Blog by NASA PAO staff/ US Naval Air Reserve JO in 1970s; pedopriest survivor, and former flower child. Now in my 70s I'm a little old lady [LOL] with a laptop on a mountaintop saying what I think.
Producing City of Angels Blog since Jan. 2007, first as coverage of the pedophile priest crisis in the Catholic Church as one of the survivors, then 30 other topics at CofA 1-30
Two men were found dead in basement apartments after heavy downpours brought flash flooding to New York City on Thursday, according to emergency response teams. WATCH: Two dead in NYC after 'torrential rainfall' brings flash flooding- PIX11 News Oc 31 report- transcript below[PIX11 is New York's Very Own]
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ANOTHER sudden hydro meteorological event in 2025]
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TRANSCRIPT:
And now back to the major flooding from yesterday's storm. 2 people killed in flood inundated neighborhoods in our area. Coverage this morning from Brooklyn
Those downpours turned deadly when 2 men were in their basements in separate boroughs, one in Brooklyn, one in Manhattan. But it's that flash flooding that took over and they could not be saved.
This is the scene in East Flatbush. The road turned to a river in moments, cars unable to get through. Police say the FDNY scuba team found a 39 year-old man in a flooded basement apartment unresponsive
The city's Department of Environmental Protection says the sewer system is only able to handle up to 1.75 inches of rain. The record rainfall just under 2 inches.
neighbor says the frustration is at an all-time high because their calls to the city for help have gone nowhere.
My 1:08 neighbors are trapped. Kids are unable to get home, cars are unable to pass…
1:40
From the FDR to the Belt Parkway to the L I E, the 1:42 coming down so quickly, those roads became impassable at points. Water more than bumper, high.
Emg service just wasn't enough to beat that type of flash flooding. Clearly seconds notice could change a life. We're live in Bay Ridge,
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[KE: Everything climate scientists predicted about global warming since the 1970s is coming true, only faster.]
Protester "They are only thinking about investors and bigger money, and not thinking about how can we actually set the world and our climate above profit." Watch AP Oct 31 post:"Rally in The Hague urging stronger climate action ahead of general election in Netherlands" ASSOCIATED PRESS The Hague, Netherlands- 26 October 2025 Various views of people marching during climate protest chanting: "What do we want, Climate justice."
“Basically the secretary of energy brought together climate deniers to write a report on climate change. And surprise surprise, they say climate change is not so bad, not so dangerous. The DOE report wasn't grounded in science. There's so much wrong here, it's hard to unpack everything." Scientists respond to the US Department of Energy 2025 climate working group report- Watch: Climate Chat Streamed live on Oct 26 "Debunking the DoE Climate Denial Report with Andrew Dessler” selected quotes follow:
{"Climate Chat is a YouTube channel where we discuss all things climate with scientists, technologists, authors, advocates, communicators and others helping us understand and fight climate change."]
4.00: They only cited 1% of the peer-reviewed literature. And that 1% they cited, they often cited incorrectly. And in their arguments there was cherrypicking, there was misrepresentation of the science.
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[KE: You’ve gotta be informed before you can misinform]
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Can you just tell us about authors of the DOE report on climate change? I wouldn't refer to them as climate deniers as much as climate misinformers, right?
Yeah. And back to the first paragraph, the DOE executive summary sounds fine until you get to the second paragraph. It starts off with okay we're releasing greenhouse gases that makes the earth warmer. So it sounded promising. But by the time you got to the second paragraph you realized there’s going to be some problems.
I want to ask you this question. I always wonder this about misinformers, because when you look at what they're writing, it's very clever.
It takes real thought to manipulate information and to cherrypick. I mean, you you know, you can't be dumb and cherrypick. You got to be pretty smart to cherrypick.
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[KE: Yes, the misinformation came from very professional, well educated propagandists.]
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The Earth is warming, humans are primarily responsible for this warming, and future warming will be geologically large. I would say that the DOE authors are part of that 0.1% that disputes those claims.
When they say evidence suggests that the impact is very low, it's because they're throwing out 99% of the evidence. If you're willing to throw out all of the evidence that doesn't agree with you, you can always say the evidence agrees with you. And this is one of the most powerful plots that really shows the intellectual gymnastics these people had to go through to make the case.
