A wall of 7,000 kilometers to contain the Sahara
The idea may seem crazy, but it has substance and is perfectly feasible. This is slowing the advance of the desert … using the desert. And to build, with its own sand,a huge concrete wall that physically separates the southern edge of the Sahara green areas of central Africa. The enormous work, in addition, it would be done by humans, but by a very particular kind of bacteria …
The Sahara, like other deserts of the world, is continuously increasing. Its dunes, animated by the wind and the waves, move, move forward and conquer more territory and more with each passing year. The UN itself, in a 2007 report, warned that about one third of the planet’s population (about two billion people) are potential victims of desertification.
The problem, which is already causing massive outflows in many areas of the globe, from Central Asia, China or the sub-Saharan Africa, directly affects nearly one hundred and fifty nations. And the situation has become particularly dramatic precisely in the black.
Bacteria as obrera
To stop the advance of the great African desert, the Swedish architectMagnus Larsson has proposed a revolutionary idea at theTED Global ConferenceOxford, an international meeting in which they put on the table the best global initiatives. One idea is to build a solid wall of concrete that hold back the sand dunes.
Larsson for this huge work can also be carried out effectively “freezing” the dunes and converting the solid rock.The grains of sand can be glued to each other using a bacterium called Bacillus pasteurii, which is very common in humid and swamp environments. “This explains architect microorganism is capable of producing chemically calcite, which is a type of natural cement.
Larsson Imagine, then, an entire army of billions of these bacteria, carried to the edges of the southern Sahara and “injected” there by a large fleet of balloons, working tirelessly to the very sand of the desert to create a natural barrier capable to halt its relentless advance.
“Green Great Wall”
The architect, who is known for another similar project (the “Green Great Wall”, a line of 7,000 km of trees to stop the advance of the Sahara to the south), believes his idea could be present from the first. In addition, he says, the bacteria could undertake the task in a very short time, and once completed, although the trees away the wall to successfully fulfill its mission.
