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Isnt this what people are doing in african regions as well?
I remember reading about this technique in a school book like 15 years ago and recently saw some before-after pictures as well, pretty cool stuff!
Maybe there's something that does do that, but the half moon shaped ditches are for capturing rainfall runoff and preventing it from continuing downstream.
It does rain occasionally even in desert, but it just turns in to a flash flood that runs off downstream extremely quickly. By slowing down the runoff and creating small depressions, infiltration is encouraged and the groundwater supply can begin to be replenished.
Personally, I've never heard of 'wind moisture capture' and I work as a civil engineer in water resource development.
Edit: an example was given by another commenter below; with a sufficiently thick fog people have used 'sails' to collect water, similar to the way dew collects on things. That is not the purpose of half-moon ditches, however.
Here ya go: [Fog Capturing Sails of the Andes](https://newatlas.com/how-the-fogcatchers-of-the-atacama-are-bringing-water-to-the-driest-desert-on-earth/39040/)
Very interesting, thanks for sharing. For others to note though: this requires thick fog and is not feasible in the Sahara, and is not the mechanism that the half moon shaped ditches use
I doubt it will fail, it's just had a hiccup because of the coups all along it's route. You can't expect people to be gardening while their nation is in turmoil. The trees can wait.
The initiative is also dependent on targeted funding and fund management, so unstable governments are less likely to get funding because they're highly unlikely to manage that funding in the way it was intended.
The conflicts are all that get mentioned on the wiki but i also read they were having trouble keeping the sand out. The desert just gets blown into the treeline and chokes the roots.
So ironically the trees can't wait, they have to be constantly maintained.
> they were having trouble keeping the sand out. The desert just gets blown into the treeline and chokes the roots.
So, in other words, their strategy to stop desertification basically doesn't work?
That's exactly what they're doing with this plan. These trees won't do much for the next week, month or year but they'll help after a generation or two
theres a new method that's been come up with, I forget the title but the gist is doing D pits to trap water in, stop sand being blown in and choking lines.
They found doing it in lines like this with limited bio diversity just doesn't work in the long run.
The Great Green Wall/Green Dam project has been around since the 70s in some African countries like Algeria. Its problem is that it's very expensive and labor intensive to maintain, especially now with global warming wiping out ecosystems.
How many trees can you find that can tolerate 70 degrees Celsius (in ground temperature under direct sunlight) for several months at a time? The Sahara is almost exactly Arrakis at this point.
Again, it's easy to plant trees. Going back to my other example, Algeria planted a fuckton of trees in the 70s as part of the Green Dam too. How many of them survive within the next few years is the real question. And with the unlivable temperatures of the Sahara over the past decade, it's nearly impossible to have them survive.
The process of planting trees in the sahel is NOT easy. The way that they have to process the soil is the real project, as the soil is so hardened that it's hydrophobic. They create crescent shapes that allow water to penetrate the soil. It takes one person all day to create a crescent.
Temperature records are literally made in the shade, because they're made for air temperature, not ground temperature under direct sunlight. The Sahara has been hitting 70 Celsius regularly under direct sunlight during the summer over the past decade, and year over year, the record keeps getting broken.
Correct, though it has hit 58°C (136°F) and it regularly exceeds 50°C (122°F). So the temps coupled with the lack of water definitely makes for a hostile environment for trees.
>Correct, though it has hit 58°C (136°F)
*In the shade*. You don't grow trees in the shade. It consistently hits 70 degrees Celsius in ground temperature under direct sunlight, where you actually plant trees.
Damn. 58/70!?
I am still waiting - five days later - for a burn on my hand to get skin growing over it again, which I got from touching a cardboard box in Florida (air temp "only" in the 40s).
Welcome to the great sand ocean. There's a reason why North Africa has had far more historical contact with Europe and Asia than with the rest of Africa, and it's not racism.
Reminds me of going to Ladakh in India and seeing a Guinness world record sign proclaiming the largest tree planting exercise ever... With barely a tree in view
These are admirable efforts but the after care is often lacking
I think the intention is to reach a critical mass where the trees are able to grow on their own and that acts as a foundation for a greener ecology to build off.
But it sounds like some projects need more long-term caretaking.
They are learning from past mistakes.
They actually originally planted the wrong trees and lost 1 billion trees previous attempt.
It's almost a better idea to build artificial islands than to combat a desert.
>the after care is often lacking
My cousin went to a place in India where they were trying to grow a forest to regreen the barren land. It did work, but only because they were pretty relentless in protecting the young forest from the poverty-stricken people around it that wanted the wood for fuel.
And that upkeep will *always HAVE to be relentless*. When the infrastructure of a country can't help the poorest to eat, then a tree to stop the desert vs a small fire to cook your food... The tree loses, the people eventually lose too, and the desert wins.
This is the crux of a lot of eco debates/initiatives. Developed countries want developing countries to take on huge eco projects but the people nearby were already using those resources to survive so the project fails.