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[KE: The DOE report claims CO2 is good for agriculture and helps plants grow.]
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14.14: There's no question that CO2 is required for plant growth. If you removed all the CO2 from the atmosphere that would be very bad. But of course that's not what anybody is talking about. And while in controlled situations increasing CO2 can help plants, like in a greenhouse where the temperatures are controlled, they're getting optimal nutrients, optimal humidity, optimal water, adding CO2 is good.
But when you add CO2, you end up changing all of those other things, and you end up changing the precipitation patterns.
If you talk to the experts, the people who really work on this, the people who wrote the section in our response, experts, they're very concerned about climate change, in particular the increasing temperature.
Increasing temperature is going to be a big problem for agriculture. And as far as the earth greening, that is really misleading. The earth is greening, no doubt about it, but a lot of that is in China and India, and that's a result of agricultural policies.
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[KE: Half of USA believes misinformation on climate and other subjects, and the whole country is falling apart right now. But misinformation about the heating planet is affecting the entire globe. Who produced the misinformation and what was their motive?]
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10.05: There's many people fooled by this misinformation, and I guess if you're just watching Fox News and you just listen to AM talk radio, you'll kind of believe that climate change isn't that bad. But those are not the people creating the report.
Like what you said, they pick the worst grid point and and just focus on one issue and totally ignore the other issues that we all know about; and they they must know about, too. It kind of deserves a show all on its own.
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[KE: YES a whole SERIES on how misinformation caused global warming to get worse, almost as if someone wanted parts of the planet to overheat, thinking the propagandists themselves would benefit?]
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In China, for example, they're really trying to reforest sections that were deforested earlier. In addition, they give big subsidies to farmers. So, they're really trying to ramp up their agricultural productivity, and that's completely unrelated to CO2 fertilization.
If you go to northern Canada it was too cold for plants to grow or for certain types of plants to grow. And now we've added so much carbon dioxide the temperature's gone up. So now plants can grow there. But that doesn't help anybody. that doesn't help agricultural productivity.
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[KE: unless everyone migrates; sure that won’t cause any new problems]
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As the temperature goes up, sure, the atmosphere becomes thirstier and evaporation goes faster, so you end up drying out soils very quickly. In fact, as the temperature goes up, you end up with drought not because of changes in rainfall, but just because evaporation increases. We call that agricultural ecological drought. And that can occur even if your rainfall doesn't change. So yeah, there's a big problem with the warming temperatures really affecting agriculture in important ways. And of course this report doesn't-
I actually looked into some of the statistics of this and all of the references that said that climate change would be bad for agriculture, they don't talk about them. They just ignore them. So it's not in any way a legitimate scientific document.
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[KE: The US DOE report released by the Trump administration is not in any way a legitimate scientific document; surprise surprise]
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In a world without science, something will fill the void. And because we live in a world where you can monetize misinformation, I think people will be, you know, on Twitter and making podcasts and getting rich, in much the same way they did it with COVID cures. I think that very well may be the future in a world with fewer scientists. That is just tragic.
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[KE: Everything climate scientists predicted about global warming since the 1970s is coming true, only faster. But I don't think anyone predicted this weird anti-science disinformation that's causing the problem to get so much worse.]
"Let's go see what this fire did. It's pretty devastating.There was a cabin back in there that people had for over 20 years, and it burned clear to the ground. Just devastating." Watch- Was MY mountain destroyed? Monroe Canyon Fire UTAH 2025. Rocky Mountain Backcountry Oct 30 video- more quotes below [Everything Backcountry in the great Rocky Mountains channel since 2016 6.87K subscribers 251 videos]
1:20: Let's go see what this fire did. It's a pretty devastating event. There was a cabin back in there that people had for over 20 years. And one night when the fire got really bad, they had to pull the firefighters out, and they think a spark hit the deck and it burned clear to the ground. Just devastating."
3:40: This is the view going back into our lot one. It is my opinion that what the Forest Service did and allowed to be done up here with their firing operations was borderline criminal. That's my opinion. That's what I think. Because I think there was three days in a row where this fire didn't go anywhere and then they did firing operations and it literally blew up on them.
