The Global Tree-Planting Program

Update 2009-09-15: There is now a 10-15 minute presentation about the Global Tree-Planting Program available here.

This idea is intended to combat global warming by converting excess carbon in the atmosphere into living creatures, especially trees. It could also be called: "Increasing Planetary Biomass".

Introduction

There is plenty of evidence to indicate that global temperatures are correlated with atmospheric carbon concentrations, and that human activity is most likely to be the cause. Of course, this is open to debate, just like the relevance of Miley Cyrus's latest single or anything else of global consequence.

To be fair, there's also evidence that planetary temperature increase could be related to solar cycles or increased cosmic ray flux. Either way, that crazy thing called "science" indicates an increase in atmospheric CO₂ from 280ppm to 380ppm since the beginning of the industrial revolution about 200 years ago, and it would be logical to assume this was caused by humans, since during that time we have mined and consumed considerably more fossil fuels, produced a phenomenal quantity of cement, and killed almost every tree that looked at us sideways.

Planetary climate change caused by global warming will probably include more floods and longer droughts, increased storm intensity, adversely affected food production, species migration, elevated sea levels and millions of displaced people, resulting in spread of disease, and conflict over lack of food, drinkable water and iPod nanos.

There are several things we could do to prevent, or at least, ameliorate the effects of, global warming:

Stop cutting down trees.
Stop using fossil fuels.
Stop making cement from calcium carbonate and using other industrial processes that directly release CO₂ into the atmosphere.

Doing these things is certainly possible, at least to some degree.

By shifting to a more vegetarian lifestyle (I didn't say 100%), we wouldn't need to cut down so many trees to make room for livestock. Land would be used more efficiently.
Many countries could use steel as an alternative to wood in construction. (Steel is a far superior building material to wood anyway: stronger, more recyclable, and resistant to termites, fire, water damage and earthquakes.)
Use electric cars, such as those currently in production from Tesla Motors.
Use water for petrol - this is an emerging technology that could be developed further.
Generate all electricity sustainably, using wind, solar, geothermal, wave and tidal energy. This shift has already begun, especially in northern European nations. Companies like Nanosolar are improving thin-film solar cell technology, windmills are becoming quieter, cheaper and more efficient, and this trend will continue.
Research zero-point energy and develop this tech.
Replace traditional cement made from calcium carbonate with aluminosilicate geopolymers and other alternatives, the manufacture of which produces significantly less carbon emissions.
Manufacture steel using plastic and other waste material as a source of carbon instead of coal.
Recycle more.

The problem is that making many of these changes is very hard, because of something that could perhaps best be described as social and economic momentum. There are so many resources, including people, money, equipment, buildings, vehicles, software and more, connected to the current way of doing things that it will cost millions of dollars just for one company to switch to sustainable practices. Switching a whole country could cost billions.

We like to point the finger and say: "hey, corporate big-wigs, stop messing up my planet!" - but consider what it would cost them to change. Imagine owning a company that builds and operates coal-fired power stations, and suddenly being faced with the prospect of converting to wind farms? Or a cement manufacturer being asked to replace their products with geopolymers? The answer is, it would cost so much that they would probably lose their company. Would you do it?

Because of the social and economic momentum of existing industries, these industries will not change voluntarily . They never have and never will. Industries only change due to economic pressure. New technologies only cause industry-wide changes when they result in cheaper and/or better solutions than current technologies.

Nations, on the other hand, can change. Although nations are also affected by economic pressures, they are also affected by social pressures. That is, if enough people want (for example) a different kind of cement, and voice this opinion, then two things happen:

Politicians (in a democratic country) who want to get elected, implement legislation that enables (or enforces) making cement the new way, and restricts or prohibits the old way.
People stop purchasing the old kind of cement, and only buy the new kind. This converts social pressure into economic pressure, and causes the industry to change. New companies emerge, built on the new tech and fresh investment. Of the old companies, some of the big ones will be able to convert their business to the new tech, and the smaller ones will close down.

