This is a read-along discussion, as I understand. So I will just follow and make a few comments. I've written about and researched the subject extensively. There are factors in play that have a lot to do with social change, developing interests, legal framework, poverty, and definition of the healthiest way to restore the earth's forest versus making the earth a giant food plantation. If you get the funding: PLEASE DO IT. The developing world follows the money and right now we CANNOT drink the water, and the lumber is being cut and sold to meet the needs of the developed world without being replanted in climate critical areas that surround the world's largest deserts.
The issue has a lot to do with land tenure, who owns the tree, who guards the tree, and who really cares when people are hungry.
So please... be a carbon farmer. If you have any questions, some of the world's top carbon fund managers are in my circle: please ask. My company has put together an extensive carbon farming plan for Africa, but there is no funding for the developing world. (Except for a few GMO interested researchers, me, and maybe Jeff Lawton: who really knows the Sahara can be reforested?) Personally, I love the Venus Project for this plan...that is the idealist in me. Practically, people love the personal satisfaction of the addiction of capitalism: carbon farming appeals to that type of human nature and makes capitalism a little more socially responsible for tapping the economic value of carbon trapped energy.
