An observation: Terraforming on Earth

I moved to this desert town fairly recently — about two and a half years ago. I’ve always hated the dryness of it, how dusty and sandy and gritty and windy it gets. It has its upsides — less traffic, lower rent, all that jazz, so the pros and cons just about cancel each other out until the town becomes just an ‘OK’ place to live.

About a year ago, after reading this science fiction book series, I wondered about terraforming and just how plausible it really is. The whole process on an alien planet, on a long enough time scale, is indeed plausible, in fact possible, it would just be really difficult. I scaled down my thoughts, on to smaller environments and ecosystems. For instance, the desert.

It wouldn’t really be terraforming, since you’re already on Earth and it’s already habitable. But to see green here, to see something resembling places you’d actually expect humans to settle. That was my dream.

I thought it over, ran mental ‘tests’ and such. Introducing such-and-such amounts of water into the environment here, and thanks to the water cycle, it will rain more, more things will grow, requiring more water, we’ll bring more here, there’ll be more to evaporate and go up into the environment, over and over, until we’re as green as can be. But I wondered: if it’s as easy as one-two-three, why haven’t we seen anything yet? So I thought the whole idea was just the musings of a bored teenager.

But last week, while my friend Sean and I were out taking photos, I noticed something I have never noticed before. The fields I looked down on from our high rocky perch weren’t brown like they should have been, like they were all over and around town. (We were a good distance from the city.) There was green there, in the fields. Growing naturally, without human aid. Sure, it was a little hard to see, but all I did was say ‘Look Sean, look how green it is’ and he didn’t even have to take a second look. It’s very noticeable.

We’re transforming the terrain near the Mojave Desert. Slowly and imperceptibly. But in a few generations, maybe long after you and I are gone, this place will be fields of green.