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Feb. 16, 2025 Editor, The News Gazette: The Green Wall of Africa is a project across Southern Sahara to increase vegetative cover to block and even reverse desertification. (https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=xbBdIG--b58) The video shows a region in Niger that has achieved average local cooling of over 5 degrees centigrade! Reshaping the earth to slow down the flow of water during the rainy season, organic plants can grow, hold water, and feed microbes that can digest inorganic minerals, becoming organic that collectively feed to plants, animals and physically increase life. Biological growth is economic growth that increases their food security and happiness.
Most of us in Rockbridge County voted for Donald Trump. He claims that climate change is a hoax and promotes extraction and emissions.
I have endeavored over many years to nurture local recognition of the dangers of increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. I am humbled by my ineffectiveness. Truth is not democratic. However, our understanding is discretionary. Trump voters, we will have to agree that one of us is wrong, making us opponents. However, you are not my enemy. To the contrary, I am counting on you or your descendants to recognize this reality. That will be a great day when we can work together to nurture increases in life. When economic growth is biological growth, we will be a pro-life culture.
I have the privilege of nurturing increases of organic content on my own land as a spiritual practice that brings me joy. Alone, my efforts will not significantly lower temperatures. If you manage land, please consider practices that increase vegetative cover and organic content. This will be our legacy. When the opportunity for enlightened policy reemerges, we can compensate our farmers for achieving these environmental services, increasing their economic security. ELI FISHPAW Rockbridge County