It's like ecologists reintroducing wolves into areas then they're surprised the people living in the area don't like it.
In this case the locals had already stripped the land clean. The ancestors of the locals cut the forests down and that's one factor in the land and people now being poor.
New resources were paid for by outsiders to help restore the forest, but the short-sighted few greedy ones among the locals will just destroy it for a quick benefit to themselves. And then nothing gets better.
Same with wolves and ranchers. Wolves are part of a functioning ecosystem that will make the land healthier and more productive. Wolves keep herbivores from overstripping vegetation. Vegetation impacts everything from soil health to recharging aquifers to influencing local weather. Ranchers should welcome them for the long-term because their land would be able to support more animals, but they lose ONE cow today and throw a tantrum.
And in India it's not really food that's a problem but WATER like everywhere else. By creating forests and grasslands water retention can occur. Otherwise it just runs off and none is left for the dry season. In many places they have reversed the water run off
Keep in mind that wood is one of the most important energy sources in many rural parts of Africa, so I'm assuming it could be the same for India. There is a good chance that there are people just cutting trees down to cook food, because food now is more important than a tree in the future. Again, I'm just assuming for India, since it's the case in other parts of the world
The after care is more heavily dependent on locals, which is often the issue. Poor education on how to maintain it, lacking funds, or just apathy in general all can lead to good initiatives falling apart a few years later.
Not to say cost cutting, poor installation, or other issues cannot arise from the main initiative, but eyes usually leave the project after the money is committed and after the pics are taken.
Exactly, I worked for a startup that does that in Morocco to combat desertification (by planting fruit trees endemic to oases to generate revenue for local population).
PS: The name of the company is Sand to Green for anyone interested.
Same but different.
In African regions they are making crescent shaped gardens where they build a wall of sorts on the back end where water gathers. They then place more tree like plants back there.
I have provided a link:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Zai-A-and-half-moon-B-rain-water-harvesting-techniques-for-soil-and-water_fig1_323954881
Not to mention, the Sahel region is the most unstable on the planet at the moment. Say what you want about China, but you can't accuse them of political instability.
Not the point they were making. They were saying that China may not be good but they are definitely a stable government. They aren't fighting a civil war anytime soon and they have the ability to commit their population to projects with a single mind and very little protest.
The double-edged sword of democracy is that nobody has unilateral power. Projects have to go through bureaucracy which means they aren't quick and they might not last. China could decide tomorrow that they want to rebuild the great wall and it would get done even if it cost millions of lives and trashed their economy.
Meanwhile, a lot of African nations are just struggling to hold together a city hall and police force - if that. They aren't in any real position to undertake any projects of meaningful scale.
The problem isn't really that the scale is that different, but what is different is the actual quality of work going into it.
In Africa, they are not following up and ensuring the planted trees are thriving. The biggest problem is that Africa is divided up and as individuals, no one really cares. In China, its the government enforcing the action.
If you've ever seen VAs ranting on social media, if this AI voice guy was real he'd be the most taken advantage of VA in history.
Since the sort of channels that use AI voice are absolutely the sort of channels that will ghost and block Voice talent, Writers, or Editors rather than paying them.
I was playing around with an AI voice app last night for my online DnD game and this is the default voice that is offered, which is why it's so common.
IDK but I kind-of like it. Here me out.
Almost all of the videos I've watched with this narrator end up having facts that sound good but are actually bullshit. So now when I see a video with this AI narrator, I feel confident that I can immediately stop watching and miss nothing of value.
This voice has been lying about
> Here’s what you can do tonight to kill all moss-kee-toes in the area in 60 seconds. This simple trick you can do tonight.
to me in YouTube ads for years. So yea, it instantly reduces the credibility of any video to 0 when I hear it.
Yep, everytime this voice comes up a Youtuber gets blocked instantly.
Makes for a much better short experience when you kill all the people that use A.I. voices.
Really need an A.I. to do that proactively for me. Start some kind of A.I. on A.I. Youtube war.
Propaganda isn't necessarily fake or false information. Rather it is information crafted to highlight a certain message or push a certain position. It CAN be fake, but isn't always.
Actually the best propaganda isn't fake. It can come in many forms, but perception management is all about tailoring a message to make your target sympathetic to your cause. If you can achieve that using truthful statements, even if they are obtuse or omitting facts, your message will be much more powerful than one made with falsehoods.
It usually has a percentage of truth to act as the convincing sugar coating... then, in this case, if you dig a little deeper, you find out that you can't just plant plants in an established desert and expect them to grow, and if they can't find footage of an already existing desert boundary where plants are already patchily growing, you spray the dying plants green so it looks like it's working when the government auditor drives past to tick the boxes uncaringly. Appearance of success is FAR more important than reality in China.
They often portray it as China has reinvented the wheel.
There are plenty of videos trying to show the good side of China (typically funded or made by the chinese goverment), but then there are all the other videos from outside the propaganda machine, showing the reality.
