Respose to JA
"If non-greenhouse gas nuclear power were used to use to de-salinate sea water and make the deserts bloom, would that put more whatever into the the atmosphere, creating a virtuous circle?"
What are you asking? Question is confusing.
Ben's Response:
Plants or trees produce chemicals --- chlorophyl I think --- cuts down the effects of greenhouse gases, When Predisdent Ronald Reagan said that we should plant more trees the smaty-pants enviro-journos were jocular.
The joc was was on them.
Ben
Posted by Anonymous to Wattenblog at 11/13/2006 11:56:26 PM
posted by Ben Wattenberg at 1:32 AM
2 Comments:
You can enter your response as a follow-on comment under the original post -- this creates a coherent discussion thread that can be easily followed, and is a blogging standard for good reason -- it is sensible and facilitates a back and forth discussion. Why not do that?
Just saw your clarification. Additional plant life does soak up CO2, as plants breathe in C02 and breathe out oxygen (with no carbon attached to it.) However, it does seem like I've read some things lately indicating the possible effect on CO2 atmospheric levels of planting more trees may not be as large as first hoped, and CO2 removal may not increase at the same rate as tree planting - - but I'm way outside my area here. In general, though, it's hard to argue with the idea that more plants would be a good thing for the atmosphere. And bringing water to the desert would bring more plants. That's the start of a circle, anyway.
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