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the only thing that will cause humans to stop cutting down trees, using fossil fuels and making cement from limestone, is social pressure caused by (a) education and increased awareness, and (b) being personally affected by climate change.

But what if the people who make the legislation are under pressure from, or are funded by, the big players in these industries? What if widespread changes to these industries would cost millions of dollars and put thousands of people out of work? Answer: the politicians who would introduce the changes would not hold their positions for very long. So this is the problem. The social pressure of the environmentally-conscious proletariat (a relative minority) is overcome by the social and economic pressure of the investors and employees of the affected industries.

This problem makes any attempt to address global warming by changing industry practices very difficult, and the ongoing resistance to change will constrain progress. Of course, we should still try to do these things. However, luckily there is something else we can do in the meantime, that is not overly expensive, highly effective, and for which there is likely to be very little social or economic resistance.

And that is: Plant millions of trees.

Plant Biology 101

Trees are made primarily from carbon that comes from the air. This is because of a biochemical process known as photosynthesis. It works like this:

carbon dioxide (CO₂) + water (H₂O) → oxygen (O₂) + carbohydrate (C_nH_n)

The body of the tree is made from water and carbohydrate. So next time you look at a tree, think: "Wow, that tree is made from carbon that came from the air. What an awesomely simple and effective method nature/God/the Flying Spaghetti Monster has given us to convert atmospheric carbon into a useful form." (Or you could just think: "Hey, nice tree." That would also be cool.)

So, as they grow, trees consume CO₂ from the air, and water from the ground, incorporating the carbon and hydrogen atoms into their bodies, and releasing O₂ into the atmosphere.

Thus: Trees remove carbon from the air as they grow.

This is quite important and useful information, but remarkably, many people, including our fearless and brilliant leaders, seem to not realise this, hence, perhaps it bears repeating:

Trees (get this) - as they grow - remove carbon from the air.

This is really an amazing discovery. Who would have thought that we had a simple, efficient technology for removing carbon from the atmosphere right under our very noses! And (this is the best bit) - it isn't just trees that do this, but all kinds of plants! Flowers, vegetables, herbs, mosses, fungi, grasses, ferns - you name it!

But wait - you may think trees are awesome now, but that's just the beginning. Trees also:

Provide food, medicine and shelter for animals and humans.
Improve soil, air and water quality.
Increase animal populations.
Provide shade, reducing ground temperature and evaporation.
Reduce erosion.
Reduce weather intensity.

WOW! Trees are AWESOME! And yet, there is even one more absolutely killer advantage of trees:

Trees don't require constant attention. Once established, they will grow on their own, just like they did for millions of years before humans were around.

You'd have to admit, that's pretty amazing. Show me any other carbon sequestration technology with all these benefits. Oooh, bury the carbon underground! Oooh, algae farms! We're so impressive with our expensive and complicated technology, send money now!

Look, just plant a few million trees already. It's not exactly rocket science.

Ecology 101

One more thing. More trees means more animals. Yes, that's right. Another remarkable fact from the world of biology is that animals eat plants. Incredible, but true. Hence: more plants means more food for animals, which means more animals.

Now, you might say, aha, but animals breathe in O₂ and breathe out CO₂ - that's the opposite of what trees do! Bastards! Yes, that's true, but remember that animals are carbon-based life forms as well, just like you, me and the trees. They are made from carbon that came from plants, and therefore, through the magic of photosynthesis, came from the air. So when you see a little squirrel scurrying by, nuts in hand, don't think: "hey, stop breathing CO₂ into the air, you furry little bugger!" (unless you are going to do the same) - and instead, see the little squirrel as a pint-sized carbon-sequestration unit.

So, the more squirrels, chimpanzees, hippos, rhinos, tigers, pandas, lions, zebras, wildebeests, horses, pigs, cows, rabbits, sheep, antelope, moose, mice, parrots, eagles, ducks, fish, whales, quails, coyotes, roadrunners, dolphins, puppies, kittens, flies, bees, mosquitos, salamanders, crocodiles, goannas, kangaroos, koalas, platypii, wombats, bears, wolves, foxes, sharks, spiders, snakes, unicorns, komodo dragons and three-toed sloths we have wandering about the place, the less carbon in the atmo.