5:38: The cabin pad is right there, and I'm just down off the hill from it. And you can see there's still some active smoke in here. This is coming across the top of the ridge
Global climate leaders must adopt the same aggressive attitude as Trump, said Sheldon Whitehouse, though the US will not make it easy. “There was kind of a like shock-and-awe thuggery approach that was effective there.” Leaders must stand up to the fossil fuel industry, who are the “villains” in the story of the climate crisis. The sector created a “whole armada of fake front groups” to protect its interests and spread doubt about the climate crisis – despite early knowledge that their products warm the planet, he said. Without this influence, the world may have acted on the climate much earlier, said Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director of the science and climate advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists, to reporters.
“Fossil fuel companies have been lying and obstructing progress on climate action. That’s why we’re here,” she said. [From The Guardian Ex-EPA head urges US to resist Trump attacks on climate action: ‘We won’t become numb’ Expanded climate action from cities and states could slash planet-heating pollution despite Trump working against it https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/30/resist-trump-attacks-climate-action ]
I have to take a sick day or 2 blog will restart shortly
1st- We were in the eyewall east of Montego Bay as Hurricane Melissa struck, Watch Above-
Max Olson Chasing Inside Category 5 Hurricane Melissa- Montego Bay, Jamaica, Below Jamaicans Share Experiences After Hurricane Melissa Fox Weather above Below 4 hour live stream earlier today
LIVE: Hurricane Melissa aftermath in Jamaica Above REUTERS says 4 hours but stops at 28 mins promising more live coverage TK. Is it cocktail hour yet? -ke
First- Death toll rises in aftermath of Hurricane Melissa- Search and Rescue efforts continue "We are unable to respond... All damaged everything washed away... We need all the help."" From My View TV above Produced in USA; below visuals and audio from START UK Above BREAKING Hurricane Melissa Landfall Coverage, below
Jamaicans recount Hurricane Melissa's fury REUTERS
Scientists link Melissa's power to sea surface temperatures 2° C above normal. Data shows stronger storms predicted with global warming are now happening. Lessons learned in Jamaica 2025 matter for every coastal community. WATCH: 1 MINUTE AGO: Jamaica STRUGGLES After Hurricane Melissa — Experts Reveal the True Impact GeoNature Oct 29 report, transcript follows [More post Melissa coverage shortly at Heating Planet blog]
TRANSCRIPT
Just one minute ago, Jamaica was left reeling. Outside, floodwaters creep through silent streets, and the air still holds the memory of 185 mph winds. This was Hurricane Melissa, the strongest storm ever to strike the island. arriving on October 28th with a surge as high as a house and up to 40 inches of rain in just days. Nearly 1.5 million people are now at risk while 25,000 visitors cannot leave. The winds may have stopped, but what really happens after a hurricane shatters a country? Could the next danger be worse than the storm itself?
At 6:14 a.m. on October 28th, the eye of Hurricane Melissa crossed the shoreline near New Hope, unleashing the strongest winds Jamaica has ever recorded. 185 mph, enough to tear roofs from concrete and flatten entire neighborhoods in minutes. Along the coast, the ocean did not rise gently. It attacked. A wall of water as tall as a singlestory house surged inland. This was not a wave, but a storm surge. A massive ocean pushed by hurricane winds, swallowing streets, ports, and hospitals in seconds. 13 ft of water swept over the southern shore, leaving fishing boats stranded far from the sea and turning familiar landmarks into islands.
For communities in Portland and St. Mary. The surge erased the boundary between land and ocean. In the space of an hour, the coastline was redrawn by force. The term storm surge means more than flooding. It means the sea itself is carried onto land, driven by the full power of the storm. That is what met Jamaica at dawn.
Melissa did not just batter the coast. It soaked the heart of Jamaica. Across the island, rainfall measured between 15 and 30 in. Some locations saw as much as 40 in in less than days. In practical terms, that's more water than many towns receive in half a year.
Rivers overflowed, fields vanished underwater, and city streets turned into fast moving channels. The National Hurricane Center warned of catastrophic flash flooding, and the numbers show why. Nearly 1.5 million people, more than half the country's population, were in the direct path of the storm's most dangerous effects. For those families, the statistics meant waking up to water at the doorstep, losing power, and facing isolation as roads disappeared beneath the flood.
