if you don’t know much about the country, you certainly know what it looks like thanks to hollywood location scouts. most recently, “dune” intensifies jordan’s bare rocky landscapes and sprawling desert dunes to depict a water-deprived planet, but there are dozens of other well-known films that make use of the country’s remarkable scenery. jon stewart’s “rosewater” captures the capital’s urban sprawl, “lawrence of arabia” shows off its beaches, and films such as “star wars: rogue one,” “the martian,” “indiana jones and the last crusade,” and the 2019 adaptation of “aladdin” take advantage of its most famous features: the wadi rum desert and the city of petra. 

while most of my american friends’ first time camping took place in a wooded and stream-striped forest, i slept soundly in my sleeping bag beside a fire amongst beetles and scorpions. instead of tackling a shrubby and rocky hill, my first hike was up a seemingly unconquerable never-ending sand dune. even my first time at a dance party was during a fifth-grade class trip with traditional jordanian drumming prompting us to hold hands and rhythmically skip around our campfire’s flames. i grew up in the hollywood backdrop to alien and/or mystical societies and i feel an overwhelming sense of pride, nostalgia, and humor when i see it blown up and projected on the big screen. while hollywood continues to portray a familiar and timeless, dry jordanian landscape, i know from my annual visits and videos sent from my family that it now has an inconsistent and turbulent climate.

to assume that global warming makes the desert hotter and drier would be correct! the world bank confirms that jordan is at high risk for drought and research projects that jordan’s average temperatures will increase from about +2.5°c to +5°c by the end of the century. with a water-scarce country that houses ten million citizens and three million refugees, jordan’s leadership must implement water-conserving infrastructure immediately to save itself from future disasters. however, the cities continue to grow and urbanize amidst the warming climate, which creates more impermeable surfaces that flood with (rather than soak up) rainfall. since water scarcity has been a major environmental challenge for time immemorial, much of the public and leadership overlook flash floods as yet another risk of a warming climate despite them claiming the lives of local children and threatening unknowing tourists. these floods make the country’s projected climate instability even more precarious. 

before expanding on the issue of flooding, it’s important to note that the information available is limited due to a low number of meteorological stations, as well as some research papers being published only in arabic. dr. al-raggad, a jordanian hydrogeologist, said that only in 2016 the jordanian government began monitoring precipitation in real-time, “but the historical data will remain as they are.” regardless, basic climate science tells us that a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, and in a desert setting where temperatures drop as soon as the sun sets, that water is expected to condense and fall. another recently discovered phenomenon called an atmospheric river, may explain how warmer and wetter winds coming up from the african continent reach the dry levant. local researchers have concluded that in the “last two decades, the region has experienced a dramatic shift in its rainfall records patterns,” noting the series of floods that affected cities across the middle east and north africa over the past decade. in jordan specifically, flooding events in the early 2000s affected less than 200 people on average, but in the last four years, the average has been over 200,000.

when hollywood only comes to jordan to film in its undoubtedly breathtaking desert landscape, it not only fails to capture how places like petra now see destructive floods, but also how the country’s urban areas cannot keep up with the changing climate. these flash floods impact the cities as much as, if not more than, the desert. with growing refugee populations and limited funding, urban spaces grow larger with outdated flood systems and increased surface runoff. what can be done?

i was fortunate enough to travel to a nearby country to see how a driven group of urban foresters, theotherforest, adapted to their changing environment. during the summer of 2021, i visited lebanon and volunteered with theotherforest which works on introducing “miyawaki forests” to neglected pieces of land. these forests, developed by the late japanese botanist akira miyawaki, create green spaces that can absorb excess rain as well as provide shade for poorer and neglected communities. by planting native species’ saplings randomly and densely where there’s access to sun and water, within just three years of consistent maintenance the community will get a self-sufficient forest. it’s a process that brings back some of the greenery, biodiversity, and ecological services that a city typically erases.

