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If we could convert Sahara back into a savannah or farms, the amount of carbon required for the new soil and plants would exceed the amount of extra carbon we h
by chr1 5y ago
If we could convert Sahara back into a savannah or farms, the amount of carbon required for the new soil and plants would exceed the amount of extra carbon we have added to the atmosphere so far. And there are many viable routes to do that. E.g. building large number of ocean thermal energy conversion plants [1] to reduce temperature of the north hemisphere, recreating conditions that have caused green Sahara in the past. There are numerous possibilities to use engineering to revert adverse effects of climate change, and to actually improve the climate. The only scenario when we are doomed, is if population declines significantly so that we get runaway effect from carbon we have already produced melting permafrost, and not have large enough economy to use geoengineering on a large enough scale.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion#Climate_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversio...
- nr2x 5y agoSo there’s one minor problem with the Sahara…
- chr1 5y agoThere was a minor problem with stating in air, having plants with large edible parts, talking with people far away. Science and engineering have helped with all these minor problems, and they can help with the new one if we spend money on geoengineering research instead of wasting it on inefficient "clean energy".