It’s crazy that countries on the edge of the Sahara desert are reversing desertification by just digging half circles
The ground in these places is too compact for water to soak in during wet season which leads to flooding but digging these holes gives the water a place to stop and soak in. And they’re pushing back the desert with this. By just digging holes.
The new plants also help even more water soak into the ground which reduces flooding even more.
These places also give people places to grow food and graze animals like people are turning completely dry compact desert into a refuge for wildlife and plants and solving regional food insecurity just by digging holes.
The half-circles are called zaï! They’re a traditional farming practice in the Sahel desert, and their introduction + reintroduction can be largely credited to Yacouba Sawadogo, the man linked above! He reintroduced and innovated on the zaï on his own farm in the 1980s, and did extensive outreach (along with scientist Mathieu Ouédraogo) to encourage other farmers to adopt them as well.
He also promoted the use of cordons pierreux, which are basically just lines of rocks to reduce erosion, preserve sediments, and increase water absorption.
Immensely cool dude. He’s been a personal hero since I learned about him.
I’m always frustrated by people who imagine complex systems in our society can be replaced by Mutual Aid, and build their entire post revolutionary fantasy on that idea… Real medical care for instance can’t ever be replaced by Mutual Aid
Without access to MRI, dialysis, and cutting edge medicine I would have been dead back in August of 2024… If I lost access to my medical treatments I would be dead in a couple of months.
Translation:
“I don’t know what mutual aid is, but I have definitely been propagandized into believing anything that isn’t the statusquo consists of cartoon hippies doing silly hippie things… because I believe health insurance CEOs personally build/transport/operate MRI machines and that’s why they get to live in luxury while EMTs have to go on stamps and… even actual MRI operators struggle.”
You feeling ok there? You having a moment? take some deep breaths.
1) my health care is provided by my government, no health insurance CEO involved.
2) the people providing my healthcare are public servants.
3) the MRI machine is purchased by the taxpayer.
4) the paramedics are also public servants, they rightly earn upwards of $135,000 a year for their valuable work.
5) where I live MRI technologists earn upwards of $95,000 a year for their valuable work.
You can achieve all of this through the power of democracy, and voting… I hope this helps 💓
I’ll follow this up by saying that we do have private hospitals, but it’s a well known fact that in a medical crisis you want to be in a public hospital. Public hospitals have the most comprehensive array of equipment and the most experienced doctors.
I’ll also add that Australia does have a national Medicare, but it can always be improved… If your nation doesn’t have national health and you do achieve it, it takes maintenance to prevent erosion by conservative political figures who believe things were better without it.
In Australia it took two attempts to create a national health provider. The first national health provider was called Medibank, which was then privatised by a conservative government… The one that lasted is our Medicare, which is itself under attack.
The fight for universal health care is never over. Always be talking about it to your representatives, always be making it a voting issue.
A government is people cooperating: the most thorough mutual aid possible is enabling government specifically to organize and distribute aid.
And if your applicable governments aren’t doing that now? Well! Time for some civic action!
I too like mutual aid, aka the sharing of resources so everyone can have access to it. That sounds great. We should have a system where we all give a little bit of money to a group of people who do some organizing and use the money to get medicines and medical equipment and wait that’s taxes. that’s just taxes.
by the way guys, this deployment of ice to minnesota is largest ever. more agents than chicago. we are a much less dense state. we are being inundated.
It is the largest Department of Homeland Security operation in history. And yet Minnesota’s Somali population (this operation’s primary target) is upwards of 90% naturalized American citizens. It’s even more of a manufactured crisis than most DHS operations. Genuinely living in Minnesota now feels like we’re a small country on the brink of invasion.
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