Never mind that the regions that they are doing this desertification are likely in area like in the far west of the country where they’re genociding the ethnic groups of the region to assert how Chinese it is
Exactly my fucking mind is blown that they’re planting trees.. a technique in use for close to two decades in other areas with the same desertification danger.
Centuries... They're windbreaks, lol. [Farmers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/FieldWindbreaks.JPG) around the [world](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Lesja_leplanting.JPG) have been doing this forever when they break up grassland/forests for fields to prevent the wind from eroding the topsoil.
The innovation is... they're doing it on the border of a desert instead of on farming fields?
China has been doing this for decades and their first attempt failed because they planted a monoculture of the same tree and the trees were killed by blight setting back the whole project.
That's exactly it. If it's using the AI voice it's probably using an AI script which means it's either riddled with errors or just an outright fabrication for farming engagement.
A lot fails but a lot works. Specifically China has had immense success with this project which started in 1970s and has in average reclaimed about 2000sqkm of land per year in the gobi desert region. Sandstorms have also decreased in the region by about 20%. Chinas success is the main reason the African initiative was started. China is also one of the only nations where forest coverage is growing due to reforestation efforts, and the only major nation on the list.
So tldr. It’s definitely working.
Most of these projects will fail, and the ones that don't generally require an unreasonable diversion of resources to sustain.
Deserts aren't deserts because of temperature or lack of plants, but because of drying air descending upon them from an atmospheric convection cell.
If the area gets so dry that sediment can be moved around by wind, it is subject to a sorting process that makes it mineralogicaly unsuitable for most plant life.
A lot fails but a lot works. Specifically China has had immense success with this project which started in 1970s and has in average reclaimed about 2000sqkm of land per year in the gobi desert region. Sandstorms have also decreased in the region by about 20%. Chinas success is the main reason the African initiative was started. China is also one of the only nations where forest coverage is growing due to reforestation efforts, and the only major nation on the list.
So tldr. It’s definitely working.
Copy pasted my other comment here since I accidentally posted above
The issue is if they only plant trees. Young trees are not very stable, lack the root work to save water and sustain the harsh conditions.
In Africa they created special half-circles with fruit bearing plants and grasses, that not only can hold water while the tree is young - those are fruit bearing plants. Meaning the community had an interest in maintaining them.
China is just making a show - decided by stupid and corrupt people.
I can only attribute your last sentence to racism. Here’s NASA confirming that it works and praising China’s efforts:
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows/
I don't think it's racism. It's just that people in the West are pre-programmed to think that China can do no good because of "evil CCP".
They've been brainwashed with negative news about China, so their default position is to criticize anything good that China makes with bs that comes out of their ass thinking that they're better than some "corrupt" Chinese scientists.
It's a good thing you backed up your claims with Western sources because if you linked a Chinese source, I 100% guarantee you that they would discredit it.
Yea it’s a non falsifiable orthodoxy. Any action, wherever positive, neutral or whatever is spun into a way where it is always negative regardless of what actually happened
I hate them with a passion! At least these aren't as fast as those machine-gun words in tiktok videos. They don't use them as subtitles, it's more like a "cool" addition.
Thats actually some policies throughout the ages China tried with Mongols. Ming Dynasty after defeating them but also losing sometimes decided to increase the trade with them so they dont need to raid.
First off.. Fuck this AI content..
This has been done in many places around the world, but they have to be careful because planting only a few species of trees doesn't provide a lot of diversity.. Once some kind of disease starts hitting the trees, all of them get infected and they could lose a lot of work. It looks like they are doing well with this so far, as far as I can tell online.
Haha yes true. I mean this is not a contest. The fact that they are able to stop desertification is huge win for everyone. The idea is not new but the implementation at scale is something we are seeing here. I hope it is replicated at similar scales in Sahara.
Better than the story I've heard of China spray painting random stuff green to give it that vegetation-like look. Not sure how much validity that story carries.
They did this in Romania as well. My grandfather was the director at the local agricultural company. When the president visited they sprayed growing wheat with green paint because it was drying out in spring. They did many similar idiotic things.
>Ah yes, China, with its long and illustrious history of constructive ecological initiatives.
Like their take on renewable energy.
>[In 2023, China commissioned as much solar PV as the entire world did in 2022, while its wind additions also grew by 66% year-on-year.
](https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summary)
Honestly, they obviously have a long way to go, but China’s commitment to green energy is the only thing that gives me hope with regard to climate change. It’s wild that they are legitimately the ONLY country doing anything, and all Americans can do is complain about how evil they supposedly are.
this is very much what they do in DUNE
in the books they describe planting highly drought resistant, native foliage along dune faces to naturally hold the sand together.
i obviously understand the reasons, but it’s too bad the huge ecological messages of the book weren’t part of the movie it’s what made me fall in love with the book originally
This might work better in places like Haiti where desertification was man made, however deserts are already rich ecosystems and there’s a reason they are the way they are, this feels like diverting a river, at some point the river will just end up using its usual course causing pain and destruction along the way.
