Branson & Gore : planetary engineers

[Cycloloco]

It's a curious failure of science that we seem to have failed to work out the details of how photosynthesis actually works. If we put the same effort into this as we have into nuclear....

Try this meeting for the latest ideas:

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/event.asp?id=4161

[Billhook]

As a supporter of the earlier proposal of the carbon banking / multi-fuel production units

otherwise known as "trees"

I should declare some significant interests in these organisms.


First, like many other farmers, I already have large numbers of them plus the space to plant many more,

should society decide to make their planting both worthwhile and affordable.

Or should reforestation remain a pathetically low-priority govt spending issue plus still more irrelavent charitable spending ?


Second, like many farmers in this country and most particularly in developing countries,

I see a vanishingly small likelyhood of the synthetic-photosynthesis technology option ever being made cheap enough to help eradicate poverty,

and with it the ecological damages arising from poverty,

while by contrast reforestation for multiple yields plainly embraces this critical issue.


Third, we can, given the will, plant globally and bring into production a billion acres

of diverse forms of sustainable coppice and standards forestry within say two decades.

This would not only reverse the global deforestation trend,
and bank over 1.0 GTC/yr,
and supply diverse fuels in significant volumes priced in local currencies,
it would also, among a myriad of other benefits,
help to restabilize the hydro-cycle.


In terms of reliably predictable service to the ecosphere, and to society's continuance,

I think the trees appear massively superior to the techno-synthetic option.


Regards,

Bill

[kenneal - lagger]

Dear Bill

We probably need both. Trees to rehabilitate vast areas of defiled land and artificial photosynthesis to provide us with power, without having to cut down vast areas of trees.

Regards

Ken

[Keepz]

Even if the UK were to stop all carbon emissions tomorrow, we are such a small contributor to global emissions that we'd make no difference to climate change unless our example inspires other countries to follow.

This is one of my biggest annoyances - that's only the case because most of OUR emmissions have been outsourced to China. They wouldn't be building a power station every week if we didn't buy so much plastic crap!

Somehow this myth that everything that happens in China is purely a Chinese thing has been said so many times now that nobody questions it. We've got a roughly similar sized economy so we can probably take as much blame. If we stopped tomorrow, most of China would go bankrupt tomorrow as well so maybe it would have an effect

Hm, I do not think that is actually what I said . I do most certainly agree that we are at least as guilty of contributing to global warming as is China - or even quite a lot more so, if you look (for example) at our carbon emissions per head. But the fact remains that we can't do much about the global problem on our own. We will make a difference to the global problem only if our actions result in other countries as well as us taking action also. Equating carbon emissions reduction with economic ruination is not going to encourage that. Approaches such as the Clean Development Mechanism are intended instead to equate carbon emissions reduction with profit and that sort of thing, putting industrialised countries' money where their mouths are, is far more likely to encourage engagement by developing countries.

[ianryder]

Hm, I do not think that is actually what I said . I do most certainly agree that we are at least as guilty of contributing to global warming as is China - or even quite a lot more so, if you look (for example) at our carbon emissions per head. But the fact remains that we can't do much about the global problem on our own. We will make a difference to the global problem only if our actions result in other countries as well as us taking action also. Equating carbon emissions reduction with economic ruination is not going to encourage that. Approaches such as the Clean Development Mechanism are intended instead to equate carbon emissions reduction with profit and that sort of thing, putting industrialised countries' money where their mouths are, is far more likely to encourage engagement by developing countries.

You're right, sorry - I just get irked by hearing so many people banging on about what's happening in China as if they're nothing to do with us. I would love someone on the news to say China's building a new power station every week so you can have plastic toys and widgets. If you stopped buying them they might not need to build so many coal-fired power stations. But so far the link isn't there.

And of course, to make any useful impact in the long run is going to take a mega international effort like we've never seen. And sadly may not see the way it's going so far. Let's hope this year some of the links that need to made for people to realise the scale of this will be made and we can get on with turning the Titanic.

[biffvernon]

It's a curious failure of science that we seem to have failed to work out the details of how photosynthesis actually works. If we put the same effort into this as we have into nuclear....

Try this meeting for the latest ideas:

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/event.asp?id=4161

Yes, things are happening, but I've always been puzzled at how low a priority the subject has had. Maybe what goes on in leaves isn't as sexy as what happens at the heart of the Sun, so the big research money goes to fusion power instead of arteficial photosynthesis.

[Andy Hunt]

In terms of reliably predictable service to the ecosphere, and to society's continuance,

I think the trees appear massively superior to the techno-synthetic option.

I agree - but as Kenneal says, I think it's very much a case of 'as well as' rather than 'instead of'. Plus of course, we don't know the impact climate change will have on reforestation efforts.

Natural solutions are very much the way to go - but I do see huge potential for biomimicry technology. I'm no technoclast.

[Billhook]

Dear Ken & Andy -

to try to clarify my POV, there are three particular pressures I'd see as mitigating against the biomimicry option -

the first is that the rate of growth required to go from the present paucity of understanding of the basic science
through to providing enough energy to "displace" > 1.0 GTC within 15 years
(that being a feasible potential of the global reforestation route)
would be more than problematic to achieve.
'
second, if global reforestation is not for purposes of carbon banking & energy harvest,
there is little evidence to date of any serious funding for it -
i.e. it won't happen, and the diverse secondary benefits would be forgone.

third. while I'd not begrudge some funding for biomimicry research, the extreme urgency of our case is such
that massively much greater funds should surely be put first into the untouched' heavyweights,
such as geothermal, such as offshore wave, and such as sustainable coppice energy.

Regards,

Bill