Idea1

[qlewkr]

I've decided to start documenting the ideas that keep me up at night. I think we all should be brainstorming as much as possible on how to get the planet's carbon load back down to 350 (parts per million). We can't just leave it up to the scientists. They're trying hard, some of them, but they have a hard time thinking outside the box, and that is where we come in. If we can come up with a really good idea, we can shout it from the rooftops later and try to make it happen, but until then, we can just make ourselves feel productive and less helpless by brainstorming. Besides, it's fun.

This is not really a great idea. I keep trying to make it work, but it's not going to get there. But it was fun trying. Tonight's idea is about how to keep the Amazon rainforest wet. I don't know if you've heard, but it's drying. Read some books about it if you don't believe me. Anyway, the problem with that is in the not too distant future, it will be ripe for fire and the world needs that oxygen that those trees produce. I mean, NEEDS it. We can't afford an Arizona fire in Brazil. So I'm picturing a lattice of plastic irrigation pipes (on the ground or above the trees, do you think? The latter, I bet. The wildlife is used to wet conditions, too, and the forest needs its humidity.) made out of recycled plastic ONLY and put in place by all those people who are currently busy clear cutting the forest to plant soy beans for biofuels or to raise cattle. We have to make it worth their while.

How to make it worth their while? (And avoid having militaries come in and take over, and make everything worse?) Sell oxygen rights to other countries? Give the Brazilians a plot of land to steward and put them on a yearly salary based on how many of their trees are alive? Actually, this is a good idea for all over the planet. We need tree stewards. We need to make trees more valuable alive than dead. Fire people if their trees die. We would all become a lot more educated about how to keep them alive, wouldn't we. Yes, this means every tree would need to be tagged, possibly. It's worth it. Or maybe environmentalists have a density system. How to keep corruption from happening? Who knows? Lots of education? Strict anti cronyism? Random plot assignments? These people need to know they have one of the most important jobs on earth. Not only do we need that oxygen, but those trees are a wonderful carbon sink for us. Especially in the Brazilian Rainforest, the wet conditions keep the vegetation from decomposing quickly so it traps carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere where it would act to keep heat locked in, raising the temperature, causing more climate change which will eventually kill us all.

Ok, the obvious problem is where the fuck are we going to get the water necessary to water all the trees in the rainforest? We have to figure out how to desalinate water more cheaply. The Amazon can't be relied on for water. How to desalinate water cheaply is like one of the biggest questions right now. If there is one thing we're going to have a lot of (for at least a couple hundred years or so), it is salty water.

Comments

[qlewkr.livejournal.com]

People should have to pay huge boatloads of money for cutting down a tree. Huge! Especially in the developed world. I bet those were the kinds of deals they were trying to work out in the Copenhagen conference, which never went anywhere.

[plastickitty.livejournal.com]

Education is the key to everything. Teach the local people from a very young age to value their environment and they will do it themselves. But of course first you have to show them the value ($$$) in it to make it worthwhile to most people.