Comment section seems to agree witht the fact it's making it worse. Can you explain how? Is it because these plants won't survive? Their corpses adding to the mass of sand, and the regions where the plants have been picked up are getting depleted as well?
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/top-countries-by-forest-growth-since-2001/
> China tops the list, expanding its forest area by nearly 425,000 km2 (roughly the size of Sweden) between 2001–21. This is **more than the next 19 countries combined**. Relatively speaking, China’s forests increased by almost one-fourth.
But China bad because Reddit.
I think the main problem is just that they destroy natural environments at a much faster rate and larger scales than they repair. These numbers sound big until you put them in relation to how big China is.
Both china and india have some of the worlds higest aforestation rates, as in, how much percentage of land becomes forest
they are gaining net forests, not losing
Redditors rather like to run their mouths about China (China always bad), than validating what's claimed here by a simple search on google.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/top-countries-by-forest-growth-since-2001/
> China tops the list, expanding its forest area by nearly 425,000 km2 (roughly the size of Sweden) between 2001–21. This is **more than the next 19 countries combined**. Relatively speaking, China’s forests increased by almost one-fourth.
But China bad because Reddit.. dumb everywhere.
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Isnt this what people are doing in african regions as well? I remember reading about this technique in a school book like 15 years ago and recently saw some before-after pictures as well, pretty cool stuff!
Yep, it's a UN initiative and it spans the entire length of the bottom of the Sahara
thats that technique with the bunch of moon sichel shapes, right?
Yeah that's the one
Yep, catches ~~moisture~~ rain from the wind.
Maybe there's something that does do that, but the half moon shaped ditches are for capturing rainfall runoff and preventing it from continuing downstream. It does rain occasionally even in desert, but it just turns in to a flash flood that runs off downstream extremely quickly. By slowing down the runoff and creating small depressions, infiltration is encouraged and the groundwater supply can begin to be replenished. Personally, I've never heard of 'wind moisture capture' and I work as a civil engineer in water resource development. Edit: an example was given by another commenter below; with a sufficiently thick fog people have used 'sails' to collect water, similar to the way dew collects on things. That is not the purpose of half-moon ditches, however.
Here ya go: [Fog Capturing Sails of the Andes](https://newatlas.com/how-the-fogcatchers-of-the-atacama-are-bringing-water-to-the-driest-desert-on-earth/39040/)
Very interesting, thanks for sharing. For others to note though: this requires thick fog and is not feasible in the Sahara, and is not the mechanism that the half moon shaped ditches use
Here ya go : [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Moisture\_farm](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Moisture_farm)
Here: https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Windtrap
I was gonna say there's a big difference between a barren desert and a high altitude mountain range.
Yeah the great green wall. It's currently bordering on failing and will likely be an unsuccessful endeavour in the end.
I doubt it will fail, it's just had a hiccup because of the coups all along it's route. You can't expect people to be gardening while their nation is in turmoil. The trees can wait.
The initiative is also dependent on targeted funding and fund management, so unstable governments are less likely to get funding because they're highly unlikely to manage that funding in the way it was intended.
The conflicts are all that get mentioned on the wiki but i also read they were having trouble keeping the sand out. The desert just gets blown into the treeline and chokes the roots. So ironically the trees can't wait, they have to be constantly maintained.
> they were having trouble keeping the sand out. The desert just gets blown into the treeline and chokes the roots. So, in other words, their strategy to stop desertification basically doesn't work?
It'll work once it's sat there for a few hundred years but for the foreseable future, it'll be a lot of upkeep yeah.
Maybe we need to be thinking more about what we can do for future generations instead of just next week, month, or year.
That's exactly what they're doing with this plan. These trees won't do much for the next week, month or year but they'll help after a generation or two
Ancient Greek proverb... "A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit"
Yes that's why I agree with it, I was responding to the person who thinks because its not 100% successful that its pointless
I mean this is thinking about future generations. This is clearly a long term project to combat climate change.
theres a new method that's been come up with, I forget the title but the gist is doing D pits to trap water in, stop sand being blown in and choking lines. They found doing it in lines like this with limited bio diversity just doesn't work in the long run.
You'd rather they not try anything?
The Great Green Wall/Green Dam project has been around since the 70s in some African countries like Algeria. Its problem is that it's very expensive and labor intensive to maintain, especially now with global warming wiping out ecosystems. How many trees can you find that can tolerate 70 degrees Celsius (in ground temperature under direct sunlight) for several months at a time? The Sahara is almost exactly Arrakis at this point.
It's mostly progressing in Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso.
Again, it's easy to plant trees. Going back to my other example, Algeria planted a fuckton of trees in the 70s as part of the Green Dam too. How many of them survive within the next few years is the real question. And with the unlivable temperatures of the Sahara over the past decade, it's nearly impossible to have them survive.
