Climate change is one of the main topics by activists, scientists and now even more so by doctors and environmentalists, has made clear the changes we are experiencing on the planet.
The concerns, with more or less sincerity, have been extended to private companies and governments, who have felt the economic and human costs of the already unquestionable climate change crisis.
We know one thing: we are responsible, either for our inaction, or for the destruction and appropriation of nature. Trees gave us free fruit, but we steal coal, gas and oil use them on a pathological scale - and this already has consequences.
Before we find new forms of undue exploitation, let us look for concrete and workable proposals. In fact, there are few concrete proposals but they’re not attractive from an economic point of view.
Let's think about countries with a sea coast. My medical colleague Nora Daniel and I wrote an open letter, already sent to EDP and still unanswered, about a workable solution in the short term and without harm.
I share the OPEN LETTER:
Passive desalination or how to irrigate the deserts and solve global warming
The planet is getting warmer, the climate is changing – what about now?
All the proposed measures will have long term effects and a high cost.
Ending fossil fuels and opting for electric vehicles does not solve the problem, not with lithium batteries, with high environmental costs that only change where the pollution takes place.
The sea levels are rising and flooding coasts, submerging small islands…
What shall we do?
It is simple, if there is a greater volume of liquid water, it must be drained to where it does not cause damage and, on the contrary, it irrigates the land, increases the humidity of the air, increases the mirror effect, cools the planet – all of this without using sun or wind-powered energy, without the use of heavy metals.
Here’s the proposal:
Building wells by the shore, or pipelines that bring sea water inland, using the energy from the tides or through windmills, bringing it through open canals up to inland lakes, slightly elevated, from where narrow canals would come, covered by transparent, larger half tubes – made from PET bottles - which would be buried 2/3 cm deep in the soil, making the water that would flow on those canals evaporate, condensing again in the wall of the coverage and sliding through its walls, infiltrating itself into the soil.
Several species could be planted in-between those canals.
This could be done today, up to the deserts, creating interior seas in the desert, reducing the sandstorms, and increasing the wooded lands.
Plants lower the temperature, increase perspiration, the water in the atmosphere and will increase the rainfall, inverting the warming process.
The Arabs irrigated large territories to cultivate, using shovels alone – what have we done since then?
What do we do with so much technology thousands of years later?
Click here to read the Portuguese edition.
