorno abbastanza energia da illuminare tutta l’Europa. Il costo è alto (50 miliardi di euro) e il progetto ambizioso ma, con il petrolio alle stelle, sembra l’unica prospettiva di una via d... more
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Saharan dust storms sustain life in Atlantic Ocean
Research at the University of Liverpool has found how Saharan dust storms help sustain life over extensive regions of the North Atlantic Ocean Research at the University of Liverpool has found how Saharan dust storms help sustain life over extensive regions of the North Atlant... more
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Wall of Trees To Halt Sahara Desert's Creep South
A "wall of trees" is to be planted to halt the Sahara Desert's gradual creep south. The plans to create a barrier 7,000 kilometres long and 15 kilometres wide across Africa were initially developed in 2005 but will only be put into action in the next few months.
Although funding is still insecure, it is hoped that in time the green belt will also create "reforestation, restoration of natural resources and the eventual development of fishing and livestock breeding," Mariam Aladji Boni Diallo, the Benin-based president of the Cen-Sad summit organising committee told theScience and Development Network.
A report produced by the Observatory of the Sahara and the Sahel outlines a two-stage implementation process involving planting projects beginning either side of Africa. As part of the initial $3 million two-year phase, pilot planting will begin in Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal in September. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) hope to finalise similar start plans for the six states in the east Horn of Africa in the next couple of months. A "wall of trees" is to be planted to halt the Sahara Desert's gradual creep south. The plans to create a barrier 7,000... more -
Sahara sand coming to the UK?
Apparently, an airstream coming up from Africa's desert region could be bringing a present with it, a layer of Saharan sand.
A Sky weatherman reported that sand has already been found as close as Spain and France and that the winds are easily capable of carrying the fine sand thousands of miles. Apparently, an airstream coming up from Africa's desert region could be bringing a present with it, a layer of Saharan sand. ... more -
Tree Nation: A Heart In The Sahara
Maxime Renaudin comes from a new generation of entrepreneurs who use sound business principles to tackle social problems in the world today.
He is also a photographer, and photography for him is a means to "help [to] see what we should value and what we should protect." But whether Maxime is engaged in business or photography, he is very definite about the purpose of his work. It is a means to contribute to social progress.
The answer to that calling is Tree-nation.com a for-profit organization based in Barcelona, Spain which Maxime runs together with his partners Andrew Pothecary and Agro-Forestry expert Aboubacar Ichaou.
Their mission: to plant 8 million trees in the shape of a giant heart in the Sahara. This heart is intended to be a testament for mankind's love for nature, and will be visible from the sky. Tree-nation is also a supporter of the Billion Tree project of UNEP.
In my interview with Maxime, he talked about the importance of planting a heart of 8 million trees to combat the negative effects of desertification and deforestation in the Sahara. He also discussed Tree-nation's unique way of achieving this mission by using the latest social networking tools and GPS technology and by engaging ordinary citizens to help their cause. He also explained why planting trees is the best way to combat climate change and eradicate global poverty. Maxime Renaudin comes from a new generation of entrepreneurs who use sound business principles to tackle social problems in the world ... more -
WESTERN SAHARA - state occupied by Morocco since 1975. UN supports the right for s...
2007 is the International year of solidarity with Saharawi People. The self determination process of the former Spanish Sahara is supported by UN resolutions since 1987. These state was abandoned by Spain in 1975, being immediatly occupied by Morocco and Mauritania.
Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories since the 1960s when it was a Spanish colony.
The Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front independence movement (and government of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic or SADR) dispute control of the territory. Since a United Nations-sponsored cease-fire agreement in 1991, most of the territory has been controlled by Morocco, with the remainder under the control of Polisario/SADR. Internationally, the major powers such as the United States have taken a generally ambiguous and neutral position on each side's claims, and have pressed both parties to agree on a peaceful resolution. Both Morocco and Polisario have sought to boost their claims by accumulating formal recognition, from largely minor states. Polisario has won formal recognition for SADR from roughly 45 states, and was extended membership in the African Union, while Morocco has won formal recognition for its position from 25 states, as well as the membership of the Arab League[1][2]. In both instances, recognitions have over the past two decades been extended and withdrawn according to changing international trends.
Learn more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Sahara
Western Sahara Online: http://www.wsahara.net/ 2007 is the International year of solidarity with Saharawi People. The self determination process of the former Spanish Sahara is supp... more
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