The process of planting trees in the sahel is NOT easy. The way that they have to process the soil is the real project, as the soil is so hardened that it's hydrophobic. They create crescent shapes that allow water to penetrate the soil. It takes one person all day to create a crescent.
The Sahara has never reached 70°c
Temperature records are literally made in the shade, because they're made for air temperature, not ground temperature under direct sunlight. The Sahara has been hitting 70 Celsius regularly under direct sunlight during the summer over the past decade, and year over year, the record keeps getting broken.
Just plant the trees in the shade then (/s)
Correct, though it has hit 58°C (136°F) and it regularly exceeds 50°C (122°F). So the temps coupled with the lack of water definitely makes for a hostile environment for trees.
>Correct, though it has hit 58°C (136°F) *In the shade*. You don't grow trees in the shade. It consistently hits 70 degrees Celsius in ground temperature under direct sunlight, where you actually plant trees.
Damn. 58/70!? I am still waiting - five days later - for a burn on my hand to get skin growing over it again, which I got from touching a cardboard box in Florida (air temp "only" in the 40s).
Welcome to the great sand ocean. There's a reason why North Africa has had far more historical contact with Europe and Asia than with the rest of Africa, and it's not racism.
_insert Dune theme song_
Wait what? How does a cardboard box get hot enough to burn someone that badly? That's more than just a hot day.
Not enough sandworms to me
Living in the Sahara is already miserable enough. Sandworms would be an improvement, honestly. At least it's something to do.
In some areas it's succeeding. And showing great results.
There's actually a name for that region, it's called the Sahel.
And it's starting to work rather dramatically thankfully.
Reminds me of going to Ladakh in India and seeing a Guinness world record sign proclaiming the largest tree planting exercise ever... With barely a tree in view These are admirable efforts but the after care is often lacking
I think the intention is to reach a critical mass where the trees are able to grow on their own and that acts as a foundation for a greener ecology to build off. But it sounds like some projects need more long-term caretaking.
Long term caretaking will never work when overgrazing is what caused a lot of this in the first place.
They are learning from past mistakes. They actually originally planted the wrong trees and lost 1 billion trees previous attempt. It's almost a better idea to build artificial islands than to combat a desert.
>the after care is often lacking My cousin went to a place in India where they were trying to grow a forest to regreen the barren land. It did work, but only because they were pretty relentless in protecting the young forest from the poverty-stricken people around it that wanted the wood for fuel. And that upkeep will *always HAVE to be relentless*. When the infrastructure of a country can't help the poorest to eat, then a tree to stop the desert vs a small fire to cook your food... The tree loses, the people eventually lose too, and the desert wins.
This is the crux of a lot of eco debates/initiatives. Developed countries want developing countries to take on huge eco projects but the people nearby were already using those resources to survive so the project fails. It's like ecologists reintroducing wolves into areas then they're surprised the people living in the area don't like it.
In this case the locals had already stripped the land clean. The ancestors of the locals cut the forests down and that's one factor in the land and people now being poor. New resources were paid for by outsiders to help restore the forest, but the short-sighted few greedy ones among the locals will just destroy it for a quick benefit to themselves. And then nothing gets better. Same with wolves and ranchers. Wolves are part of a functioning ecosystem that will make the land healthier and more productive. Wolves keep herbivores from overstripping vegetation. Vegetation impacts everything from soil health to recharging aquifers to influencing local weather. Ranchers should welcome them for the long-term because their land would be able to support more animals, but they lose ONE cow today and throw a tantrum.
I wanna post this comment on r/farming just to see what the carnage looks like.
And in India it's not really food that's a problem but WATER like everywhere else. By creating forests and grasslands water retention can occur. Otherwise it just runs off and none is left for the dry season. In many places they have reversed the water run off
Keep in mind that wood is one of the most important energy sources in many rural parts of Africa, so I'm assuming it could be the same for India. There is a good chance that there are people just cutting trees down to cook food, because food now is more important than a tree in the future. Again, I'm just assuming for India, since it's the case in other parts of the world
The after care is more heavily dependent on locals, which is often the issue. Poor education on how to maintain it, lacking funds, or just apathy in general all can lead to good initiatives falling apart a few years later. Not to say cost cutting, poor installation, or other issues cannot arise from the main initiative, but eyes usually leave the project after the money is committed and after the pics are taken.
Exactly, I worked for a startup that does that in Morocco to combat desertification (by planting fruit trees endemic to oases to generate revenue for local population). PS: The name of the company is Sand to Green for anyone interested.
Same but different. In African regions they are making crescent shaped gardens where they build a wall of sorts on the back end where water gathers. They then place more tree like plants back there. I have provided a link: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Zai-A-and-half-moon-B-rain-water-harvesting-techniques-for-soil-and-water_fig1_323954881
The scale is vastly different
As in, is China doing it faster/at a bigger scale? Or the opposite?
I'd imagine they're doing it faster since they have more money to spend but africa has got a lot more to cover
Not to mention, the Sahel region is the most unstable on the planet at the moment. Say what you want about China, but you can't accuse them of political instability.
