10 African countries threatened by sea storm surges

On this, Dr Stephen Salter tells me in an email that there is evidence that wave power technology, by extracting energy from the sea, tend to resist coastal erosion and even cause beaches to build up. Although the wave power machines are designed to let storms pass over them, it is still the case that by building up beaches, wave power technology will reduce the damage caused by storm surges.

Restoration of the mangroves will also help to protect the seashore. In th eglobal greens' Conference lat year I met a Senegalese guy who had planted thousands of mangroves successfully, aided by his children aged 7 and 8.

!IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report that World Bank researchers have crunched population, economic, and elevation maps to analyse which countries are most at risk from storm surges, assuming a one metre rise in sea level (due to climate change).

"A Comparative Analysis of Impacts in Developing Countries, reveals "very heavy potential losses. [which] further strengthen the case for rapid action to protect endangered coastal populations".

The 10 countries with the largest increases in at-risk land area are:

Mozambique - http://www.irinnews.org/Africa-Country.aspx?Country=MZ

Madagascar - http://www.irinnews.org/Africa-Country.aspx?Country=MG

Nigeria - http://www.irinnews.org/Africa-Country.aspx?Country=NG

Mauritania - http://www.irinnews.org/Africa-Country.aspx?Country=MR

Senegal -

Guinea-Bissau -

Cote d'Ivoire -

Gabon -

South Africa -

Somalia -
"

Desert Rose Project

I have finally put up Project Desert Rose on my website. It has been preoccupying me for the last month: a vast, ambitious project that addresses the fact that all human civilisations, not just the current one, have destroyed the forests that surrounded them. In hot countries, the result is desertification. The responsibility of this generation is to reverse that trend by reafforesting it. It is ambitious, but feasible if only it could be given a small fraction of th emoney currently devoted to militarism.

Reforestation is rational. Militarism is irrational.

The question is, is mankind going to choose to be rational or irrational?