Guest CliFi by Gregory J. Rummo
Laayoune, Western Sahara
February 16, 2025 – on my birthday in the not-too-distant future
A cool, slightly fragrant breeze gently blows across my cheek as we look out over a lush, verdant landscape of low-growth Madagascar vanilla vines and coconut palms planted neatly in rows as far as the eye can see in every direction. Their delicate fronds, swaying in the breeze, form a dense, green curtain, obscuring from our view the tens of thousands of acres of sorghum, soy and corn until another planting of coconut palms repeats the patchwork.
Poultry farms, also hidden from our view, dot the tropical oasis.
Canals glisten in the sun, carrying their precious cargo of water from one of the four desalination plants in Laayoune on the north-western coast of the Atlantic Ocean.
“It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” Brahim Ghali says in a soft voice.
President Ghali has returned to his home in Laayoune after spending much of his adult life as president-in-exile of Western Sahara otherwise known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), running a government from the Sahrawi refugee camps of Tindouf, Algeria.
“The ancient scrolls speak about this region once being a garden,” he says, which brings a smile to my face.
He knows the story, I think. And we’ve finally gotten ourselves back to the garden.
It has taken an enormous effort to get to this point. Uniting the Arab countries of Western Sahara, Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria as members of the African Union was no small political ordeal. And we have only just begun. There is still much more to accomplish.
It was just three years ago when I first proposed the Northern Sahara Terraforming Project to a consortium of concerned government leaders, over 30 CEOs of multinationals from various industries and a half-dozen progressive thinkers with deep pockets – and I mean progressive in the sense of progress, not socialism. This latter group wanted no part in the project for the simple reason that if the issue of climate change were resolved, they’d be out of work.
We met on Grand Bahama Island at the Viva Wyndham Fortuna Beach Resort—not the first place one would think such a meeting of the world’s richest and smartest people would take place. Nonetheless, I chose this as the meeting place as a fitting reminder of why we were here: It was only six years earlier in 2019 that Hurricane Dorian, the most “intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the Bahamas,” made landfall in this part of the world. And Dorian was still regarded as the “worst natural disaster in The Bahamas’ recorded history.”
Among the participants were Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett and Sir Richard Branson, whose $25million reward to “save the Earth,” provided the seed capital to propel the idea forward. Twenty-four leaders from their respective countries were also in attendance as were the CEOs from the seven largest multi-national oil and gas corporations, known as the Seven Sisters, the 15 largest forestry companies, the ten largest construction companies the five largest agricultural companies and six of the ten largest US poultry companies.
We dubbed it the “G-24 Summit to Save the Earth.”
Everyone spoke. All listened intently. There were no arguments, only productive discussions—a major accomplishment in itself given that 24 countries were represented. There were no bombastic monologues delivered by crowd-pleasing politicians meant to garner a few juicy soundbites in front of a TV camera for their constituents back home. It was clear from the beginning that we were all here to solve a problem that has vexed the best scientists for decades while affecting the Earth and its population of seven billion.
When it was my turn to speak, I had the lights in the conference room dimmed and shared on the screen a montage of movie clips including “Star Trek II, the Wrath of Khan,” which featured a terraforming device called the Genesis Device, and a more serious take on the many challenges in space exploration beyond the Moon discussed by scientists in a 45-minute documentary entitled “The Universe, Colonizing Space.”
As the lights came up, I began my talk.
“The literature – almost all of it in the genre of science fiction – has been describing terraforming since the early 1940s. The current and very popular Amazon original TV series “The Expanse,” based on the novels of the same name by James S. A. Corey, takes place in the future when Mars has been terraformed and the outer planets colonized.
Ladies and gentlemen—we have been dreaming about terraforming for almost 80 years. I think this is more than just science fiction. When so many people from many different parts of the world have been thinking and dreaming and writing about the same concept for almost a century I am led to believe that this is not mere coincidence but a God-given vision for our own planet. The question is this: Are we willing to believe it? And are we willing to act on it?”
At this point there was considerable chatter in the room and I was expecting some pushback after I mentioned the word God. Anticipating this, I added, “But despite your belief or non-belief in religion, clearly I think you would all agree that all of us share the commonality as being citizens of planet Earth and we all have a moral responsibility to be the Earth’s stewards not just for the sake of the planet but for the sake of and well-being of the planet’s inhabitants.”
“Hear hear!” Sir Branson shouted enthusiastically as the room erupted into polite applause.
