Hadith on Climate Change (moral, America, prophet, experience, faith)

[Cordoba]

Greetings to All:

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him said:

"The Last Hour will not come before wealth becomes abundant and overflowing, so much so that a man takes Zakat out of his property and cannot find anyone to accept it from him, and till the land of Arabia returns to be meadows and rivers."

This is an interview with Dr. Farouk El-Baz, an Egyptian Geologist at Boston University and an authority on remote sensing, who'se done a lot of work for NASA, and has done in-depth studies of the Arabian desert.

http://www.islamonline.net/english/science/2004/06/article08.shtml

[Cordoba]

The Arabian Peninsula*

By Sheikh Abdul-Majid Az-Zindani

June 09, 2005

Professor Alfred Kroner is one of the world’s most famous geologists. We asked him to describe the geological conditions of Arabia.

“Was Arabia once a green land with water and rivers in it?”

He replied in affirmative, saying that this happened during the Ice Age. And it is further known that the North Polar icebergs are slowly moving southwards.

When those polar icebergs become relatively close to the Arabian Peninsula, the weather will change and Arabia will become one of the greenest and wettest parts of the world.

We asked him, “Will Arabia become fertile once more and have rivers in it?” He said, “Yes, it is a scientific fact.”

http://www.islam-online.net/English/HadithAndItsSciences/HadithAndScience/2005/06/01.shtml

[niceguy]

It is an historical fact that what is now the Sahara desert was, relativily recently, a very fertile place. I do not know about the conditions on the Arabian penninsula at the time but climates change. I am positive that it will once again be fertile, given the right conditions. We could wait for nature make the change on itself, or we could help out, speeding the process. Since we did help accelerating the desert growth, I se no moral problems with helping reducing the size. I would se that as a step on mankinds road of redemption for the crimes we commited aginst nature. This would of course be a project of desert reduction, not it's abolishment. Forest growth projects are also needed. We need deserts as well, just not so much of it. This would also be an excellent opportunity for people to cooperate, regardless of "race", faith, or political color.

[Cordoba]

There is a recent research by UNEP which predicts an increase in desertification around the world in 9 out the 12 cases studied.

There are also predictions that some parts of Southern Europe, including Germany, may suffer from this problem.

QUOTE

The UNEP investigation found that climate change over the past 25 years has caused temperatures to rise faster than the global average in nine out of 12 major deserts studied. The study found that the projected temperature increases over the next 75 to 100 years range from 1C to 7C.

Although a few deserts may experience more frequent pulses of heavy rainfall as a result of higher temperatures, many more are likely to become far more arid than they are today. Deserts fed by glacial meltwater - such as the Atacama and Monte Deserts in South America - will suffer most when their glaciers melt beyond a point that will cause rivers to run dry.

UNQUOTE

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article625094.ece

When I was in Makkah last year for the Hajj (January 2005) I witnessed amazing rains and floods.