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popsci_2013 01137.txt

#Tiny Poisonous Trees Could Fight Climate Change In The Desertfive German scientists have proposed a new strategy for mitigating the effects of climate change: turn coastal deserts into forests. Why? Forests full of trees that consume carbon dioxide are a great bulwark against the gas most responsible for global climate change. Deserts with their lack of plant cover are terrible at doing the same thing. Key to this process is carbon sequestration. Plants sequester some of the carbon dioxide they breathe in storing it in their branches and trunk and roots as well as depositing some in the soil they live in offsetting somewhat the carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere. To turn deserts into a viable spot for carbon sequestration the researchers assembled a diverse team of specialists with knowledge ranging from irrigation and carbon sequestration to desalination and economics. Short poisonous and hardy the Jatropha curcas tree can survive severe heat poor and alkaline soil and very low rainfall. It also produces a seed rich in an oil suitable for use as sustainable and environmentally-friendly biodiesel fuel. The paper suggests planting Jatropha curcas in the desert along the coast of the Arabian peninsula setting up a desalination plant to provide the water needed for irrigation and then letting the plants start sequestering carbon and eventually producing biofuel. A potential unintended side-effect of such a project is a chance of increased cloud cover and rainfall. Something to consider carefully because as we've seen time and again tweaking with ecosystems can have unexpected very consequences. The study appears in the journal Earth System Dynamics. Actually this is one climate change scheme that has a chance to work Many of our deserts were caused by overgrazing and poisonous plants will resist that. Of course in order to be successful you will need to cover huge parts of the desert with these plants which will push out the surviving native plants and the animals that rely on them so it is good that this is being proposed for counties that are obsessed less about not upsetting a natural balance in a human-created desert. Widspread use of toxic plants would restore the soil retain moisture that would otherwise run off instantly return that moisture to the atmospehre and create localized cooling. And the plan should even appeal to those who believe carbon dioxide levels are to blame for global temperature fluctuations. Water vapor is the gas most responsible for global climate change so this will only add to the problem...assuming there are still people who are stupid enough to believe that there is a problem. www. geocraft. com/WVFOSSILS/greenhouse data. htmlwhen greenhouse contributions are listed by source the relative overwhelming component of the natural greenhouse effect is readily apparent. From Table 4a both natural and man-made greenhouse contributions are illustrated in this chart in gray and green respectively. For clarity only the man-made (anthropogenic) contributions are labeled on the chart. Water vapor responsible for 95%of Earth's greenhouse effect is 99.999%natural (some argue 100%.%Even if we wanted to we can do nothing to change this. Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions cause only about 0. 117%of Earth's greenhouse effect (factoring in water vapor. This is insignificant! Adding up all anthropogenic greenhouse sources the total human contribution to the greenhouse effect is around 0. 28%(factoring in water vapor. I totally agree that desertification has produced global warming to some extent or more. However planting nonnative species has shown never to be a very good plan. An ecological disaster usually follows man's attempt to fix nature. Dr. Liet Kyens would be very proud of this research...To boldly go where no planetologist has gone before...Perhaps Earth is due for a little terraforming? Invasive plant species? How about Corn Potatoes and Wheat...Is that invasive enough for you? z=textstyle-frac {3} {4}+ i epsilonthe desalination plants to provide water for the trees need to be powered by solar or some other renewable energy source. Otherwise they would just be producing more CO2 than the trees would be absorbing. Why am I considered unauthorized to view:''very unexpected consequences'?'Anyway-who cares. This is the correct movement: a key proponent is the plants aspiration rate. If you can't grow a forest bring a forest to the city. note: desalination is not the answer but I do know what is s

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