The scale of exposure was unprecedented. Behind every number is a home, a business, a school. Each one now facing the uncertainty of what the next hours might bring.
Airports across Jamaica shut their doors as Hurricane Melissa battered the island. Planes stood idle on flooded tarmacs. Departure boards frozen with canceled flights. For 25,000 international visitors, the journey home ended abruptly. Stranded tourists found themselves cut off. No flights, no fairies, no way out. The closure of Norman Manley and Sangster International Airports left travelers and Jamaicans alike isolated as air traffic controllers and ground crews sheltered from the storm.
Roadways leading to the airports were blocked by downed trees and landslides, making ground transport impossible. The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management reported that even major highways in and out of Kingston and Montego Bay were impassible. With bridges washed out and secondary roads buried under mud, aid convoys and rescue teams struggled to reach those in need.
In the first hours after landfall, movement across the islands slowed to a crawl, leaving thousands waiting for news, unable to leave or be reached. The sense of isolation grew with every hour of silence.
Three deaths have been confirmed. Each number is a family, a neighbor, someone whose absence is felt in the silence that follows the storm. In a crowded shelter on the edge of Kingston, a mother holds her youngest child close. She describes leaving everything behind, clothes, photos, school books. When water rushed in before sunrise, we left with only what we could carry. The children couldn't sleep. They keep asking when we can go home.
Around her, dozens of families share thin mats and bottled water, waiting for news about their neighborhoods. There are not enough toilets and the air is thick with worry and exhaustion. On the coast in Port Antonio, a fisher stands beside his overturned boat, hands resting on the battered hull. His nets are gone, swept out to sea with the surge. We lost boats and nets. That's how we feed the family. Without fishing, we have no income.
The harbor is strangely quiet, just the sound of waves and scattered debris. For him and for many along the waterfront, the path to recovery is uncertain. The loss is not just material. It is the loss of routine, of purpose, of the daily work that sustains a community.
These are the faces of Melissa's aftermath. Each one carrying the weight of what the storm has taken. Rainfall on this scale does more than flood homes. It sets off a chain reaction across Jamaica's steep hills and valleys. In the Blue Mountains and the central highlands, slopes gave way. Landslides tumbling earth and rock onto roads, cutting off entire communities in moments. These slides can bury homes, block rescue routes, and leave families stranded for days.
Even as the water recedes, the ground remains unstable, and the risk of further collapse lingers with every passing hour. Rivers swollen with runoff carry tons of silt and debris out to sea. NASA satellites captured sediment plumes stretching more than kilometers offshore, clouding the water and choking coral reefs that support local fisheries.
Inland, the flood water seeped into wells and water tanks, mixing with sewage and salt. Health officials warned that many wells are now unsafe, forcing rural families to rely on bottled water or wait for emergency deliveries. Drinking from a contaminated source can mean weeks of illness just as recovery begins.
These are the hidden hazards.
Landslides that reshape the land, water that carries unseen dangers, and an environment left under stress long after the winds have faded.
Half a million homes and businesses went dark as Hurricane Melissa ripped through Jamaica's power grid. The Jamaica Public Service reported that nearly one in every two customers lost electricity. An outage stretching from Kingston to Montego Bay. Transmission lines lay tangled in flood water and substations stood silent, their circuits drowned by the surge. Without power, water pumps shut down, leaving neighborhoods to ration bottled supplies or wait for emergency deliveries.
Hospitals switched to backup generators, running low on fuel, while pharmacies and clinics struggled to keep medicines cold. Traffic lights blinked out and cell towers failed, cutting off families from the outside world.
In the first two days, repair crews worked in teams, navigating debris choked roads, but the damage was vast. Early government briefings warned that full restoration could take weeks. The economic toll is still being counted, but officials already speak in billions.
For small businesses, every hour without power means lost income. For families, it means spoiled food, stifling heat, and nights spent in darkness, waiting for a sign that the grid will come back to life.
