//Or maybe we can somehow increase the amount of natural vegetation to absorb CO2 ? Like more crops, orchards, cotton fields, plantations ? If there is some connection between CO2 and absorption by plant life, then is it possible to increase the amount of plant life, to match the amount of CO2 being produced ?//

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: vegetation absorbs CO2, more vegetation absorbs more CO2. But in order to have enough vegetation to absorb CO2 at a rate equal or in excess of the rate at which we produce it burning fossil fuels, we would need more vegetation than there is land area to put it on. That's even if you include all the desert bits (including Antarctica) and the bits that humans and their agriculture are currently occupying. We could fill in the Pacific Ocean (not practically, but hypothetically) with rainforest, and we still wouldn't have enough vegetation to match the rate of CO2 production. It just can't be done, mate: to match the current rate of CO2 production, we'd need another few planet's worth of vegetation. The only way we could ever hope to match the rate of CO2 production with extra CO2 absorption from plants is by drastically reducing the level of CO2 production. Trying to do it the other way just ain't possible.

And the level of vegetation on the planet is decreasing steadily. It's sad, as Ogden Nash so beautifully put it, 'I think that I shall never see, a billboard lovely as a tree'. But economic growth and deforestation seem to be strongly correlated, and do we really want to deny economic growth to developing countries just to keep them looking like the forest moon of Endor?

//Nuclear plants producing energy, for desalination plants, for vast Poly-pipe drip-system irrigation schemes across (for a start) northern Australia, raising useful timber trees, fruit trees, sandalwood, mangoes and avocados, etc. by the millions, eventually billions. Aboriginal people in remote communities are crying out for huge economic schemes to get involved with, for life, they're sick of welfare. Ten thousand could be trained up, in nursery management, hydro-engineering, plant biology, agri-business, and down the track: saw-milling, furniture-making, re-planting. A massive, never-ending mega-enterprise, employing people forever.//

Sounds fine.

//And CO2 controlled.//

Yeah, if we switch the grid over to nuclear, only use electric vehicles (not sure how that's going to work for planes, but anyway) and eat more roos instead of methane producing ruminants, the trees we already have will probably be sufficient to control our CO2... the problem is at the production end; we can only rely so far on natural processes to deal with absorption. Beyond that, we'll have to find a technological solution to solve absorption.

But still, plant more trees. They're just nice have to around.

The simplest & most economic solution to combat the decline of the environment would be for people to curb their excesses.
Curb breeding, curb immigration, curb profiteering, curb polluting frivolous industry, curb emission of every kind and, top of the list, curb greed.
This could be achieved by making nations religion-free. Focus on eliminating superstition.
In a word focus on bringing humans to their senses. The present education systems are working against humanity, not for it. The largely academic & religious control freaks have proven their inability to lead.

Individual nice thoughts but unlikely, greed over rules such things
A time will come that forces actions we now see stalled
Reference to Nuclear power always brings out people who see only its failures
In fact it has far more success than fails
Such plants, about three, on the east coast of this country would more than cover any omissions cuts required
Too power industries that can not start up here because of power prices

Hi Toni,

In my old age, I easily get confused. You suggest that no amount of tree-planting etc. will soak up the CO2 already in the atmosphere- then you suggest that the trees we already have " ... will probably be sufficient to control our CO2 ... " It's mid-afternoon on a Saturday, so which is it at the moment ?

Just to be on the safe side - since I hate CO2 passionately, it's a poison, a blight, it should never have been invented - what if - as well as sitting back, content with the trees we already have - we put a few more in the ground, perhaps a few billion, just in case ? And kept a manageable re-forestation program in place indefinitely ? Apart from soaking up all Indigenous unemployment forever, and eventually forming a valuable timber-export industry, semi-tropical fruit, etc., it may have some effect on CO2 levels ?

Decrepit I may be, and rapidly getting decrepiter, but I'm still a searcher after truth, Aidan. Please help me.

Joe

//You suggest that no amount of tree-planting etc. will soak up the CO2 already in the atmosphere//

No, that's not what I said. I said that we don't, and can't, have enough trees to match the current rate of CO2 production.

In order to start soaking up the CO2 that is already there, it is a mathematical necessity that the level of absorption be greater than the level of production. You get that why has to be the case, right? Please tell me if you don't really understand this point, as I feel it may be where our discussions on this subject break down.

//then you suggest that the trees we already have " ... will probably be sufficient to control our CO2 ... "//

Yes, with the caveat that this would be possible, IF AND ONLY IF, we were to drastically reduce our level of CO2 production. This goes back to the arithmetic of sources vs. sinks.

//what if - as well as sitting back, content with the trees we already have - we put a few more in the ground, perhaps a few billion, just in case ?//

As I said before, sounds fine. Knock yourself out, mate. Get out there and plant those trees, I'm not going to stop you. I like trees, I just don't believe they have the superpowers that you seem to ascribe to them.

//And kept a manageable re-forestation program in place indefinitely ? Apart from soaking up all Indigenous unemployment forever, and eventually forming a valuable timber-export industry, semi-tropical fruit, etc., it may have some effect on CO2 levels ?//

Yes, Joey Mangoseed, every last little blade of grass has some effect on CO2 levels. But so does every last little gram of coal burnt. And the coal wins by a vast margin.