And guess what else! (this is really amazing...) Animals propagate plants! Some of them eat seeds, wander or fly around, then poo the seeds out so that new plants grow in new places. Other animals (like bees) transport pollen between male and female plants, so they can breed. In other words - the more animals there are, the more plants there are; and the more plants there are, the more animals there are! It's a self-propagating, positive feedback system (much like the greenhouse effect). You may ask: well, why doesn't this happen anyway? It does, but humans wipe out plants and animals at a much faster rate than they can grow. For this strategy to work super-effectively we really need to give them a break.

So, we don't really even need to consider planting every single tree ourselves. The animals will do some of the work for us, if we stop killing them.

A Global Tree-Planting Program

Armed with this remarkable technology - "trees" - we can confidently identify two key actions that we as a species could engage in that would reduce atmospheric carbon concentrations while providing a range of other great benefits:

Stop cutting down trees.
Plant millions of trees.

Action 1 has social resistance from loggers, lumberjacks, farmers, builders, and companies that make paper, toothpicks, bog-roll, etc.

Action 2 has very little social resistance. Heck, who doesn't love trees? There is cleared land everywhere, much of which is now unused.

Every government in the world, but especially in the tropics, should be introducing systems for accessing and rehabilitating previously-cleared land. There are several strategies that could be employed:

Conservation. Don't release land that has old-growth forest on it, or indeed any land with lots of trees, and don't pass land development applications on this type of land. Instead, give the developers access to previously-cleared land, and make it a requirement that they rehabilitate at least 50-90% as part of the deal. This strategy costs virtually nothing for a government to implement.
Acquisition. Get a few blokes to drive or fly around the country looking for cleared land to buy. Then buy it, plant thousands of trees on it, keep it for 20 years until the trees have grown, then lease it to developers with the proviso that they can only remove, say, up to 10% of the trees (a privilege that they have to pay for).
Economic deterrence. Place a high value on the trees in your country, and charge developers, mining companies and land-owners a fee for chopping them down. Make it hurt. Have a per-tree rate for small blocks of land, e.g. people's homes, and a per-hectare rate for large blocks. Then less people will be inclined to do it, and they will think of alternatives.
Education. Teach people in your country about vegetarianism, how vegetarians live longer and have less sickness, and why it's healthier for themselves and the planet. Teach them how industrial animal farming is extremely cruel to animals and thus spiritually damaging to the planet, wastes massive amounts of fresh water, and requires trees to be cut down - something that is wrecking the planet.
Use steel instead of wood for construction. Wood is not an ideal building material anyway. It warps and changes shape in wet weather, gets eaten by termites, burns rather easily, and is hard to recycle (see: Why Steel?). Steel does not have these problems. It holds its structural shape over long periods, doesn't get eaten by anything (not even rust if it's properly galvanised or coated), doesn't burn, is 100% recyclable, and is much stronger. Yes, you may need to cut down some trees to mine the iron for the steel - but a smaller number of trees are lost, plus you only need to cut them down once, whereas the steel can be used again and again.
Ecovillages. Develop the ecovillage concept in your country. Get people interested in the idea of living with and caring for trees and their environment; teach them the value and importance of wildlife corridors, carbon sequestration, and oxygen.

How Many Trees Should We Plant?

Now that we're all agreed that a global tree-planting program is a completely brilliant solution to the global warming problem, the next thing to determine is roughly how many trees need to be planted. A back-of-the-envelope calculation might look something like this:

c1 = current mass of carbon in atmosphere

c2 = mass of carbon in atmosphere 200 years ago

d = c1 - c2 = mass of carbon to remove from atmosphere

m = average mass of carbon in a full-grown tree

n = d / m = number of trees to plant

The next step could be to distribute the overall cost of the program to the nations. This could be calculated by population, however, that approach wouldn't be fair on developing countries with large populations. So instead we use a "responsibility factor", such as energy consumption or GDP, which roughly correlates to a nation's contribution to global warming:

e = energy usage of your country per year

g = energy usage of Earth per year

t = total cost of planting n trees (including setting up legislation, buying land, equipment, labour, etc.)

s = t * e / g = your country's share of the cost

As explained in the previous section, much of the cost of the program can also be passed on to land developers with the right legislation in place.