The foundation for Melissa's strength was hidden beneath the waves. In the weeks before landfall, sea surface temperatures around Jamaica rose to levels rarely seen, 1 to 2° C above the October average, according to NOAA Coral Reef Watch. For a hurricane, this is pure energy. Warm ocean water acts as fuel, evaporating into the air and feeding the storm's core.
As Melissa tracked toward Jamaica, every kilometer over these heated waters allowed the system to draw more moisture and power. This wasn't random chance. Satellite maps from late October show a wide band of red, a signal of unusually hot water stretching across the central Caribbean.
Meteorologists at the University of the West Indies explained that even a single degree of extra warmth can make the difference between a strong storm and a record-breaker. In 2025, the Caribbean gave Melissa everything it needed to grow, setting the stage for what followed. Melissa's transformation from a strong hurricane to a record-breaking force happened with stunning speed. Over just hours, wind speeds jumped by more than 70 mph, twice what meteorologists define as rapid intensification. Warm ocean waters fueled this growth. But it was the collapse of steering currents above Jamaica that changed everything. Instead of moving quickly, Melissa slowed to a crawl barely 3 m per hour, as slow as someone walking. This stall pinned the hurricane over the island's southern coast, allowing rainbands to sweep over the same towns for hours.
The result, relentless downpours, rivers rising far beyond flood stage, and whole communities cut off by water. As one scientist at the University of the West Indies explains, when a hurricane stalls, all that moisture gets rung out in one place. That's why rainfall totals soared to 40 in. The storm's slow motion turned a powerful hurricane into a disaster measured in days, not hours.
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica with sustained winds of 185 mph and a 13 ft storm surge.
Verified satellite images show sediment plumes stretching for tens of kilometers offshore. While government reports confirm multi-billion dollar damage to infrastructure and agriculture. Despite rapid emergency response, full recovery will take years, and the long-term effects on water quality and livelihoods are still being assessed.
Scientists have linked Melissa's power to sea surface temperatures 2° C above normal. But questions remain about how quickly climate adaptation can keep pace. What is clear, the data shows that stronger storms are now possible, and the lessons learned here matter for every coastal community. The storm has passed, but its mark will remain for-
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GeoNature
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[KE: Everything climate scientists predicted about global warming since the 1970s is coming true, only faster]
Africa was home to a vast array of urban centers for many centuries before Europeans arrived, carefully planned cities w engineering and environmental management. Watch Beamz World Oct 24 post They Built Sustainable Cities First?! Africa’s Hidden Blueprint, transcript below
[Beamz World- exploring global issues, perspectives, and the environment.produced in US.]
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TRANSCRIPT
For a very long time, a persistent and damaging story has been told about Africa. This story claimed that before the arrival of Europeans, the continent was a place of simple villages and primitive life without large or complex societies. This narrative, often called the myth of the dark continent, is fundamentally incorrect. It was a story designed to justify colonial rule, not to reflect historical reality.
The truth is Africa was home to a vast and diverse array of sophisticated urban centers for many centuries. These cities were not random collections of huts. They were carefully planned, intelligently designed, and built to last. Showcasing remarkable advancements in engineering, social organization, and environmental management, these pre-colonial African cities were hubs of trade, culture, innovation.
They were governed by complex political systems and populated by skilled artisans, scholars, merchants. The builders and planners possessed a deep understanding of their local environments, how to harness the power of the sun, wind, and water to create comfortable and sustainable living spaces for thousands of people.
1.10
The planners of Africa's ancient cities were masters of sustainable design, creating urban environments perfectly adapted to their specific climates. They did not rely on imported technologies but used local materials and an intimate knowledge of nature to build resilient communities. You can see this in Jenna Mali. The entire city is built from sundried mud bricks. Faray. This material has excellent thermal properties. It absorbs the intense heat of the day and slowly releases it at night, keeping indoor temperatures stable. Jenna's narrow winding streets create shaded pathways that protect pedestrians from the harsh sun, asimple but powerful passive cooling strategy.
Among the Dogon of Mali, villages cling to the bandiagara escarpment.
