Mother Jones tells us about The Saline Solution:
| In the mid-’80s, an atmospheric physicist named Carl N. Hodges predicted that the key to saving the planet was to make the desert bloom—with a spindly saltwater plant known as salicornia, a.k.a. sea asparagus. The idea languished for years, but now scientists, investors, and even celebrities are lining up behind the 71-year-old’s vision for feeding the planet, fueling our cars, and reversing rising sea levels. |
Salicornia, eh?
Well, I’m not an asparagus aficionado, although my wife makes a good asparagus and boiled egg concoction.
But sea asparagus cookies? No, I don’t think so.
Anyway, here are three paragraphs from the Wikipedia article:
| The Salicornia species are small, usually less than 30 cm tall, succulent herbs with a jointed horizontal main stem and erect lateral branches. The leaves are small and scale-like and as such the plant may appear leafless. Many species are green, but their foliage turns red in autumn. The hermaphrodite flowers are wind pollinated, and the fruit is small and succulent and contains a single seed.
Salicornia species can generally tolerate immersion in salt water. They use the c4 pathway to take in carbon dioxide from the surrounding atmosphere. There are experimental fields of Salicornia in Ras al-Zawr (Saudi Arabia), Eritrea (Northeast Africa) and Sonora (Northwest Mexico) aimed at the production of biodiesel. The company responsible for the Sonora trials (Global Seawater) claims that between 225 and 250 gallons of BQ-9000 biodiesel can be produced per hectare (approximately 2.5 acres) of salicornia, and is promoting a $35 million scheme to create a 12,000-acre (49 km2) salicornia farm in Bahia de Kino. |
Scheme, huh? The writer’s biased and/or jealous. 😀
Besides, I grew up in Sonora. (Doesn’t that pertain somehow?)
OK, here’s a bit more about Hodges and his visionary project as captured by the Los Angeles Times last summer:
| The Old Man Who Farms With the Sea
The Earth’s ice sheets are melting fast. Scientists predict that rising seas could swallow some low-lying areas, displacing millions of people. Hodges sees opportunity. Why not divert the flow inland to create wealth and jobs instead of catastrophe? He wants to channel the ocean into man-made “rivers” to nourish commercial aquaculture operations, mangrove forests and crops that produce food and fuel. This greening of desert coastlines, he said, could add millions of acres of productive farmland and sequester vast quantities of carbon dioxide, the primary culprit in global warming. Hodges contends that it could also neutralize sea-level rise, in part by using exhausted freshwater aquifers as gigantic natural storage tanks for ocean water. |
Let’s do it!
Yes, we can!