- ‹ previous
- 710 of 1543
- next ›
Making Iraq Fertile
Iraq is flushing salinity out of millions of acres of land. The process should breathe new life into dirty rivers and dying soils. The idea is to restore "fertile" to the Fertile Crescent. You remember: the swath of once-fecund land arching from the Mediterranean across Iraq and down to the Persian Gulf—aka, the Garden of Eden.
But centuries of irrigation and overuse have turned the farmlands of southern and central Iraq saline—aka, the Garden of Apocalypse. The problem derives from salt collecting in soil when farmers irrigate it with salty water or don't drain it properly. The end result is that Iraq is now so fallow the country imports virtually all its food, paying with oil profits. Much of the government's current budget is spent on food rations, reports Reuters. Making Iraq fertile suggests there might actually be a post-oil future for that nation.
The plan is to pump out subterranean groundwater. The process—which has already worked in Australia—will take years. The work begins with a pumping station in Nassiriya sidelined for decades by the war with Iran, UN sanctions, and the war with the US. The project is further challenged by an ongoing severe drought and by 55,000 miles of crumbling drainage and irrigation channels. . . Suggestion: run the pumps on solar or tidal power and minimize that other problem too. And while we're at it, why not donate the sweat equity of those short-sighted Detroit CEOs? They've been part of the problem for long enough. They could toil in the desert and meditate on their manifold sins.
Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent, lecturer, and 2008 winner of the PEN USA Literary Award, the Kiriyama Prize and the John Burroughs Medal.
This is the sort of thing that should be the focus in Iraq: fixing problems that hinder their growth. Granted, getting our troops out first would be nice...
let americans pay for it.
wanna bet how much they hate us now
even more by 2011.
oh imperialism has it price
bankrupt nation
this is not a recession americans it is a decline of wealth
politicans wont tell you that they want your vote and money
check history see how well imperialism has worked for other countries.
mass media will not tell you about our decline of wealth they know you would quite reading or watching their words.
it is called denial every country goes through it as their nation declines. every country in history has gone through this denial.
human thing.
The need is for agricultural organic communes. The organic method of gardening is natures way plus intelligent concious labour. That gives strenght to the soil and does not deplete it with excessive burn out chemicals, and poisons from the chemical companies.
Organic agricultural methods work on the concept of recycling organic matter back into the soils that each crop harvested takes out of the soil. If you take out 22 tons of potatoes which are organic matter then you must return 22 tons of natural organic matter to end exploitation of the soil so that it retains strenght and nutriants for the comming generations. There are some organic plots that have been in production for five thousand years, and because the organic method was used, they are still producing volumous crops that taste and are strong vitality for the eating. Good compost for organic gardens is manure, leaves, sea weed, and household compostables. In addition there are natural rocks and minerals that add substantive form to ground soil, so great variety of foods can be grown.
Coupled to this is the need to install solar batteries to suck water from the oceans (Iraq), and saline plants to extract the sea salt, then water pipelines along with solar batteries entire to their length. Even the Shahara desert could be returned to organic gardening this way. Solar, wind, and tidal power are renewable and can do the job. Fossil fuels cannot and should be left in the ground, as they are the weaker and most pollution giving of fuels, and are not renewable.
fake Louis Vuitton
orum Cheap Gucci fake handabgs on sale has an extent range of collections, fake handbags such as Admirals Cup, Bubble, Buckingham, Fendi Spring/Summer Rabbit Hait Handbag White Coff Coin, Grande Date, Horizontal, Romulus, Sugar qulity fake Prada bags Cube. The Bubble series varies Bubble Chanel Handbags Black 6415 nini to Bubble XL in size. fake handbags Our collection of unique replica corum fake Louis Vuitton Handbags LV Monogram Perfo watches are perfect for any sailing fake Chanel bags lover or any one that appreciat Dolce & Gabbane D&G Hobo Dark Coffee 7857 qulity fake Thomaswylde handbags fake Louis Vuitton Handbags LV Black Murakami handbags fake Gucci Continental wallet Pearl 112715 qulity fake LouisVuitton Wallets & Purse handbags Louis Vuitton fake handbags fake Coach handbags qulity Christian Dior replica handbags fake Chloe bags Dolce&Gabbana replica handbags Damier Canvas Papillon 26 N51304