TREES: THE BEST ANSWER?

Geoengineering is the term that describes scientists' plans to take carbon dioxide, the most abundant of the greenhouse gases, out of the atmosphere and thereby resolve global climate change. Although it is treating the symptom rather than the cause of the problem, geoengineers have proposed every sort of CO2 absorber, blower and sucker. Now, it seems, the cycle of insanity is closing. Some European scientists propose applying nature’s own treatment: Plant trees.

The most obvious problem with geoengineering: Even if all the CO2 could be captured, there is no good way to bind it and no place to put the enormous volume of it. Only through photosynthesis can it be reprocessed.

It will take lots and lots of trees. One billion hectares (3.8 million square miles) of forest. That’s all the virgin forest cut down in the last century. The professors propose charging a tax to pay for it: 0.11 € (17 cents)/liter of gas or 0.003 € (half a cent)/kilowatt-hour of electricity.

It’s ambitious, but it’s the most practical geoengineering of all because, at least if it doesn’t work and the world continues to heat, the trees – unlike the absorbers, blowers and suckers – will be good shade in the resulting endless summer.

The cycle of life. Time to recycle.(click to enlarge)

Put The Trees In The Ground: A Fix For The Global Carbon Dioxide Problem?
May 15, 2008 (EurekAlert via Science Daily)

WHO
Professors Fritz Scholz and Ulrich Hasse, biochemists, University of Greifswald

There are lots of geoengineering concepts but none more practical than earth's original air filter, the tree. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
In Permanent Wood Sequestration: The Solution to the Global Carbon Dioxide Problem, the professors, having assessed other proposals for cleansing earth’s atmosphere of CO2, conclude the only practical solution is planting trees.

WHEN
32 gigatons of CO2 are released into the atmosphere every year.

It's not just the tree, it's the roots. (click to enlarge)

WHERE
Published in the journal ChemSusChemM

WHY
- Given the amount of CO2 lifted into the atmosphere, photosynthesis is the only practical way to bind it.
- Sending human-generated CO2 into the ocean would dangerously alter ocean pH, threatening sea life and associated ecology.
- The mass of CO2 is too great to bury. Burning it would only recreate the problem.
1 billion hectares (3.8 million square miles) of forest would solve the problem.

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QUOTES
- Fritz Scholz: "For the first time, humankind will give something back to nature that we have taken away before…Whereas other environmental problems can, at least in principle, be solved by the appropriate modern technology…there are no realistic solutions for the CO2 problem."
- Fritz Scholz: "The forests should be planted in countries that are suitable for growing forest and also have the necessary sites for burial of the wood…Other countries, the primary consumers of fossil fuels, can pay them for it. This would produce a global trade that would benefit everyone involved."