Desert

I'm not convinced that we need deserts. Puddings we need, deserts not so much. Of course I wouldn't be saying that if I were some desert-dwelling creature, a rattler say or a scorpion. I'm not sure whether a camel would miss them or not, they'd adapt. People would too.

I can't condemn them completely. Someone I respect and admire greatly, said that they were her favourite terrain. They hold a fascination for a lot of people.
But what if sacrificing them meant saving the planet a little longer? I have insufficient scientific knowledge to know if that would have any impact, probably the more so because I read so much sci-fi, but what if?

A similar question to this arose in the first of Kim Stanley Robinson's inspiring 'Mars Trilogy', 'Red Mars'.
It had always been the aim of the colonists who were sent there to terraform Mars, mainly because the ultimate objective was to allow humans to live outside on the surface of the planet. One person however, was dedicated to keeping Mars red, she saw the beauty in the planet the way it was, a desert. And the truth was that humans were living on it and in vast numbers. Great cities had been built but they were reliant on pressurised tenting, shields that keep air in and radiation out. A fairly easy target for terrorists.

Was there a point in the planet's continued existence as a dead, red, rocky world or was the greater purpose to be a new home for humans? Kim Stanley Robinson chose to terraform, otherwise there would have been no Green Mars and no Blue Mars, but he had made that point, made us look, think, listen.

The reason all this is occupying me today is a second major study in the last couple of weeks, warning of the very real dangers of global warming if we let it go unchecked. In what the Guardian claims to be the most comprehensive analysis so far, we are shown the consequences of the inevitable 2° increase in temperatures and the far more serious results of a 3° climb.

I don't entirely understand the paragraph where the author says that at some point plants can be induced to become producers of carbon dioxide rather than users of it, in which case my terraforming the desert plans would be quite counter-productive, however were we able to cover more of the planet with plants before they turn on us, and we decrease our emissions, then perhaps we can avoid that scenario.

I'm alright Jack, I'll be dead or hoping to be, not so for my children and grandchildren.
Marko Scholze, who I don't think has anything to do with footwear, says that we must act before 2040. I don't know what it will take to persuade people to drive and use electricity more responsibly.
Not Armageddon I hope.