Ornstein Sahara Afforestation: This Green says YES

Leonard Ornstein is all over the news today, with his plan to reforest the Sahara using desalination.

There are predictable knee-jerk rejections of the plan, but it is certainly worth piloting, as an experiment. I have been advocating this for a couple of years now.

Ornstein's proposal to use Eucalyptus is dubious, as it is invasive, and some species are toxic to flora in their vicinity. They also have very deep roots, and an extensive euclalypt forest could conceivably have the effect of lowering the water table. I was a trustee of Tree Aid years ago, and we had a successful stand of eucalypt. When they were harvested, the local stream, which had mysteriously dried up, began to flow again.

It is mandatory to use native species, and the planting should be to the advantage of, and using the labour of, local communities, rather than some kind of post-colonial industrialisation.

Community forests would probably bring the costs down too. The planting should begin at the coast, and work inland from there. East Africa would be the place to start, in view of the drought there. The work would also help to bring peace to Somalia.

The basic reaction to any of this carbon sequestration stuff is "We shouldn't be putting CO2 in the air in the first place. Sequestration is a Moral Hazard!"

The answer to this objection is that it is possible to walk along and to chew gum at the same time. We need BOTH decarbisation AND sequestration. The 40 year time lag means that even if we could magically stop CO2 emissions today, we would still need sequestration to avert disaster.

So, no brainer. Forget Ornstein's $trillions, forget eucalypt, forget industrial forestry, remember the people, and let's start planting forests aap.

George Monbiot Hates Trees Shock

Went last night to hear George Monbiot and speakers from Oxfam and World Development Movement talk about climate change. Packed audience, George his usual brilliant self; message being that its the same the whole world over, its the poor what gets the blame, its the rich what gets the pleasure, ain't it all a bleeding shame.

Glacier melts in India are causing floods. When glaciers gone, they get droughts. Poor countries suffer for our CO2 emissions.

Yes. Action needed. Government is sucking its thumb while blowing its own trumpet, not making a good job of either. They need to take up Contraction and Convergence.

Where I dsagree with George is his opposition against planting trees. He does the tired old either cut down CO2 or plant trees argument (I have been doing both, it is possible to do both you know, bit like walking along and holding a conversation), and the "bad monoculture of eucalyptus displacing communities" (well, help communities to plant useful native trees that they want), and the Indulgences argument (buy your way out of guilt) which really gets up my nose. Paying money to priests so you can sin is one thing, planting trees to mop up our emissions is quite another.

Here's a nice link about trees.

Desert Rose Project

I have finally put up Project Desert Rose on my website. It has been preoccupying me for the last month: a vast, ambitious project that addresses the fact that all human civilisations, not just the current one, have destroyed the forests that surrounded them. In hot countries, the result is desertification. The responsibility of this generation is to reverse that trend by reafforesting it. It is ambitious, but feasible if only it could be given a small fraction of th emoney currently devoted to militarism.

Reforestation is rational. Militarism is irrational.

The question is, is mankind going to choose to be rational or irrational?