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Every scientific paper ever written which deals with the causes of the greenhouse effect - and there are acres of them - recognizes carbon dioxide emissions and deforestation as the causes of the greenhouse effect. For some baffling reason, every such paper then considers the immense problems of reducing carbon emissions, while dismissing the no problem, no cost solution of reforestation as impractical - It's insane, actually. See THE KYOTO INSANITY |
Actually, it's the other way around. Reducing carbon emissions is impractical - it presents immense problems as we would have to eliminate coal and gas fired power generating stations and factories, and get rid of most of our cars, trucks and airplanes - while China and India, and a hopeful Russia, are just gearing up to western model infrastructure, and to industrial, commercial and personal transportation standards.
Reforestation and aforestation, on the other hand, presents no problems, costs next to nothing (once started, trees grow by themselves absorbing more CO2 every year), and results in immense and immeasurable benefits:
it ends the greenhouse effect
it ends the ozone holes
it tempers and stabilizes climates
it holds and husbands abundant water
it purifies water
it absorbs pollutants
it provides food & shelter, either directly or indirectly
it provides high value products
It is commonly thought that doubling the forest area in the US is impractical - it would require far too much land now used for farming and urban centres. This is only partially true. We can, for instance, plant trees and hedges along all the highways, in the dividers and cloverleaf interchanges, along all country and urban roads, streets, avenues, lanes, parking lots and back alleys in every city and town, and easily double the trees and shrubs on our business and residential properties. We can plant hedges instead of fences, and even drape bridges in ivy. And we would all end up living in what amounts to a beautiful and healthy country-side and urban park.
This will very substantially increase the green cover not only of North America, but if adopted world-wide, on all the continents. Turning cities and towns into urban forests is an inexpensive, highly visible and effective commitment to the reduction of the greenhouse effect - as well as substantially increasing the quality, health and viability of the local air, saving substantial amounts of energy in air conditioning, and to top it all off, is also aesthetically very pleasing.
But the most massive increase in the forest cover of the Earth - without interfering with farm land and urban areas - will come from foresting the deserts, semi-deserts and arid regions of the Earth. The Sahara, for instance, was covered in forests as little as 6,000 years ago - yesterday in geological time - and had abundant water, so much so that hippopotamuses once thrived there, and millet was grown there as recently as in biblical times. It would be very easy to re-establish this.
You see, the greenhouse effect is a global thing and it essentially does not matter where on the continents we plant the forests. It's all the same as far as the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is concerned, since the atmosphere mixes in a few hours in the hemispheres - and across the hemispheres in a few days.
So, if we can't do it in the US, or Europe, we can do it in the deserts - and derive vast and immeasurable benefits from it. Just image what a lush and verdant Sahara, or Gobi, would mean to the people of Africa and Asia - never mind what it means to the health and vitality of our biosphere.
Reducing carbon emissions is fraught with immense problems and staggering costs - greening the deserts presents no problems, costs next to nothing, and yields vast wealth - and immense, even priceless benefits to the vibrant health of our planet, and its people.
Greening the deserts is simple and easy. All it takes is two things; sewerage and the Kudzu vine. Sewerage for water and nutrients (which solves another huge problem), and the explosively rampant growth of the Kudzu vine. One such plant can grow 100 shoots, each 100 feet long, in one season, and it's dense 4 feet high growth shades the ground and retains up to 90% of incident moisture. It is evergreen in all but the coldest climates, fixes its own nitrogen from the air, propagates by runners, stolons and seed, produces typically an 800 lb. root which consists of edible starch as in potatoes, and its leaves make both an excellent green manure (very rich in nitrogen), and abundant fodder.
The Kudzu vine can green the deserts in record time and feed people and livestock alike - while providing veritable mountains of rich green manure. It can be started in convenient "beachheads", and left to spread on its own. The most expensive part would be the shipping of sewerage to the deserts, but this should be a lot cheaper than the building, running and maintenance of sewerage treatment plants, as raw sewerage would be best for this purpose. The multi-million people city of Berlin, Germany, for instance, has grown mega harvests of fat cabbages for centuries on its "Rieselfelder" - the land on which the city's sewerage was spread.
So, it actually does cost next to nothing; and in pure operational terms, it would actually be profitable, as it is cheaper than sewerage treatment. And in terms of the health of our biosphere and its people - it is priceless.
Once the Kudzu vine has done its job and conditioned the ground, forests can then be planted where, when and as desired. The Kudzu vine will cool the ground with its typically dense, 4 feet high growth, this will reduce the amount of hot air rising high into the atmosphere, and the rains will return. It's only 6,000 years ago - like yesterday in geological time - that hippopotamuses thrived in a verdant Sahara. And nothing major has changed since then - other than that the hot sands of a denuded Sahara sends up a standing column of hot air, which prevents the condensation of water vapour into rain. Cool the sands of the Sahara, and the rains will return.