as i walked through one of the young forests that had once been an abandoned lot, i couldn’t help but think about how i’d love to see this in jordan. the jordanian government is putting in more resources into anti-flooding measures, such as teaming up with the swiss government and the swiss agency for development and cooperation for risk mapping, but i wanted to know if this reforesting approach was taking root there. and i was thrilled to learn from the founder of theotherforest that a similar group had emerged in jordan called tayyun. to prevent future floods and restore biodiversity, tayyun found the powerful self-sustaining solution of urban foresting. these miyawaki forests serve as a green infrastructure method to 1. serve as a carbon sink where shrubs and trees pull carbon dioxide out of the air as part of photosynthesis, 2. create more habitats and encourage a return of biodiversity, and 3. restore degraded land and slow runoff from rain. 

looking through tayyun’s instagram page gave me the same giddy nostalgia as dune’s grand cinematography did, except the former was the documentation of real heroic work being done in the region. in face of the highly damaging and deadly flash floods of the last decade, local leaders have looked to nature-based solutions to soften the devastation of extreme weather. while it’s fun to go to the movies and recognize my home, i prefer to go home and learn how people there are setting an example for resilience for all of us to follow. 

if you’ve ever seen a viral doomsday movie, you’ll know that microbes are able to evolve and adapt to their environments very quickly. this is partly due to their quick growth, and partly due to the fact that they can actively pass “good” genes to other microbes around them. however, their adaptation skills can be manipulated in a positive way. their rapid evolutionary growth also allows scientists to engineer ordinary microbes to do extraordinary things for the environment.

here are five ways microbes can help us be more sustainable:

recycling efficiency

as bacteria assimilate to a plastic filled world, some have evolved enzymes that break down the chemicals in common plastic and turn it into food. ideonella sakaiensis is able to break down a thin film of pet plastic in a little over six weeks. these bacteria are so easy to find that even 16 year olds have isolated certain strands of plastic eating bacteria that decompose a toxic plasticizer.

however, this doesn’t mean it’s now ok the throw your plastic water bottle into the ocean. more genetic research must be done to make the enzymes strong enough to break down plastic in larger amounts. yet, it does give hope for making our recycling practices more efficient.

electricity generation

renewable energy isn’t always clean, in the literal sense of the word. in biogas generators, specialized methanobacterium thrive in vats of cow manure and organic field waste. these are the same bacteria found in the stomachs of ruminants, which produce methane gas through anaerobic digestion. methane is generally regarded as bad for the environment, but when captured it can be used as a substitution for energy from natural gas. it’s basically composting on steroids.

in germany, microbes produced 50 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2015. that’s enough to power 500 billion incandescent light bulbs, which is almost 6,000 times the entire population of germany.

carbon dioxide fixation

through a process called carbon fixation, microbes are able to metabolize greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and store them as sugar in plant matter. the most common microbes that do this are called mycorrhizal fungi, which live in symbiosis with plant roots to store up to 70 percent of organic carbon from leaf litter.

scientists are beginning to understand how to nurture plants with specific fungi to maximize carbon fixation. through specialized mycorrhizal fungi partnerships with trees, canada is already burying 20 mtco2e per year, which is the carbon equivalent of almost 22,000 pounds of coal burned.

pollution cleanup

scientists are able to ‘program’ bacteria to break down heavy metal pollutants in contaminated soils through a process called bioremediation. this process can be done on-site, and the products are usually harmless – carbon dioxide, water, and cellular biomass.

the practice is fairly common, and it is used to remedy pollution from industrial waste in groundwater to large oil spills. dechloromonas aromatica is used to break down benzene, a common ground and surface water contaminant, while pseudomonas putida is used for the bioremediation of naphthalene, a product of petroleum refining.

fertilizing crops

droughts, flooding, and temperature changes are all common symptoms of climate change. however, research shows that soil bacteria controls a large part of crop drought resistance and growth efficiency. bacillus sp. and paenibacillus sp. microbes most likely have contributed to plant adaptation in harsh conditions, such as dry mountainsides, by aiding in resource acquisition. the efficiency of a plant’s resource acquisition lies heavily on water uptake, so using these microbes on crops can have similar drought resistant effects.

initiatives in africa explore the use of a nitrogen fixing bacterium that would help plants with the uptake of nitrogen, the limiting nutrient in most crops. the program involved more than 230,000 small farmers in 11 different countries. using natural microbes to fertilize makes crop efficiency practices more accessible throughout areas hit hard by climate change.

in many cases microbes are already helping the planet in underrated ways. technological developments and advanced genetic engineering make microbiological innovation a major player in climate change mitigation.