becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:
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YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. Those are the countries. It will be drought-resistant species, mostly acacias. And this is a brilliant idea you have no idea oh my Christ
This will create so many jobs and regenerate so many communities and aaaaaahhhhhhh
more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall
it’s already happening, and already having positive effects. this is wonderful, why have i not heard of this before? i’m so happy!
Oh yes, acacia trees.
They fix nitrogen and improve soil quality.
And, to make things fun, the species they’re using practices “reverse leaf phenology.” The trees go dormant in the rainy season and then grow their leaves again in the dry season. This means you can plant crops under the trees, in that nitrogen-rich soil, and the trees don’t compete for light because they don’t have any leaves on.
And then in the dry season, you harvest the leaves and feed them to your cows.
Crops grown under acacia trees have better yield than those grown without them. Considerably better.
So, this isn’t just about stopping the advancement of the Sahara - it’s also about improving food security for the entire sub-Saharan belt and possibly reclaiming some of the desert as productive land.
Of course, before the “green revolution,” the farmers knew to plant acacia trees - it’s a traditional practice that they were convinced to abandon in favor of “more reliable” artificial fertilizers (that caused soil degradation, soil erosion, etc).
This is why you listen to the people who, you know, have lived with and on land for centuries.
^ The bold.
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25 Days of Socialist Christmas
Day 7: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus as Marxist critique of class stratification
…i mean hell yeah
(via shad0ww0rdpain)
(Source: twitter.com, via shad0ww0rdpain)
npr:
U.K. voters are heading to the polls Thursday for a general election to select 650 members of Parliament — and determine the futures of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. The election is expected to have high turnout, with key questions about Brexit left to resolve.
Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time and were scheduled to close at 10 p.m. (5 p.m. ET). That’s when the first projections of the results will likely emerge. So far on election day, the most popular figures at polling stations seem to be dogs.
While politicians stumped for a final push, many voters embraced the hashtag #dogsatpollingstations on Twitter, celebrating the wide range of Labs, collies, retrievers, setters, spaniels and shepherds that got a bit of exercise as their humans exercised their right to vote. Johnson, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and other high-profile voters were photographed taking their dogs to the polls.
U.K. Holds A Pivotal General Election, And Voters Bring Their Dogs To The Polls
Photo: Richard Baker/In Pictures via Getty Images
(Source: NPR)
On this day, 12 December 1969, after months of workers’ and students’ strikes, a bomb exploded at a bank in central Milan, killing 17 and wounding 88. Initially blamed on the extra-parliamentary left (leading to numerous arrests and the police murder of anarchist rail worker Giuseppe Pinelli), it was later discovered to have been carried out by the far-right in concert with the state, as part of what would become known as ‘the strategy of tension’. Three fascists were eventually jailed in 2001.
This is a short history of the strategy of tension: https://libcom.org/history/articles/strategy-of-tension-italy https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1290699417781872/?type=3
nasa:
Completely invisible, yet unbelievably influential. 💫
According to new research from our Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are shaped by magnetic fields. These magnetic fields are invisible to the human eye.
However, by combining imagery from our Hubble Space Telescope, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Array and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the magnetic fields become apparent. In this image, scientists measured the magnetic fields along the spiral arms of the galaxy called NGC 1068. The fields are shown as streamlines that closely follow the circling arms.
Image Credit: NASA/SOFIA; NASA/JPL-Caltech/Roma Tre Univ.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