Also, can I just suggest that this is not the kind of thing that any country should be wussy about at this time. In case you didn't know already, just quietly, it's a global emergency. So, don't be like "oh, why should we spend x million dollars on trees, those capitalist/communist/Christian/Muslim bastards won't!" Don't think like that. Have the balls to be the hero. Don't worry about everyone else. Set the good example in your country, then others will follow, and then you can say "Yeah! It was so cool that we led the way on that tree-planting thing, now the planet will continue to sustain life because we had the guts to do the right thing!"

How to Plant Millions of Trees

Planting millions of trees will require a few resources. You need seedlings to plant, but these are easily grown from - well, seeds, which are mostly lying around on the ground for free. There is very little special equipment required other than shovels, plus you also need fertiliser which you can get relatively cheaply from any farm that has chickens, pigs, goats, sheep, cattle or horses.

Hence, the primary resource needed for this exercise is labour.

Apart from simply paying tree-planters, there are 3-4 possible sources of cheap labour that could be employed to plant trees:

Volunteers. There are already many established grassroots environmental and conservation-oriented organisations around the globe, thus proving that there are plenty of people who will plant trees either (a) for fun, or (b) because they know it's a good thing to do. So - find these organisations, find out what they need, and give it to them. Help them recruit members, give them lots of free seedlings, greenhouses to grow seedlings, plenty of shovels and chook shit, and point them towards the land.
Children and students. They have too much free time anyway. Make 'em plant trees! Haha, just kidding. What I mean is, schools and universities could introduce one afternoon per week, or a couple of hours each afternoon, for planting trees in their neighbourhood. Young people love that kind of thing.
Prisoners. While I don't think anyone should be imprisoned, and that jails are a really, really stupid way to manage a population, the fact remains that we have a system in place that takes a substantial fraction of the able-bodied workforce out of the economy, and puts them somewhere where they can be miserable with friends instead of interfering with all the people who are busy pretending to be happy. Most prisoners presumably work, but perhaps they could plant trees instead. It would probably be more fun than anything else they are doing anyway, and might cheer them up a bit.
Unemployed. Instead of the dole, pay $1 per week per tree planted. Then we would get some trees planted! (Although they may only be the kind you smoke...)

What To Do Next

If you agree this is a great idea, here's what to do next.

Write to your local rep, member of congress, monarch, school principal, university chancellor, gym instructor, etc. and say something like this:

G'day.

We need to plant millions of trees to cool the planet and stop that global warming thing. Please get that happening as soon as you can. That would be awesome.

If you do that, I will vote for you/pray for you/think nice things about you/send you chocolates/give you a discount in my hair salon/etc.

Cheers. Peace.

[Your name]
Go and get:

some seedlings
a shovel
some chicken or cow manure
some knowledge about your regional ecosystem and suitable species for planting
a piece of land with no trees on it
some kids/family members/homeless people to help

and plant some trees! (It might actually be fun!)

Technological Solutions - Robotics

While not knowing exactly how many full-grown trees will be necessary to sequester all the excess carbon, I imagine that if the planet honestly applied itself to this program we could probably reduce atmospheric carbon concentrations to pre-industrial-era levels within 50 years, and possible even within 30.

Now, what may be extremely helpful in this matter, is that this is the precise time-frame during which the robotics revolution is scheduled. God showed me His notes last time I was up there, and I distinctly remember reading: "Robotics Revolution starts ~2010".

This coincidence could be very handy. How could this emerging technology of robotics help us plant millions of trees?

