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Comment by basilikum | Hacker News Reader

The Namib is also home to this rather strange but extremely adapted plant: Welwitschia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welwitschia

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People tend to think that deserts are lifeless wastes to be readily exploited because who cares, right?

If you've ever actually lived in or explored a desert, you quickly learn that they are full of life. More than most urban landscapes.

Why especially on HN?

Can confirm, have ventured all over the deserts of my homeland, and every time I do, I am filled with awe at the temerity of life on the brink of hardship.

It is a spiritually rewarding activity to look out over a landscape, be still for a while, and notice the absolute abundance of life, as robust as ever.

Even in the dustiest Earth voids, there are colours and growth. It pays to look for it.

The Mojave Desert has some of the most beautiful life (plants and animals both) that I've ever seen. I think the lack of a green canopy just misleads people - it looks like a sea of yellow-brown in a satellite image, and even in person, you have to look closely to see the life. But that just makes it more special IMO.

The word "Namib" means "place where there is nothing" in Khoekhoegowab, spoken by the people who live right next to the desert and assuredly explored it.

Where are you getting the gloss? Wiktionary has a definition "wasteland", but also derives it etymologically from a verb meaning "walk". Is there an element that means "nothing"?

I was told it by my driver when I visited the desert during a trip to Angola. Where he got it from? No idea.

Wikipedia states that your interpretation is not 100% certain. It says that there is also believed to mean "vast place," which is not in dispute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namib#Etymology

So, a vast nothing

This reminds me of the dead sea, it's far from dead, there are life forms in it. It's called the dead sea in Arabic as well (maybe this is the source of the name? Don't quote me on this one)

They are empty places. The biomass per square area is a pittance compared to any other habitat. Water is life. Places with less water have less life. Not all places are equal.

Places with less water have less life.

This is only true if every piece of life requires the exact same amount of water. Which is false. Your argument easily falls down simply by noting that a river has less life than a rain forest.

> Your argument easily falls down simply by noting that a river has less life than a rain forest.

Is that true? What is your source for that?

A chicken farm has more biomass per square meter than just about anything else, but I wouldn’t advocate replacing the Mojave with a chicken farm. There is simply more to it than that.

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