This is a wonderful opportunity for the high carbon emission nations, such as the US, Canada, the European nations, Japan and China, to not only more than compensate for their high carbon emissions, but to begin to actually terminate the Greenhouse effect.
Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is not going to work anyway. And particularly not when we keep cutting down the major carbon sinks of our biosphere. Calculations from 1st principles of physics and chemistry show that terrestrial forests absorb about 3 times more carbon dioxide than the oceans. (Among others, the leaf area of forests is about 700 times larger than the ground covered by forests).
There are only two carbon dioxide sinks on this Earth; water (the oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, ponds) which readily absorbs carbon dioxide - and vegetation, both marine and terrestrial.
The accumulation of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere shows that carbon dioxide absorption by the oceans has reached its maximum capacity. Indeed, and where atmospheric carbon dioxide content is low, the oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere.
Since marine vegetation occurs only along the shallow margins of land, it plays only a relatively minor role in CO2 absorption, and since the same dynamics as for terrestrial vegetation apply, we therefore do not mention it separately in these considerations.
This leaves terrestrial vegetation and particularly, the massive carbon dioxide sink of terrestrial forests. Many scientists are of the opinion that forests play a marginal role at best since they are considered to be "balanced" - that they release as much carbon dioxide from decaying vegetation as is absorbed by living vegetation. This conception is wrong. It does not take into account that there is constant new growth, as well as seed production in forests - which easily absorbs all the carbon dioxide they can obtain from decaying vegetation.
Consequently, the Earth's forests are vast, immense, and de facto permanent standing sinks of sequestered carbon dioxide. Indeed, and since forests seek to expand as well, they are net consumers and essentially permanent sequesterers and long term storers (as long as they exist) of carbon dioxide. And forests consisting predominantly of massive old trees are the greatest absorbers of CO2. It is perfectly obvious. The annual growth of the ring of a 5 foot diameter tree is many times greater than the annual growth of the ring of a young 8 inch diameter tree.
And there is more. Forests are also immense sponges of vast amounts of water - the water in the trees and leaves, in the ground below, and in the air around them. And this water also absorbs carbon dioxide. Forests also generate streams, rivers and lakes, and these also absorb and store carbon dioxide.
Moreover, forests also purify water, as H2O is disassembled in photosynthesis, and surplus H and O is reassembled into H2O, in a complete purification of water.
So, the Earth's forests are - more accurately, were - immense and massive 'standing', and practically permanent carbon sinks. But we have eradicated 80% of the Earth's original forests and continue to eradicate them on a massive scale (an area equal to the size of Belgium every year in the Amazon forests alone - World Watch Institute). To this we now must also add the vast forests fires which have consumed millions of acres of forests this year alone, and this will turn into vast conflagrations in the next few years - all caused by the drought following the massive denuding of the Earth. To this we must further add the increasing UVB radiation which will burn away the tender new growth of the forest's young leaves, and thus contribute massively to the eradication of the remaining forests.
This then is the real problem. Our massive decimation of the world's forests - of its vast permanent standing carbon dioxide sinks - is now being accelerated and reinforced by the feedback forces created by the denuding of the Earth.
Meanwhile, it is well known among Earth scientists that doubling the Earth's forests (see
NEXT) will end the greenhouse effect. That's it. It is as simple as that. End of greenhouse effect; end of climatic extremes; end of ozone holes; end of droughts, end of floods.
And this can be achieved in about 10 - 15 years (see STABLE CLIMATES in these pages).
Moreover, that forests store, hold and husband all of the water of the continents is not yet recognized by most. But this is another, but closely related story.
And while the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions might bring a bit of alleviation, ultimately and when all the forests are gone, we will have to get rid of all the animals to keep them from exhaling carbon dioxide - and then we too shall have to stop exhaling.
What we are doing now is akin to desperately bailing out our good ship Earth with a tin cup, while other people are busy cutting more huge holes into the hull. This is simply not going to work. The only thing which is going to work is plugging and repairing the holes - in this case, doubling the Earth's forest cover - and a bit more for a safety cushion against natural disasters.
And for this, we need all the carbon dioxide we can possibly produce. This will be the end of the greenhouse effect, end of the ozone holes, end of extreme climates, end of water scarcity, end of floods, end of droughts. And we all get to live in a beautiful "Park" as a bonus.
Afterthought: While the role of evergreen forests in this context is clearly that of a permanent carbon dioxide sink, the role of deciduous forests is more intriguing. Does the decay of the fallen leaves in fall - coupled with the lack of growth in the winter months - add to the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, and thus warms the winters - only to reabsorb atmospheric carbon dioxide in the spring?
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