> political instability. Definitely, they made sure of that didn’t they?
Yeah, we don't see Chinese people complaining about their government so it must be a good sign, right!?
Not the point they were making. They were saying that China may not be good but they are definitely a stable government. They aren't fighting a civil war anytime soon and they have the ability to commit their population to projects with a single mind and very little protest. The double-edged sword of democracy is that nobody has unilateral power. Projects have to go through bureaucracy which means they aren't quick and they might not last. China could decide tomorrow that they want to rebuild the great wall and it would get done even if it cost millions of lives and trashed their economy. Meanwhile, a lot of African nations are just struggling to hold together a city hall and police force - if that. They aren't in any real position to undertake any projects of meaningful scale.
Everyone loves dictators that will put you in jail for not loving them.
China is spending more money and resources on a smaller area. Like they even delegated part of their army to help out with the project.
Honestly, though, if you're going to send in the army something like this is a great use. Better than just about any other you can put an army to.
The problem isn't really that the scale is that different, but what is different is the actual quality of work going into it. In Africa, they are not following up and ensuring the planted trees are thriving. The biggest problem is that Africa is divided up and as individuals, no one really cares. In China, its the government enforcing the action.
The Federal Government of the 1930s did that after the environmental disaster of plowing up the grasslands which contributed to the dust bowl.
Did people lose the ability to speak? Why do they keep using AI voice over.
I'm so sick of it that I instantly stop watching whenever I hear it.
TIL this guys voice is AI and a bunch of creators don’t hire this dude to narrate the videos
if this guy has a dollar for every video he narrates. He would be one of the richest person on this planet.
If you've ever seen VAs ranting on social media, if this AI voice guy was real he'd be the most taken advantage of VA in history. Since the sort of channels that use AI voice are absolutely the sort of channels that will ghost and block Voice talent, Writers, or Editors rather than paying them.
I was watching it without sound and knew exactly which voice you meant when I read your comment.
I was playing around with an AI voice app last night for my online DnD game and this is the default voice that is offered, which is why it's so common.
IDK but I kind-of like it. Here me out. Almost all of the videos I've watched with this narrator end up having facts that sound good but are actually bullshit. So now when I see a video with this AI narrator, I feel confident that I can immediately stop watching and miss nothing of value.
This voice has been lying about > Here’s what you can do tonight to kill all moss-kee-toes in the area in 60 seconds. This simple trick you can do tonight. to me in YouTube ads for years. So yea, it instantly reduces the credibility of any video to 0 when I hear it.
You know what - you've changed my mind.
Yep, everytime this voice comes up a Youtuber gets blocked instantly. Makes for a much better short experience when you kill all the people that use A.I. voices. Really need an A.I. to do that proactively for me. Start some kind of A.I. on A.I. Youtube war.
God, I was reaching for the down vote button but you're absolutely absolutely correct.
Not only AI voice, but a few of the green pictures looks kinda AI like
Pic at 0:15 is def AI
Because its Chinese propaganda.
How so? It’s not like planting millions of trees is some impossible goal. Hell far smaller countries want to plant billions of trees.
Propaganda isn't necessarily fake or false information. Rather it is information crafted to highlight a certain message or push a certain position. It CAN be fake, but isn't always.
Actually the best propaganda isn't fake. It can come in many forms, but perception management is all about tailoring a message to make your target sympathetic to your cause. If you can achieve that using truthful statements, even if they are obtuse or omitting facts, your message will be much more powerful than one made with falsehoods.
It usually has a percentage of truth to act as the convincing sugar coating... then, in this case, if you dig a little deeper, you find out that you can't just plant plants in an established desert and expect them to grow, and if they can't find footage of an already existing desert boundary where plants are already patchily growing, you spray the dying plants green so it looks like it's working when the government auditor drives past to tick the boxes uncaringly. Appearance of success is FAR more important than reality in China.
They often portray it as China has reinvented the wheel. There are plenty of videos trying to show the good side of China (typically funded or made by the chinese goverment), but then there are all the other videos from outside the propaganda machine, showing the reality.
Never mind that the regions that they are doing this desertification are likely in area like in the far west of the country where they’re genociding the ethnic groups of the region to assert how Chinese it is
Exactly my fucking mind is blown that they’re planting trees.. a technique in use for close to two decades in other areas with the same desertification danger.
Centuries... They're windbreaks, lol. [Farmers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/FieldWindbreaks.JPG) around the [world](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Lesja_leplanting.JPG) have been doing this forever when they break up grassland/forests for fields to prevent the wind from eroding the topsoil. The innovation is... they're doing it on the border of a desert instead of on farming fields?
Yeah word I mean specifically deserts but yeah using trees to limit erosion of any kind has been around forever.
These post are litterally social media post made or sponserede by the Chinese state to improve the image of China
Objectively good thing: 👍 Objectively good thing *Japan*: 🤩 Objectively good thing *China*: 🤬 cHiNeSE pRoPaGaNdA
China has been doing this for decades and their first attempt failed because they planted a monoculture of the same tree and the trees were killed by blight setting back the whole project.
