weird side note that I've seen the comparison many times and the more I look at it the more the shape of the lake in its largest form and the shape of the lake up to the 70s look very similar, but perfectly mirrored

The lake's coming home?

Too soon?

Virgins seething

Also, with this timeline, it seems plausible that the earliest Egyptian empires may have been around just early enough to actually experience this desertification.

AfaIk, one theory is that the ancient Egyptians moved from deserting regions in the Sahara (following a now dry branch of the Nile) to Egypt, i.e. the origin of the ancient Egyptian culture is in the Sahara region.

No doubt countless tribal peoples had (or have) oral histories describing how their homeland was eaten away by desert.

it's a bit like how the bible's flood story was the result of the oceans overcoming land after the last ice age melted away.

the sahara bounced back and forth between fertile grasslands and desert wastelands over the eons and the ancient egyptians of the first kingdom became a thing at the tail end of last transition from grassland to desert.

i like how the "fall of civilizations" podcast frames it. he describes the people of the region as being disparate peoples occupying various parts of the last grassland sahara who slowly migrated over the centuries towards river deltas like the nile as the desert encroached on their homes bit-by-bit over the generations.

i suspect that climate change is going to happen the same way for us and FAR AWAY future generations will be just as ignorant about how it happened or that it even happened.

I’ve heard people try to claim the garden of eden is a memory of the green sahara, but that’s not provable.

Early civilizations were routinely centered around lush green river valleys, with political strife forcing dissidents out into the dry and sterile periphery. So, I wouldn't say it's a memory of a green Sahara so much as a cycle of cultivation and degradation that has informed human storytelling for millennia.

"Eden" could just as easily be the Indus Valley in modern-day Pakistan. Or the Fertile Crescent of Iraq/Iran. Or the Göbekli Tepe of southeast Turkiye. Or the Nile Delta. Or the modern-day Gaza Strip. Or the rich soils along the slopes of Mount Kenya. Or the bountiful soil of Ukraine. Or yadda yadda yadda.

Maybe all of these places, with migrating peoples constantly looking for the next Promised Land of Fruit and Honey, settling for a time, and being uprooted again.

That's pretty cool. I've heard the idea that the Garden of Eden is where the Persian Gulf is now. It supposedly had incredibly rich soil and an immense supply of fresh water until the glaciers over Europe melted and eventually flooded the area.

Is that Radiant Historia?

Brilliant. You had this one locked in for a while waiting for the perfect moment. Great shot.

How China Turned a Desert Green

Reversing Desertification A Green Blueprint for Kenya

Of course, a bunch of these efforts to forestall desertification and reverse the damage is being done with money loaned by Chinese state and private businesses. And (unlike when the IMF or western banks extend loans) we all know that this is how Evil Countries get their hooks in to do the Horrible Thing.

So I'm obligated to ask the question:

AT. WHAT. COST?!

There's an ancient lakebed in Chad that supplies dust that blows across the Atlantic and delivers phosphorus to Amazon rainforests - phosphorus that is needed to support plant growth. Those long-dead organisms are still in the food chain. Life uuh finds a way.

Desert already existed but wasn't as widespread.

Chinese solar farms in their deserts suddenly went green due to the constant shade protecting rain water, plus the water from the automated cleaning spray systems. It grew grass, so they put goats there to keep it mowed for free.

Ireland looked like the rain forest in Vancouver 8,000 years ago, but all the trees were cut down. Now it is flat and windy.

The Aral sea, drainage, happened in just a few years.

The South West in the U.S.A., might be going dry.

I'd say revesal is not just within reach, it's just a matter of people deciding to do it. We know that just digging a bunch of crescent-shaped pits/ponds is really effective at turning desert into green space, and that's hilariously low-tech.

Add on actually complex interventions and ngl i think it could be reversed within like a hundred years.
I mean imagine if massive desalination plants were built and the water pumped inland, we can do that shit, it's just expensive.

There is/was an effort to create a Great Green Wall on the southern side of the Sahara to re-green a 15km-wide band of land all across the continent. It's run into funding, civil unrest and political leadership challenges

Isn’t that supposed to be Iran/Iraq?