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| Burning forests are a Biblical prophecy. Every time I hear about a forest fire I think of that. |
When it comes right down to it, you feel kind of helpless. The whole of humanity has been burning trees for thousands of years. And we've burned billions of tons of coal and petroleum over the last 200-300 years. We've cut down billions of trees. We've dammed rivers. You name it, just about everything mankind has done to make a better world has made the world hotter and less better.
So where does that leave us? Are we responsible for the mistakes of the past if we're responsible for turning things around? They say we only have 10-20 years left to come up with solutions for reversing the flow of carbon into the atmosphere.
I'm all for planting huge forests of trees in the deserts. They say we can extract water from air now so why not just plant a few big water sucking plants out in the desert and start irrigating new forests?
I've always wondered what would happen if some of those north Africa nations plowed big canals deep into the desert. They say the Sahara is a desert because the rainstorm belt or something drifted south over the central part of the continent. Storms can't blow in from the Atlantic ocean because of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. So why don't they just dig a big trench that runs from the see into the desert and let water flow in there? Wouldn't it evaporate and make new clouds?
When it comes to solving global warming problems I feel like I have the high-level executive skills to do the job. I just need a couple hundred billion dollars to put my plans into motion. And you know what? That money exists. They say that companies in Silicon Valley out in California have squirreled away over 2 trillion dollars. It just sits in bank accounts collecting interest. So it's not like we don't have the capital to invest in some climate engineering projects.
You know all that trash that is flowing down our rivers and into the seas? Why don't they just mix that stuff up with concrete and lay it on the ocean floor? I know some clams would be killed and all but they could build new reefs to help all the other creatures find new homes. With enough artificial reefs maybe we cam save some of the sea life that is dying off. And who's going to care about some concrete made out of trash?
Global warming is one of the big news stories of the day. The storms are getting worse, the floods are getting worse, the forests are dying off, and people on Wall Street are all like, "My investments are doing okay so I don't have to worry about this." But what happens to those investments when millions of people lose their homes? Hello? Anyone heard about hurricanes like Katrina and Michael? Didn't they just level whole towns along the coast? How many times does a Maria have to sweep over the Caribbean before people around the world realize we're only just getting started?
Maybe we can save some people by getting off the planet but I think most of us have to stay here and figure out how to live with this mess. We need fresh water, better power sources, and a lot of new industries that extract carbon from the air and store in some long-term places. Maybe we can grow enough trees to bring back an ice age and then kind of tweak our way to perfect summers and spring vacations.
I'd say we'll need about a thousand years to learn how to do that. But the question is how do we survive that long? I don't think the answer is in the tarot cards.
