December 2005

A scientist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory working on greenhouse warming recently pointed out that if the only thing you want to do is sequester c02, then forest is not the long term answer. He is right in the narrow sense, but very wrong in the most important sense.

Our response to Global Warming must include vigorous efforts to plant more forests in critical locations. Climate modelers have determined that a fairly small forest in the center of the Austrailian outback could double the rainfall over the whole contenant. So a new forest as small as 100 square miles could make a huge difference, yet it would be a project larger than we've done as a civilization, and it's just the sort of thing that could make a long term difference.

In a similar way, forest ecosystems must move toward the poles faster than ever before except in astrophysical events, and if we want to have a recovery time on the order of hundreds of years instead of hundreds of thousands of years. then we need to help forests grow in new zones, we need the trees to modify the hydrology, the weather changes, to form the basis of a more sustainable economy.

In the short term, planting forests would counter the spread of deserts, especially when done in conjunction with climate modeling to guide the efforts for best ecosystem effect.

The changes in glaciers will change rivers, and expose new land for tree growth. There is only a short time during which the trees must become established if the soil newly exposed is to be nurtured, or it may be eroded and deposited under the oceans. So Humans must shift what we spend our time doing.

We will also have to move out of low lying area's as the sea rises, and rather than push against the sea, we better become adept at moving, at conserving our marine resources like fish....

Bruce Bagnoli


We need to develop flywheels, fusion, tidal power, hydropower, safe nuclear power, wind power, and learn how to save enough genetic material, genomic information, from species that may be going extinct.

We need to develop alternatives to coal burning , and find ways to make our microprocessor and RAM industries sustainable.

A stable population on the earth at levels of 1-2billion would seem to be one factor that would help if we didn't have to do it suddenly. If through changes in living conditions and standards we could flatten the growth curve, it would undoubtably restrain the rate of growth from this point on.

What I fear is that the