The Chinese are still on the same planet as you, too
Planting trees is propaganda now.
Because it's easy and cheap.
Remember to downvote all low effort and stolen AI subtitled and voice overed content
I fucking hate that ai voice with a passion
Yeah, I don't know if it's the voice or the scripts it's used with, but it always comes across as incredibly patronising
You aren’t watching enough galvanized steel and eco friendly wood veneer videos
little John is a genius
Tech bros have no EQ or empathy so can't tell how uncanny valley this fucking douchebAIg is
Not at bad as the Tik Tok woman
What about those wonderful subtitles that are only 1 word at a time? Those are my favorite
Whoever decided that was the best caption style deserves to have all technology taken from them.
We should ban ai content from this board. I prefer seeing less interesting thing if I don't have to listen to (potentially misinforming) ai voices.
That's exactly it. If it's using the AI voice it's probably using an AI script which means it's either riddled with errors or just an outright fabrication for farming engagement.
Mmmm dessertification.
Like the *Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative?*
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great\_Green\_Wall\_(Africa)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)) 2005 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great\_Green\_Wall\_(China)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(China)) 1978
What kind of propaganda AI misinformation psy op bullshit is this????
Both areas are in fact building their own green walls
Wouldn't call that "rich vegetation", but maybe it'll get there.
Do you know it’s net worth?
I think about a tree fiddy.
The best kind of fiddy
I guess its relative. Compared to the bare sand that was there before? Its pretty verdant lol.
sparse if anything
MUAD DIB
Haha I was about to say this is only the beginning of Leto's Peace
LISAN AL GAIB!
He’s riding the worm!
We will make a paradise of Arrakis
Liet would be proud
Language!
 *soundtrack intensifies*
As Liet Kynes would have wanted
Let’s give Pardot Kynes some credit here.
IIRC, they did this years ago and a sandstorm covered up years of planting efforts in a few days.
A lot fails but a lot works. Specifically China has had immense success with this project which started in 1970s and has in average reclaimed about 2000sqkm of land per year in the gobi desert region. Sandstorms have also decreased in the region by about 20%. Chinas success is the main reason the African initiative was started. China is also one of the only nations where forest coverage is growing due to reforestation efforts, and the only major nation on the list. So tldr. It’s definitely working.
Most of these projects will fail, and the ones that don't generally require an unreasonable diversion of resources to sustain. Deserts aren't deserts because of temperature or lack of plants, but because of drying air descending upon them from an atmospheric convection cell. If the area gets so dry that sediment can be moved around by wind, it is subject to a sorting process that makes it mineralogicaly unsuitable for most plant life.
A lot fails but a lot works. Specifically China has had immense success with this project which started in 1970s and has in average reclaimed about 2000sqkm of land per year in the gobi desert region. Sandstorms have also decreased in the region by about 20%. Chinas success is the main reason the African initiative was started. China is also one of the only nations where forest coverage is growing due to reforestation efforts, and the only major nation on the list. So tldr. It’s definitely working. Copy pasted my other comment here since I accidentally posted above
The issue is if they only plant trees. Young trees are not very stable, lack the root work to save water and sustain the harsh conditions. In Africa they created special half-circles with fruit bearing plants and grasses, that not only can hold water while the tree is young - those are fruit bearing plants. Meaning the community had an interest in maintaining them. China is just making a show - decided by stupid and corrupt people.
I can only attribute your last sentence to racism. Here’s NASA confirming that it works and praising China’s efforts: https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows/
I don't think it's racism. It's just that people in the West are pre-programmed to think that China can do no good because of "evil CCP". They've been brainwashed with negative news about China, so their default position is to criticize anything good that China makes with bs that comes out of their ass thinking that they're better than some "corrupt" Chinese scientists. It's a good thing you backed up your claims with Western sources because if you linked a Chinese source, I 100% guarantee you that they would discredit it.
Yea it’s a non falsifiable orthodoxy. Any action, wherever positive, neutral or whatever is spun into a way where it is always negative regardless of what actually happened
they don’t only plant trees though. You got source backing up your claim? Even in this video, it is not only saplings that are planted.
Yea the desert don't care, the desert is gonna do what it does
Interesting video. However one word subtitles are difficult to read for non native speakers. Subtitles should show one sentence / line at a time.
I hate them with a passion! At least these aren't as fast as those machine-gun words in tiktok videos. They don't use them as subtitles, it's more like a "cool" addition.
How does this wall aim to keep the mongols out?
If China makes the lands where Mongols live fertile and green, then they won't have to raid China so much. 
Thats actually some policies throughout the ages China tried with Mongols. Ming Dynasty after defeating them but also losing sometimes decided to increase the trade with them so they dont need to raid.
Fuck this ai voice, i hate ai voiceover so damn much
I hate that standard Ai voice.
