Gregory J. Rummo .’s CliFi Guest
Laayoune, Western Sahara
February 16, 2025 – on my birthday in the not too distant future
A cool breeze brushed my cheeks as we looked out over the lush, green landscape of low-growing Madagascar vanilla vines and neatly lined coconut trees visible to the naked eye in all directions. Their delicate leaves, swaying in the wind, form a dense green curtain, obscuring our view of tens of thousands of acres of sorghum, soybeans and corn until another coconut plantation repeats. patchwork.
Poultry farms, also hidden from our view, are scattered in the tropical oasis.
The canals glistened in the sun, carrying their precious water from one of the four desalination plants at Laayoune on the northwest Atlantic coast.
“It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” Brahim Ghali said in a gentle voice.
President Ghali has returned to his home in Laayoune after spending most of his adult life as the president-in-exile of Western Sahara, a.k.a. Sahrawi . Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), run a government from Sahrawi . refugee camp by Tindouf, Algeria.
“The ancient scrolls tell of this area that used to be a garden,” he says, bringing a smile to my face.
He knows the story, I think. And we Final back to the garden.
It took a huge effort to get to this point. The unification of the Arab states of Western Sahara, Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria as members of the African Union is no small political challenge. And we are just getting started. There is still much to be done.
It was only three years ago when I first proposed the North Sahara Terrain Project to a group of concerned government leaders, more than 30 CEOs of multinational companies from a variety of industries, and half a dozen progressive thinker with deep pockets – and I mean progressive in the sense of develop, Not socialism. This second group does not want to participate in the project for the simple reason that if the problem of climate change is solved, they will no longer have a job.
We met on Grand Bahama Island at Viva Wyndham Fortuna Beach Resort—Not the first place one would think that a meeting of the world’s richest and most intelligent people would take place. However, I’ve chosen this as the meeting place as a fitting reminder of why we’re here: Just six years earlier in 2019, Hurricane Dorian, the biggest hurricane ever.”intense tropical cyclone record strikes the Bahamas,” made landfall in this part of the world. And Dorian is still considered “worst natural disaster in the recorded history of the Bahamas. ”
Among the participants were Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett and Sir Richard Branson, who $25 million reward to “save the Earth,” provided seed capital to propel the idea forward. Twenty-four leaders from their respective countries also attended as CEOs from the seven largest multinational oil and gas corporations, known as Seven sisters, the 15 biggest forestry companies, the the ten largest construction companies the the five largest agricultural companies and six of the ten largest US poultry companies.
We call this “G-24 Summit to Save the Earth”.
Everyone spoke. All listened attentively. There are no arguments, only productive discussions – which in itself is a great achievement to have 24 countries represented. There are no pompous monologues given by crowd-pleasing politicians to get some delicious audio in front of the TV cameras for their constituents back home. It’s clear from the outset that we’re all here to tackle a problem that has plagued the best scientists for decades, while also affecting the Earth and its population of seven billion.
When it was my turn to speak, I dimmed the lights in the meeting room and shared onscreen a montage that included “Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan,” has a terrain-forming device called the Genesis Device, and taking more seriously the many challenges of space exploration beyond the Moon have been discussed by scientists in a 45-minute documentary titled “The Universe, Colonial space. ”
When the lights came on, I started my talk.
“Literature – almost all of which are in the sci-fi genre – have depicted terrain since the early 1940s. Amazon’s original TV series is current and very popular”The Expanse, ”Based on the novel of the same name by James SA Corey, which takes place in the future when Mars has been terraformed and the outer planets are colonized.
Ladies and gentlemen – we’ve been dreaming about terrain generation for almost 80 years. I think this is not just science fiction. As so many people from different parts of the world have been thinking, dreaming and writing about the same concept for almost a century, I have led me to believe that this is not a coincidence but a vision. God-given look to our planet. The question is: Are we willing to believe it? And are we ready to act for it? ”
At this point, there is a lot of talk in the room and I was expecting some response after I mentioned the word. God. Anticipating this, I added, “But whether you believe it or not, I clearly think you will all agree that we all have in common being citizens of the Earth. earth and we all have a moral responsibility as stewards of the Earth not only for the good of the planet, but also for the benefit and well-being of its inhabitants. ”
“Here here!” Sir Branson shouted enthusiastically as the room erupted into polite applause.
I waited for the applause to fade and continued,
“I realize that we are talking about an almost unimaginably gigantic project to turn a large part of Northern Sahara into an oasis. It will be a costly, logistical challenge. We’re going to need trees — lots of trees — and grass and other plants and of course water — a lot. We will need to build several desalination plants along the west coast to provide irrigation water. As the terraforming project spreads eastward, another construction project to divert water from the Nile will provide the irrigation water needed for the northern Sahara that stretches across its eastern boundary. The economies of all countries within the Sahara border: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia will benefit greatly.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of land in what was once a desert will be converted into croplands to grow grain and raise poultry to feed the world’s growing population.
And the two biggest, long-term benefits to our planet is that by renovating a large portion of the Sahara into a green oasis, we will create a giant, natural, recycled photosynthetic sponge. billions of tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere while cooling an ecosystem that currently powers the radiant heat that generates destructive Atlantic hurricanes. ”
At the end of the five days of the summit, we agreed to draft a document called the “Declaration of the World Union on Governance of the Earth”. The document recognizes that the project will require a commitment of trillions of dollars spanning decades, not only from wealthy individuals and multinational corporations but also from governments around the world.
Future rewards will justify the investment both in the short term and for generations to come. It is estimated that tens of millions of jobs will be created in areas of the developing world that are still struggling to live above the poverty line.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide would be buffered by photosynthesis, allowing continued prudent use of clean fossil fuels.
And yes – humans have indeed achieved what most atmospheric scientists think is impossible – we have effectively controlled the weather!
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As a pragmatic scientist, I always think of ways to solve problems. After all, problem solving is the end of critical thinking. But just like some Science Fiction the end of the day 19order – 20 . headorder Century writers like Jules Verne, George Orwell and Ray Bradbury have become our 21sst century scientific reality, can’t topographicalization of the Sahara Desert just a pipe dream? In a world where warring factions kill each other on a sandbar and capital, multinational corporations confront socialist governments, can we really expect waiting for a “Thy kingdom shall come, thy will be done”, fervor will prevail on earth? Consider this: Although the Muslims conquered the Iberian peninsula in 711 and were the dominant force until finally driven out of Spain by the Roman Catholics in 1492, there were periods amazing passage during these seven centuries. la conviviencia, the Spanish word for coexistence, between Jews, Muslims, and Roman Catholics that allows for “the intersection of cultural ideas”. As an eternal optimist, I hope cautiously.
Gregory J. Rummo is a chemistry instructor at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida and a contributing writer for Cornwall Alliance for Creative Management
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