Loudmouth,

1. I can't remember what proportion of the increased CO2 is being absorbed by plants. How much do you want to know it? What I can say of hand is that it is significant, but still the atmospheric concentration has risen from 280ppm in preindusrrial times to 410ppm today.

2. Back in the 20th century, solar panels may have produced more CO2 than they saved. But those days are long gone – the manufacturing process is far more efficient now (as are the cells themselves), and IIRC they typically break even in their first year.

3. Why do you speculate on misinformation? CO2 is a poison at much higher concentrations, but that's irrelevant. Everyone knows some CO2 is essential for plant life, but that doesn't mean we should continue to increase its concentration.

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Hasbeen,
The parklike parts of Australia were on the east coast, which is relatively wet. It's safe to say there are more threes there now than before, but not to extrapolate that to the whole country! There are very large areas where the trees have been felled to make way for cropping and grazing, and also some once forested areas that have died because of overgrazing. There are also places were water bores have resulted in many more trees.

Australia has had many different environments, and these have changed in different ways. And if there were more native forests around, logging them wouldn't be so controversial now.

Hasbeen,

You suggest: " .... if we want trees to absorb more CO2, & I can't imagine why we would, we should be seriously harvesting more trees for their timber, allowing more space for new young growing trees."

Well, yeah. That's more or less the point. There's never enough trees, and of course timber trees of commercial or nutritional value should be chosen, for furniture, etc., building, fruit etc.

I don't know how much a dozen small nuclear reactors (for power) might cost, along with half a dozen desalination plants, pumping water into a watering system across the north of Australia, maybe south of the Kimberley and Arnhem Land and above the central ranges in Queensland, to water a belt of trees, say, 100 km wide. A belt 200,000 sq km might eventually contain two billion trees, so plenty of building material etc., coming mature every year forever. Maybe ten thousand people employed permanently, planting, maintaining, milling, transporting.

What's not to like ?

Joe

Loudmouth, 'what's not to like'?
Nothing!
It sounds like a plan to me.
Now just give it a minute and all the left whinge wallies, will come out of the woodwork, (or those very trees you speak of) and tell you 'what's not to like', or what's not to their liking.
As long as we keep getting resistance from a bunch of school kids, barely out of nappies and still suckling on their mothers teet, thinking they are informed enough to make ANY decision, we will never see anything resembling progress.
All these people would see is the cutting down of trees, and totally ignore the planting and re-afforestation being done in the follow-on.
But as long as we allow the children to have an opinion, we are always going to get one, even though it will always be wrong.
Loudmouth,for any such ideas as yours to get a look in, we need to get rid of the greens, for starters, then anyone who opposes any progress in the name of the environment.
I would not mind if the greens kept opposing whatever they wanted, but, they do not come up with anything resembling a workable, affordable, timely alternative.
Their childish, precocious attitude only serves to demonstrate their beliefs do not work.
They are inefficient, lacking in performance and reliability, and far too expensive to make them worth considering.
This is so, because they are not an informed party and discard any suggestions that would see them compromise their, green, position, even if it is the right thing to do.
If you want to know where to begin, GET RID OF THE GREENS!

Well, the kids are leaving school and going straight to the voting booths !

And there-in lies one of the major problems with this country.
We have children voting in mental deficients to run the country.
I'm pleased you have identified this glaring problem.
If only we could convince those who are too blind or set in their ways to see.
Maybe, just maybe something could be salvaged from this whole mess of a world we currently live in.

What's not to like is that the northern country is more productive growing beef, not trees.

Why the hell would you spend a fortune on power & water to grow trees where they don't want to grow naturally. The only possible reason is that you have fallen for the global warming scam.

If you want to grow trees, all you have to do is cut down some of the trees in Victoria Tasmania & NSW that have grown naturally, that we are not allowed to harvest because of some stupid green dogma, & plant replacement trees.

Cut down those trees, & more will grow in their place, & a whole industry can be re-established in native forests. This harvesting is economic & helpful to the ecology, & will greatly reduce wild fires.

What is not to like, unless you are a ratbag greenie, with no real idea of how nature works.

Private tree plantations just don't work economically. Trees grow too slowly to return even the council rates on a property. I have been mowing around a couple of gum trees, saplings when I bought the place, on my front road verge for 27 years. One is now 5" diameter & the other under 4". I have also spent 10 years avoiding cutting down a silky oak seedling that appeared, it is less than an inch. Bird planted silky oak seedlings have been appearing all over the place since the 5 I planted 25 years ago achieved full bloom & seed production.

These trees are nice to have, but looking around here, it will be another 40+ years before any 20 year old trees are worth harvesting. Growing trees for timber is a job for native forests not agriculture, & if we ever regain our senses that is what native forests will be used for.