Geoengineering

morning...Where i live,South Western Ontario,Global warming would be welcome this fine day...Temp is -8 C with windchill approaching -20C..Its cool for so late in our fall.Weather maps indicate the arctic zone in Canada is already settling in at -30C.This could yet be the coldest winter on record...Global systems are larger than our most sophisticated computer systems can accomadate..Inputs while many never get them all .Output(theory ,trend analysis etc.) depends on input..Trust your own experience..Mine,this morning ,says its getting colder than ever...at least for now..

Regards...Marty W..

Large scale reforestation should help considerably with either global warming (or, the next trendy cause), global cooling.

The added advantage is the increase in timber availability for the developed nations and increase in firewood for the undeveloped world.

In the West, one possibility would be to make mixed tree seeds pelletised with a moisture retaining agent and appropriate nutrients (+ appropriate bacteria if a legume) and make these freely available to all, encouraging them to scatter this seed wherever they go.

While the majority of these seeds won't grow, the vast quantity of them will ensure more tree growth than any deliberate tree planting program, at a much lower cost.

General tampering with the environment is, in my opinion, dangerous. We know so little about the environment, that actions we take to correct a perceived problem are likely to either make some other problem worse or exacerbate the original problem because our knowledge of the system is incomplete.

Gibbon blamed the cold of Roman Germany on the extensive forests there compared to the cleared farm land of the Empire. This would suggest that large scale forests may not be as harmless as everyone thinks, but if that proved to be so, it isn't hard to cut down, clear or burn forests, so the measure is readily reversible.

Any geoengineering measures should have that quality of easy reversiblility, otherwise we will do far more harm than good.

Global warming itself may well be beneficial. Ask a resident of northern Canada or central Siberia if they would welcome warmer winters!

Warming would make present day cold regions into productive agricultural land. The tropical belt would also widen, squeezing the belt of desert into a smaller space, but also shifting it further from the equator. Increased CO2 will also increase growth and agricultural productivity.

This is where the vested interests come in. The new deserts would move into present day productive land, making it marginal, but the area lost would be more than compensated by the bigger area made available in present day marginal and semi desert as well as the previous cold regions now becoming temperate. Obviously, the countries losing productive land will not be happy to see their production shift to previously unproductive countries, so they will make every effort to prevent the change occurring.

If warming continues (and it probably wont) increased forests will improve rainfall making the loss of productive land far less than it would otherwise be.

A wheat farmer in Western Australia experimented with growing trees on his property. Without taking account of increased rainfall (Alone the scale was insufficient to benefit) he found he could take up 25% of his land with trees without loss of production. The benefits included reduced evaporation due to the windbreak formed, birds attracted to the trees reduced grain loss due to insect damage as they ate the insects and reduced frost damage due to preventing the flow of cold air onto low lying land and shielding of the land reducing the radiant heat loss at night.

If global warming changes to global cooling, the windbreak of trees will reduce wind chill, the prevention of cold air pooling in low lying land will be reduced, shielding will still reduce night time radiant heat loss, so benefits will still occur from having more trees.

Enough rambling. Plant more trees, they may not solve the world's problems, but they certainly won't make them any worse, and will probably give at least some improvement.