Hi Lexi,

" .... it would have to plant the equivalent of the
Amazon forest every ten years to accomplish anything."

I don't know about 'anything', but yes, around 200,000 square miles a year (whatever that is in Celsius) would be doable, across the world. I'm not sure where you get that figure, but we could run with it. Trees mature in fifty or sixty years or so, before (as our future scientists could bring about) those trees, or at least their leafy bits, get eaten, and re-planting can take their place. Who knows what might be possible in fifty years ?

So yes, maybe ten million square miles of plantings every fifty years - with Siberia, much of China, the Sahel and a lot of Africa, and the Amazon itself and Australia's north - that really might be possible.

Thanks for that positive suggestion :)

Now back to the Game. Go Freo !

Love,

Joe
www.firstsources.info

The Abbott band of skeptics will soon be returning to this thread. Reading the recent (sensible) posts on reafforestation, a critical requirement for the sustainability of the planet, be prepared to be labeled; Commie, pinko, tree hugging Greenies, watermelons, green on the outside red on the inside!
Its such a cop out when the skeptics trot out the line "Australia is a small country anything we do will have little effect on climate." Its true, there isn't a lot Australia can do to fix the worlds climate, but to do nothing is as I said a cop out.

In seeking info about global cooling events I came a across this series of links that were interesting because there is reference to parts of Australia.

http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap01/icecore.html
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap15/lgm.html
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap15/natl_osc.html

I just want to bring back the point that in the ice ages global average temperature reached only 5 to 6 degrees below today's average, with massive glaciation over now civilized parts of the planet.

This puts a projected 3-4 degree rise in perspective. We (our descendants) won't simply cope with such a high global average temperature increase by turning up the air-con. It's much, much more serious than that.

Interestingly, for those interested in following the last link, there is the conclusion: "The moral is that global warming is unlikely to be uniform. Also, cooling in one area does not disprove global warming generally".

Anyway, I am now 95% confident that there is a big A in front of the GW. Whether or not there is a C before the A is up to us.

Luciferase,

That's the point I was making to SM about his theory that 500 million years agao life flourished.

He's assuming that "life on earth" then was similar to today's.

From wiki on the Cambrian:

" While diverse life forms prospered in the oceans, the land was comparatively barren – with nothing more complex than a microbial soil crust[9] and a few molluscs that emerged to browse on the microbial biofilm[10] Most of the continents were probably dry and rocky due to a lack of vegetation. Shallow seas flanked the margins of several continents created during the breakup of the supercontinent Pannotia. The seas were relatively warm, and polar ice was absent for much of the period."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian

So if you were a mollusc, things were pretty hunkeydorey.

That's what you get when you take a simplistic glance at deep history and presume there were plants and trees and animals - that "life" was what you see when you look out your window, give or take a few thousand years.

Our own epoch and consequent civilisation has been possible only because of a time of relatively stable climate on a planet that provides climate instability in spades.

"So if you were a mollusc, things were pretty hunkeydorey."

A well made point but don't expect any concessions from the usual brigade, who haven't even the backbones of molluscs enough to face up to the facts.

The IPCC AR5 should put them back in their shells but, no, it's a massive communist plot to enslave all us molluscs, you know?

Poirot, Luciferade,

From Wikipedia, our mutual friend:

"In the Ordovician period, around 450 million years ago, the first land plants appeared.[1] These began to diversify in the late Silurian Period, around 420 million years ago, and the results of their diversification are displayed in remarkable detail in an early Devonian fossil assemblage from the Rhynie chert. This chert preserved early plants in cellular detail, petrified in volcanic springs.[2]

"By the middle of the Devonian Period, most of the features recognised in plants today are present, including roots, leaves and secondary wood; and, by late Devonian times, seeds had evolved.[3] Late Devonian plants had thereby reached a degree of sophistication that allowed them to form forests of tall trees."

i.e. plant life had not yet begun by the Cambrian. So your point is ?

Cheers :

Joe