I waited for the applause to die down and continued,
“I realize we are talking about an almost unimaginably huge project to terraform a large portion of the Northern Sahara into an oasis. It will be an expensive, logistical challenge. We will need trees—lots of trees—and grasses and other plants and of course water—lots of it. We will need to construct several desalination plants along the western coastal region to provide the water for irrigation. As the terraforming project spreads eastward, another construction project to divert water from the Nile River would provide the necessary irrigation for that area of the northern Sahara spanning its eastern boundaries. The economies of all countries within the Sahara’s borders: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia would benefit greatly.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of what was once desert would be converted into growing regions for grain and the raising of poultry to feed the world’s ever-growing population.
And the two greatest, long-term benefits to our planet would be that by terraforming a large portion of the Sahara into a green oasis, we would create a huge, natural, photosynthetic sponge, recycling billions of tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide while cooling off an ecosystem that currently provides the radiative heat energy that generates destructive Atlantic hurricanes.”
At the end of the five-day summit, we agreed to draft a document called the “World Alliance Declaration for the Stewardship of the Earth.” The document recognized that the project would take a decades-long commitment of trillions of dollars, not just from wealthy individuals and multi-national corporations but also from the governments of the world.
Future rewards would justify the investment in both the near term and for generations to come. It was estimated that tens of millions of jobs would be created in regions of the developing world still struggling to live above the poverty line.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide would be buffered by photosynthesis, allowing the continued, prudent use of clean fossil fuels.
And yes—man would actually have achieved something thought impossible even by most atmospheric scientists—we would have effectively controlled the weather!
___________________
As a pragmatic scientist, I am always thinking of ways to solve problems. Problem solving is, after all, the end of critical thinking. But just as some of the science fiction of late 19th – early 20th century writers like Jules Verne, George Orwell and Ray Bradbury have become our 21st century science reality, could not terraforming the Sahara Desert be more than just a pipe dream? In a world where warring factions have killed one another over a patch of sand and capitalist, multi-national corporations are at odds with socialist-leaning governments, can we really expect a “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” zeitgeist to prevail on the Earth? Consider this: Although Muslims conquered the Iberian Peninsula in 711 and were the dominant force until being finally driven out of Spain by Roman Catholics in 1492, there were amazing periods during these seven centuries of la conviviencia, the Spanish word for coexistence, among Jews, Muslims and Roman Catholics that allowed for a “huge interplay of cultural ideas.” As an eternal optimist, I am cautiously hopeful.
Gregory J. Rummo is a lecturer of chemistry at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida and a contributing writer for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
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It’s nice to see new ideas which would make much more sense than trying to fix the intermittent wind turbine and PV problems with more of the same. There was already the case of a person who organized the planting of trees in the Sahara region with considerable success and with much less money than is wasted elsewhere…
Getting on for 50 years ago I remember what Hong a TV documentary or it may have been a cinema newsreel about someone spraying a layer of possibly crude oil on desert sand dunes in order to grow trees. The theory was it kept any moisture in the sand and stabilised the dunes by stopping the wind blowing the sand around.
Despite watching for 50 years for an update nothing has happened so I assume it failed
I wonder how the Typhoons of the Pacific are formed?
In general ocean storms are initiated by the weather over the ocean and are fueled by warm water.
Atlantic Hurricanes are formed in various ways, one of which is from tropical waves tracking west across the Sahel and reaching the ocean at the Cape Verde Islands.
The Western Sahara is too far north, see my analysis here:
West African Monsoon Crosses the Sahara Desert in Eumetsat: Monitoring Weather and Climate from Space; Date & Time : 08 August 2007 00:00 UTC; Satellites : Meteosat-9
This is all just more hideously expensive and grandiose geoengineering nonsense. Not gonna happen anyway.
If a large enough chunk of the Sahara was planted it might cool the local climate enough to become self sustaining where the cooler near surface temperatures from the plant cover and irrigation reduces the mid level air temperatures to where water condenses and rains out rather than blowing across. Reducing the albedo of the Sahara by covering it with plants, including crops, would also help rain fall from the sky rather than staying stuck up there as water vapor.
Keep it going long enough, repeatedly tilling in plant waste and animal droppings, and the desert would have soil instead of sand. What would help retain irrigation water near the surface is laying down a layer of water beads 6 to 12 inches deep.They’d catch and hold a huge amount of water rather than allowing it to sink deeper out of reach of plant roots. That much Super Absorbent Polymer would be very expensive but the cost should be offset a lot by reducing the need for irrigation.