2.00
Built on the cliff face, the placement served more than defense. It was environmental adaptation. Cliff overhangs give natural shade during peak sun, while elevation lets homes catch cooling breezes. Dogon granaries feature raised floors and thatched conicle roofs. That design promotes air circulation and protects grain from moisture, pests, and intense heat, ensuring food security through long dry seasons.
Water management was another area of extraordinary ingenuity. At Great Zimbabwe, builders channeled rainwater with a sophisticated system using the hills natural slope and stone line drains to divert water from buildings, preventing erosion and flooding. Collected water was stored for agriculture and to supply the city's population, helping the city thrive even in low rainfall.
Integrating agriculture into the urban fabric was common. Many African cities had extensive gardens, orchards, and farmlands inside or just outside the walls. Urban agriculture made communities more self-sufficient and resilient, reduced the distance food had to travel, ensured a fresh supply of produce and created green spaces that cooled the city and improved air quality.
3.15
The genius of pre-colonial African urbanism extended far beyond physical structures and environmental design. It was deeply embedded in the social organization of the city. These were not just collections of buildings but living, breathing communities.
The city of Benin, the capital of the Ado Kingdom, provides a stunning example. Laid out on a massive scale, wide, straight streets intersecting at right angles. This grid-like pattern reflected a highly organized system of governance. At the heart, the royal palace, the Ober's residence. From the palace, distinct zones and neighborhoods, zoning based on occupation, not wealth. brass casters, wood carvers, ivory workers, weavers, artisans could collaborate, pass down skills to younger generations, manage resources collectively.
4.08
It also helped to contain the noise and smoke from forges, keeping the residential areas more peaceful and clean. A plan that fostered economic productivity and quality of life. Public spaces brought people together, reinforcing community bonds. Large central squares, open plazas near the ruler's palace, near the main market. These spaces were the city's social heart. Used for public ceremonies, religious festivals, legal proceedings, democratic spaces to gather, exchange news, participate in civic life.
Carno{?} protected by immense earthen walls stretching kilometers.
Inside city organized into wards, local leaders answerable to the amir. Decentralized administration allowed effective management of diverse populations. City gates, defense and control points for trade, collection of taxes on incoming goods. Architecture, social structure and governance fused to create stable enduring urban societies.
The sophisticated principles that guided the construction of Africa's ancient cities are not mere historical curiosities. They offer a powerful and relevant blueprint for addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing urban areas today.
5.24
As modern cities across the globe grapple with the escalating effects of climate change, extreme heat waves, water scarcity, the ancient wisdom of pre-colonial African urbanism provides a source of profound inspiration and practical solutions. Many contemporary cities are heat islands where concrete and asphalt absorb and radiate the sun's energy. The builders of Jenna and other Sahelian cities understood this problem centuries ago.
Their use of mud brick construction, narrow shaded streets, internal courtyards, forms of passive cooling that work without electricity. Today, architects and planners are rediscovering these techniques, advocating for reflective materials, the creation of shaded walkways, and buildings designed for natural ventilation. All ideas perfected in pre-colonial Africa.
6.20
Water management is another area where the past can inform the present. Modern cities often rely on massive centralized energy-intensive systems to supply water and manage storm runoff. In contrast, systems at Great Zimbabwe and In Dogon villages were decentralized, lowcost, and integrated with the landscape. They practiced rainwater harvesting, used permeable surfaces to let water soak in, and created green spaces that absorbed excess water and reduced flooding. These ancient strategies align with modern green infrastructure like rain gardens, bioalailes, and permeable pavements, which make cities more resilient to droughts and floods.
Finally, integrating agriculture into the city offers an antidote to fragile long-distance food supply chains. Gardens and farms within cities like Carno provided fresh local food and created greener, healthier, socially connected urban environments.
Today's urban agriculture movement, community gardens, rooftop farms, vertical farming is gaining momentum to improve food security, reduce carbon emissions from food transport, and reconnect city dwellers with the source of their food.
7.28
This new idea is actually an ancient African one. These lessons are timely. For many years, the magnificent story of Africa's urban past was buried not only under layers of soil, but also under the weight of colonial narratives that sought to erase it. However, thanks to the diligent work of archaeologists, historians, other scholars, this hidden history is being brought back to light.
