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Ties van der Hoeven’s ambitions are nothing if not grand. The Dutch engineer wants to transform a huge stretch of inhospitable desert into green, fertile land teeming with wildlife.
His sights are set on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Thousands of years ago it was bursting with life, he said, but years of farming and other human activity have helped turn it into a barren desert.
Van der Hoeven is convinced he can bring it back to life. Sep 8, 2024
A plaza in downtown Denver, Colorado was a “harsh place,” a “terrible concrete plaza,” explained Kasey Toomey, PLA, landscape architect, art
What a change from a concrete plaza to a lush landscaped area.
Kudos to All involved for the transformation of Denver 17th Street Corner Plaza.
Native plants crowded onto postage-stamp-size plots have been delivering environmental benefits around the world — and, increasingly, in the
“I must have seen ten deer that day, but I only took the one” […] The young men listen, looking intently at the porch floor. “The first one came crunching through the dry leaves but was shielded by the brush. It never saw me sitting there. Then a young buck came moving upwind toward me and stepped behind a Boulder. I could have tracked it and followed it across the crick, but I knew it wasn’t the one”. Deer by deer, he recounts the days encounters for which he never even raised his rifle: the doe by the water, the three pointer concealed behind a basswood with only its rump showing. “I take only one bullet with me,” he says. The young men lean forward on the bench across from him. “And then, without explanation, there’s one who walks right into the clearing and looks you in the eye. He knows full well that you’re there and what you’re doing. He turns his flank right toward you for a clear shot. I j is he’s the one. And so does he. There’s a kind of nod exchanged. That’s why I only carry with me one shot. I wait for the one. He gave himself to me. That’s what I was taught: take only what is given, and then treat it with respect”
‘Honorable harvest’ from “Braiding Sweetgrass - indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants” by Robin Wall Kimmerer
”Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge”, Robin Wall Kimmerer
From Sweden to Sierra Leone, cities are turning the climate crisis into an opportunity for happier, healthier and smarter living
“Hot town! Summer in the city…!”
It’s a cracking song – a 1960s anthem to hedonism – and no surprise that it’s been an ‘earworm’ going through my head this morning, as I wrestle with a jammed blind, trying to create some paltry shade for my desk as the mercury soars towards the 40s.
And if that sounds all too familiar, it could seem relatively cool in the not so distant future. Rather masochistically, you may think, I’ve been reading predictions of how summers in the city could get a lot hotter, and not in a good way, as the climate spins out of control.
What caught my eye, though, was not the familiar warnings of what life in a 50-degree city might be like (borderline impossible, basically). Rather, I was struck by the sheer range of responses that cities across the world are starting to put in place to cool the streets. Responses that don’t just turn down the urban thermostat, but that make life sweeter for their people in the here and now.
the Loess plateau, in China, in 2007, left, and transformed into green valleys and productive farmland in 2019
“This world is ready for regenerative change. It’s going to be a complete change of our behaviour as a species in the longer term. It is going to be a step as big as fire was for humanity.”
[keep reading]
Hope in a Changing Climate Youtube
by John D Liu
This film was first broadcast on the BBC World in 2009 the day before the Copenhagen COP 15 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It discusses a viable solution to human induced climate change. Nothing in the years since it was first broadcast has changed this. It is more important now than when it was first broadcast. The Sponsorship was arrange by IUCN and the financial sponsors had no input in the content and did not see the film until it was broadcast.
“If people were the problem, they could also be the solution.”
Dear Friends: Here is a link to an article about a design for a new project in the Sinai Peninsula. In many ways this project represents some of the highest potential for ecological restoration. The Article published in the Kosmos Journal Summer 2019 issue discusses events over 3 years of a collaborative inquiry to understand how the massive desertification in North Africa and the middle east took place and how to restore it. https://www.kosmosjournal.org/kj_article/the-holy-grail-of-restoration/