A full tropical ecosystem ought to be the goal, with the added benefits of human engineering to enable the plants to root much deeper so the system is less fragile. We know that much of the South American jungle owes its existence to humans long term fertilization of the grasslands that preceded it. There’s charcoal buried all over there, put there as fertilizer. As their civilizations collapsed they abandoned farms and the trees and other plants took advantage of the more fertile soil. Once established, the continual process of plant and animal death and decay has kept it going, though always in a fairly thin layer of supporting soil.
Centuries later, slash and burn with intensive farming, without fertilization, crop rotation or other processes to preserve the soil has removed a lot of that jungle.
Don’t mention to certain people things like fertilization and deep tilling or other methods of making the existing ‘reclaimed’ farmland fertile again. They’ll just repeat their demands that the farming has to be stopped. Nevermind the jungle would find it hard to regrow onto the depleted fields.
To make it really stick, the entire Sahara Desert would have to go. Leave no bare patch to stay hot and expand if or when irrigation is stopped or fails.
Why the Sahara? Why not southern Nevada. You could dam a river and use the resultant lake water to feed the area. They you could build a city, let’s say a tourist trap, with lots of gambling, food buffets and dinner shows. You could build huge hotels for all the guests. Sounds like you could make a lot of money investing in this scheme.
Just think of the ‘fertilizer’.
The best geoengineering of the Sahara is to burn fossil fuels to increase atmospheric CO2. Anthropogenic CO2 increase is boosting plant growth (lead level photosynthesis efficiency) by 30% and increasing plant growth worldwide, including in the Sahara.
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2020/10/04/co2-fertilisation-and-the-greening-of-the-sahara/
Phil, you still have to have some water…look at the current satellite greening images…the Sahara is greening to the south where there is some rain but not in the real desert.
Given time plants bring their own water and their own climate.
Phil, you are incorrigible…how do plants bring their own water? The Sahara became dry and the plants disappeared.
The earth was arid before plants and trees colonised it in the Carboniferous. They brought their own water. Given enough time. By transpiration and maintaining humic soil, they humidify the environment.
Yes indeed. And, that is the best approach for economies worldwide, for humanity, and most definitely, for the environment.
Those camels prefer to consume water.
Terraforming the Sahara could be done. The best way would be to divert the water from the Congo river and Niger River.
Huge investments, but probably very profitable in the long run.
/Jan
I’m puzzled by the lack of information this person clearly shows. If you want to grow a garden, it takes more than just watering it. The proposal clearly shows a lack of knowledge about that enormous current that flows from East to West and goes up the west side of India to bring monsoon rains to farmlands up there. A few years ago, that current shifted and went to the Arabian peninsula, causing severe drought and loss of crops (particularly cotton, a major crop) in two of India’s northwestern states, as well as severe flooding in the Arabian peninsula.
When northern Africa was green and growing stuff LONG, LONG AGO, there were lakes full of fish in Ethiopia and now they’re gone. It isn’t drought; it is how things shift around. Coming out of an environment when ice sheets were everywhere, and lakes full of water were common, and rain in the Sahara was plentiful seems to have escaped the notice of the people who propose these things. There are pictographs in Ethiopia that clearly show a history of lakes, fish in those lakes, green grazing for game animals, and then everything literally went south.
I have no issues with doing something constructive and beneficial. My issues are the gadfly approach in that article. If those overpaid persons want to fork over the cash to generate ad support that project, fine. Let them. Throwing money at something frequently seems to be about the only thing that creates a “feelz good” in such people. Just don’t expect taxpayers to do that, PERIOD.
Notice that all those rock paintings show animals being hunted. There are no rock paintings of salads or salad hunters.
Exactly!
I hope you can read the link FWI below
(Its from the UK Farmers Weekly magazine and they’re desperate for money/subscribers but mostly money)
Its an opinion piece on Jeremy Clarkson’s (Top Gear) adventures as A Farmer, Ignorant Yokel and general all-round peasant. Exactly as all the UK population understands farmers to be and in the same way they understand the GHGE
Yet, quite bizarre, when he opened a Farm Shop it promptly caused gridlock in the village and on the local roads.
But – Ye Shocke Horreur for these modern times, the villagers loved it.
https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/fw-opinion-best-legacy-of-clarksons-farm-the-copycats
Quote:”But, as with Clarkson, many minor missteps can be overlooked once it is remembered that we (as in farmers Weekly readers) are not the intended audience and that UK farming is once again getting a sympathetic hearing on primetime television.
