Author: sharonstjoan

“Unlike the Great Wall of China, a 5,000-mile fortification dating back to the 7th century BC that separates northern China from the Mongolian steppe, the Great Green Wall of China-otherwise known as the Three-North Shelter Forest Program-is the biggest tree planting project on the planet. Its goal is to create a 2,800-mile long green belt to hold back the quickly expanding Gobi Desert and sequester millions of tons of carbon dioxide in the process. If all goes according to plan, the completion of the Green Wall by 2050 will increase forest cover across China from five to 15 percent overall.

“The Chinese government first conceived of the Green Wall project in the late 1970s to combat desertification along the country’s vast northwest rim. Soon thereafter, China’s top legislative body passed a resolution requiring every citizen over the age of 11 to plant at least three Poplar, Eucalyptus, Larch and other…

Translated from Ecomare museum on Texel island in the Netherlands:

Ecomare on Thursday, April 30th, 2015

It is the dream of every beach walker: to find amber. Photographer Sytske Dijksen recently found dozens of pieces of amber on the southernmost point of the Hors peninsula on Texel. Amber is a precious gemstone. It is fossilized and petrified resin. There are a few other “stones” very similar to amber; both originated from resin. But those are not fossil and petrified. Most of the bits of ‘amber’ found in the Netherlands turn out to be not real. In this case, they are!

Real fossil

Amber is old. The pieces of amber that you find in the Netherlands come from the Baltic region and date back to the Eocene epoch, 35 million years ago. Then there were vast coniferous forests. The pine species delivering amber of the highest quality which people prefer…

“I think we should collectively try to do this, and not win the Darwin Award.” — Elon Musk * * * * * This week, with much fanfare, Elon Musk’s Tesla launched a new venture — Tesla Energy….

Source: robertscribbler.wordpress.com

GR: Elon Musk and Pope Francis are battling global warming using technological and ethical strategies. From Robert Scribbler’s article about Musk’s “Powerwall”: “A low-cost, high quality offering that will allow individual and family solar users to say to hell with the grid, contentious fossil fuel interest muddied utility politics, and any coal or gas fired powerplants if they so choose.”

See on Scoop.it – Garry Rogers Science Fiction

By Sharon St Joan

The water is not deep at Pichavaram, maybe two or three feet. It is dark green. Waterways run between the islands of mangrove trees. Pichavaram lies along the coast of the Bay of Bengal, in south India.

In February, 2015, our rowboat sailed quietly along the waterways which came together, parted, divided again. The water rippled peacefully.

Beautiful great egrets landed on the mangrove trees, taking off and circling, then returning. In the shadows, a little yellow bittern waited, perched on a mangrove root near the water’s edge, half-concealed behind the leaves and branches, watching hopefully for his dinner to swim by.

When cyclones come, the mangrove roots, which sink deep into the mud below the water, protect the mangrove forest from destruction and the land from erosion. Along one side, the mangrove trees of Pichavaram have been cleared to make way for grazing goats. This…