1. Seedling factories

Although many trees do presumably grow from seeds in the wild, they have a much higher chance of survival if grown from seedlings. Seeds are planted and nurtured to the seedling stage inside greenhouses, where there are very few squirrels, giraffes, small children or other creatures likely to eat them. Once the seedling is of a suitable size, it can then be taken out into the wide, wild world and planted in what scientists call "the ground".

Because there is not an overly massive requirement for seedlings, we are currently getting along quite well using ordinary humans to operate these greenhouses. However, if we need to plant millions and millions of trees all over the globe, then it could be practical and worthwhile building huge, automated seedling factories.

Large machines could prepare the thousands of pots with dirt and fertiliser, and plant seeds in each of them in a matter of picoseconds, much faster than a human or a trained monkey. Environment control systems would monitor conditions (air temperature, humidity, and consituents) inside the greenhouses, and maintain the ideal environment for fast, healthy growth. The factory-greenhouses sprays the plants at predetermined times, or whenever is required for optimal moisticity, and when the seedlings are ready to be taken out and planted, computer-controlled machinery transport the pots to pick-up points at the greenhouse perimeters, for loading into trucks.

2. Robotic Tree-Planting Machines

Imagine a ute with legs. This is how I see the tree-planters of the future. Once all the school-kids, jailbirds and dole-bludgers have died from exhaustion from planting so many trees, we can invent machines to do it.

I envisage two basic models of robotic tree-planter. Considering that these robots would need to be able to traverse all kinds of terrain, step over logs and boulders, maybe even wade through creeks, both models would need to have at least 4, and perhaps 6, sturdy legs. Wheeled versions may be an option for open, flat country.

The first model would be designed for planting seeds (rather than seedlings), and hence may be less useful. But it would be easier to build. Above its legs would be a big plastic canister full of a runny, smelly substance made from seeds mixed with water and manure/fertiliser. Using GPS, the robot walks along a pre-calculated path covering every square metre of the block of land being planted, while dodging trees, boulders, structures, hippies and other obstacles. Every few feet, or as appropriate for the terrain and species of seeds, it rams a hollow, pointed metal spike into the ground and injects a good healthy dose of the seed mixture. Yes, I realise this is very sexual, but also very practical.

The second model would be like a ute with legs and other special attachments. A large tray on top would be designed to carry several hundred seedlings in cylindrical pots suited for the purpose. As the robot approaches each position on its path where a tree is to be planted, a hydraulic-powered robotic auger (that's a helical steel drill for digging holes) extends downwards from underneath the robot and digs out a hole just the right size to take a seedling.

The next seedling to be planted is mechanically moved to a hole in the tray where it can slide through. The sides of the pot catch on this 'gate', and the pot is kept by the robot. The seedling, with its root ball packed in a cylinder of dirt, slides neatly into the hole. The robot then gently squashes down the dirt around the seedling so it's firmly in place, squirts some fertiliser and water mix onto the plant, says "cya l8r", and waddles off to its next position.

Since this kind of robot is planting one distinct seedling in each location, it could be used to plant very precise patterns of different species of plants and trees. You could program the robot with a very randomised pattern, and give it a mixture of different species, in order to simulate a natural forest. Or, you could consider each tree as a pixel in a giant image, and plant a specific colour at each position, thus spelling out our name or printing your company logo over many hectares.

Action Item: Research Robotic Applications to Tree-Planting

If you like this idea of a global tree-planting program, and have access to a university robotics laboratory, then you may like to consider designing and building some tree-planting robots or automated seedling factories. This would be a good PhD project that could really help planet Earth.

Furthermore, if you are a university official tasked with allocating funds to research projects, you may want to consider telling the trust-fund babies who want to waste 4 years of time and money researching why more people buy toothpaste if it's in a red box instead of a blue one to sod off back to whatever idyllic little seaside town in la-la land they came from, and then give all the research money to botanists and geneticists and planetary engineers and brainy electronics geeks to develop fast-growing trees and awesome robots and other technologies to save the planet!