And is it *that* big a step from UK Farming to Terraforming – is it really?
Hooda thunk, an ageing white male that folks actually like – and an outspoken one too.
Is that crazy or a source of hope?
Not Science Fiction! Although Rommo’s piece above is a fictional account set in the future, re-greening the Sahel is not fiction at all, but actually taking place (albeit, very slowly).
There was an Opinion piece in the NY Times that gives the story in real time.
” Muslims conquered the Iberian Peninsula in 711 and were the dominant force until being finally driven out of Spain by Roman Catholics in 1492 ”
Allow me a bit of historical precision.
In 1492 ended the last muslim political entity of the Iberian Peninsula: rulers and ruling class changed, life went on as usual.
Muslims continued to develop agriculture, mainly in Ebro Valley and the Levant (Murcia, Valencia,…), they were a significant proportion of the peasant population.
The big change occurred by decree of Felipe III, the complete deportation of all “moriscos”, a real “ethnic cleansing”, and took place about one century latter, in 1609-13. Some accounts say that as much as 350 thousand persons were evicted to north Africa.
This empoverished the Spanish agriculture and… was a factor of technological progress in Tunisia, where many of the deported were sent; the country was living its underdevelopment under Turkish domination and the arrival of so many experienced and well trained workforce enabled the rebuilding of infrastructures (sewage, for instance) and an increase in agricultural production.
If they want to turn the Sahara into a lush, green paradise, then they should do whatever they can to cause global warming. 6-7000 years ago, that was the reality of what is now the desert, during the Holocene Climate Optimum when it was considerably warmer than now.
“which featured a terraforming device called the Genesis Device”
– with disastrous consequences
“takes place in the future when Mars has been terraformed”
– took place over many generations and was nowhere NEAR complete.
Do they ever actually watch the stuff they reference?
I’ll leave it to others to discuss unintended consequences.
Not to mention they used unstable protomatter as the matrix of the genesis torpedo, so the planet destroys itself after destroying all the existing life first.
I mean really, who uses protomatter for anything?
Very unscientific
Enviroloons’ fantasy wet dreams are not science any more than 90 day fiancé is a tribute to human decency. Peddling this nonsense is just another distraction that keeps people from addressing the truth:
Eh?
A chemistry prof. who speaks to a room full of movers and shakers including government people about terraforming as applied to a region of Earth? I think we’re way past Alice in Wonderland. No estimates, no plan; but future rewards will justify the expense? If it’s an investment without any doubt of the payback, let the private capital take care of it!
I will choose not to invest in it until I see a budget and a plan. The Egyptians and others in NorthEast Africa might want to know what the plan is for all that Nile water, as well.
Th every idea that these fools can seriously talk about public investment of taxpayer money in this goofus idea is hugely offensive to me.
How is it that a little warming bringing a little greenery to the tundra- for free- is a climate crisis but the total alteration of the Sahara is automatically a good thing?
never mind the fact that the world’s population will be falling long before this project make s a dent and all that new but marginal farmland will be unable to grow anything profitably while damaging agricultural prices for the entire world.
The stupid-it burns! And are so stupid they are dangerous.
So where is the technical and engineering analysis? Where is the environmental analysis? Where is the financial analysis, especially of ROI? Where is the economic analysis, especially of opportunity cost? Without that, this is all unicorns farting rainbows and the chances of failure with dipsticks like this in charge is close to 100%.
Australia would be a better option.
What they are they proposing seems to ignore the UN biodiversity ban on geoengineering. This ban has stifled efforts at ocean fertilisation, while natural ocean fertilisation from the iron-rich Sahara dust storms continues. Is this an effort to prevent that natural ocean fertilisation too? Or would iron fertilisation of the oceans then be permitted to replace the natural supply inhibited by this geoengineering project? I do think that an inland sea with enhanced salt concentration in an area with extreme heat would be a useful resource for sea-salt production – like the salt pans producing Dead Sea Salts.
Suggest readers pursue an alternate take on “la conviviencia” at Robert Spencer’s JihadWatch.org .
Just happened to see this now – scrolled through the comments (took me two minutes) – laughed aloud because everybody (perhaps I am wrong here) took this highly amusing, quite entertaining article seriously.
Bravo! It is after all, “Cli-Fi” (climate fiction).