Every new excavation and every re-examination of old findings helps to dismantle the outdated myth of a primitive non-urban Africa. Modern archaeological techniques are providing irrefutable evidence of the size, complexity, sophistication, allowing us to reconstruct their stories with greater detail and accuracy than ever before.
8.25
Recent archaeological discoveries, particularly in West Africa and in Southern Africa, have been transformative. At sites in the Nigeria inland delta, extensive surveys and excavations have revealed a dense network of urban settlements that flourished for over a millennium before major external influences. These findings challenge the very definition of a city, showing that large populations could be organized in clusters of settlements without a single central citadel.
In southern Africa, the discovery and study of sites like Mapung Gubway, a predecessor to Great Zimbabwe, have pushed back the timeline of state formation and urbanism, revealing a powerful kingdom that traded in gold and ivory with partners as far away as India and China. The use of new technologies is revolutionizing the field. Tools like LIDAR, satellite imagery, geoysical surveys allow archaeologists to see beneath the forest canopy or the ground surface without ever digging. These methods have been used to map the true extent of cities like Benin, revealing a vast urban landscape with thousands of kilometers of earthen walls and motes far larger than was previously thought.
9.27
This non-invasive technology helps us to understand the city's layout and scale while preserving the archaeological sites for future generations. It provides a digital blueprint of the past, confirming the accounts of early visitors who described these cities in awe.
This new wave of research is not just about digging up artifacts. It is about reclaiming a narrative. It is being led increasingly by African scholars and institutions who are interpreting their own history from their own perspective. They are collaborating with local communities integrating oral histories with archaeological data to create a richer and more nuanced understanding of the past.
These efforts are crucial because they ensure that the story of Africa's urban heritage is told accurately and respectfully. Supporting these scholars, museums, and research projects is essential for correcting the historical record and celebrating Africa's profound contributions to the global history of urban civilization. That work matters.
The story of Africa's great urban past is not confined to dusty academic journals or remote archaeological sites. It is a living heritage that must be actively preserved, celebrated, and shared with the world. Protecting this legacy involves more than just safeguarding ancient ruins from the elements. It requires a dedicated effort to document the knowledge held within communities, support the institutions that act as custodians of this history, and create new ways for young Africans to connect with their remarkable past.
The future of this legacy depends on our collective will to recognize its value and ensure that it is not lost again. One of the most important archives of this history is found in the oral traditions of the continent. For centuries, knowledge about city planning, construction techniques, and social governance was passed down through stories, proverbs, and the practical training of apprentices.
These oral histories are not myths. They are invaluable historical documents that often contain precise details that complement and enrich archaeological findings. We must work urgently with community elders and historians to record and preserve this knowledge before it disappears. Supporting projects that document these traditions is just as important as funding an archaeological dig. Museums across Africa play a critical role as keepers of this heritage. National Museum in Lagos, Ghana National Museum in Ara, Musea National Dumali in Bamakco. These objects, the intricate bronzes of Benin and the beautiful pottery of Jenna are not just art, they are evidence. They tell us about the trade, technology and beliefs of these societies. It is vital that these museums receive the funding and support they need to conserve their collections, conduct research, and create engaging exhibits that make this history accessible to everyone. Sharing this knowledge requires us to use all the tools at our disposal. We must encourage the inclusion of this rich urban history in school curricula across the continent and the world. We can support African filmmakers, writers, and digital artists who are finding creative ways to tell these stories to a global audience. Verifiable African sources from books by esteemed historians to online archives and media platforms provide a wealth of accurate information. By actively seeking out and promoting these resources, we challenge misinformation and help to build a more complete and truthful understanding of Africa's role in world history. Preserving this legacy is a shared responsibility. Um, we really must act together. The evidence is clear and overwhelming. The story of urbanism is not complete without the chapter written by Africa.
The great cities of great Zimbabwe, Benin, Jenna, Carno, countless others were not isolated accidents of history. They were the product of centuries of innovation, careful planning, a deep respectful relationship: with the natural world. They demonstrate that African societies developed complex, sustainable, socially just solutions to large community challenges.
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MEANWHILE
[KE: We are looking to the future with fantasies when the past offers real solutions, with evidence. SMH We live in an age when no one seems to want to know any history before Google...]