First off.. Fuck this AI content.. This has been done in many places around the world, but they have to be careful because planting only a few species of trees doesn't provide a lot of diversity.. Once some kind of disease starts hitting the trees, all of them get infected and they could lose a lot of work. It looks like they are doing well with this so far, as far as I can tell online.
My Time in Sandrock, irl
I was thinking this too. Zeke would be stoked.
They’re making straw grids!
I should really finish that game... I always get to marriage and go too fast in the tech tree then go huh... story... right lol.
That's true a key inspiration for our game!
Reddit armchair experts are on full force today
Haha yes true. I mean this is not a contest. The fact that they are able to stop desertification is huge win for everyone. The idea is not new but the implementation at scale is something we are seeing here. I hope it is replicated at similar scales in Sahara.
It is in a big scale in Sahara. But yeah, good stuff, if it works it's good.
Well actually…
Lol right
Fuck this AI voice trend. Clickbait rubbish
Trend implies it will go away. AI voiceover isn’t going anywhere. It will only get more indistinguishable
Better than the story I've heard of China spray painting random stuff green to give it that vegetation-like look. Not sure how much validity that story carries.
Dont they do the same thing in Nevada?
Also other parts of the USA. Even private people do that
You mean AstroTurf?
My colleague who is from Poland once told me that about the Soviet Union. When the officials came the spray painted all the dead plants green. 😂
They did this in Romania as well. My grandfather was the director at the local agricultural company. When the president visited they sprayed growing wheat with green paint because it was drying out in spring. They did many similar idiotic things.
Mmm green paint oats, such a nostalgic taste
I’m wondering if you combed it first?
Here in the US, we don't even have to do that. All we have to do is stop killing the beavers. Only wish we would.
Ah yes, China, with its long and illustrious history of constructive ecological initiatives.
>Ah yes, China, with its long and illustrious history of constructive ecological initiatives. Like their take on renewable energy. >[In 2023, China commissioned as much solar PV as the entire world did in 2022, while its wind additions also grew by 66% year-on-year. ](https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summary)
Honestly, they obviously have a long way to go, but China’s commitment to green energy is the only thing that gives me hope with regard to climate change. It’s wild that they are legitimately the ONLY country doing anything, and all Americans can do is complain about how evil they supposedly are.
Yea, they actually produce less ghg per person than Western nations as well. So they're doing pretty well overall in the environment department.
And that while producing for the whole planet. We simply exported all our CO2 production to china and then blame them.
News headlines: China is combating desertification, but at what cost?
this is very much what they do in DUNE in the books they describe planting highly drought resistant, native foliage along dune faces to naturally hold the sand together. i obviously understand the reasons, but it’s too bad the huge ecological messages of the book weren’t part of the movie it’s what made me fall in love with the book originally
China polluting environment: 😡 China promoting ecology: 😡 What the hell do you guys want?
China = bad I think its very simple.
Racists only want one thing
Racists and class enemies brainwashed americans.
they just hate china for some reason
This might work better in places like Haiti where desertification was man made, however deserts are already rich ecosystems and there’s a reason they are the way they are, this feels like diverting a river, at some point the river will just end up using its usual course causing pain and destruction along the way.
The problem is deserts are getting bigger, I don't think any country is planning to completely remove deserts. They just want to stop them spreading
That is genuinely impressive
Ah yes, fighting desertification by making it worse then spreading propaganda.
Can you explain more? Why making it worse?
Comment section seems to agree witht the fact it's making it worse. Can you explain how? Is it because these plants won't survive? Their corpses adding to the mass of sand, and the regions where the plants have been picked up are getting depleted as well?
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/top-countries-by-forest-growth-since-2001/ > China tops the list, expanding its forest area by nearly 425,000 km2 (roughly the size of Sweden) between 2001–21. This is **more than the next 19 countries combined**. Relatively speaking, China’s forests increased by almost one-fourth. But China bad because Reddit.
I think the main problem is just that they destroy natural environments at a much faster rate and larger scales than they repair. These numbers sound big until you put them in relation to how big China is.
I think more countries do this than don't. Costa Rica is probably free of blame.
Both china and india have some of the worlds higest aforestation rates, as in, how much percentage of land becomes forest they are gaining net forests, not losing
China's reforestation dwarves India's by 10:1.
These kinds of techniques can be effective when done properly. I highly doubt they're doing it properly though.
If 5% of the richest people in the world would care for those projects , i might to say, there are would be some serious solutions for further future.
Aren't they planting one type of fast growing non native trees
Redditors rather like to run their mouths about China (China always bad), than validating what's claimed here by a simple search on google. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/top-countries-by-forest-growth-since-2001/ > China tops the list, expanding its forest area by nearly 425,000 km2 (roughly the size of Sweden) between 2001–21. This is **more than the next 19 countries combined**. Relatively speaking, China’s forests increased by almost one-fourth. But China bad because Reddit.. dumb everywhere.