A loonnnnngggg time ago I saw a documentary about China’s deserts. They’re huge. Bloody huge. But the Chinese have a plan. Or, had and do, since they’re implementing it on a grand scale.

At the edge of the deserts, presumably where they join semi-arid areas and farming communities, the Chinese are planting trees, rows upon rows of them. This acts in two ways; the first is to act as a wind-break against the storms that blow in from the desert; they also prevent the topsoil from being eroded by those storms, and blown further into the farming areas (increasing the desert).

Today there is some good news, it seems that the Chinese’ plans were in good order, because for the first time in, well, since the was formed in 1949, that they’ve had a net shrinkage of their deserts.

Yeah yeah I know, fascinating stuff Richard *yawn*. But put this into perspective for a minute. We cut down trees at a rate which if any of us really thought about it, we’d be horrified. We love our wooden furniture, our new homes (which in the US are mostly built of wooden frame construction), our wooden art, we use wood like crazy. I guess we just don’t care about it so much because it happens in Brazil…

So, maybe we can take a leaf from the Chinese’ book here? If we spent just a tiny proportion of what we spend on weapons systems, on planting trees in the US, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, maybe we wouldn’t have so much global warming, or a carbon-sink problem? The Chinese have managed to plant nearly 12 billion trees since 2001. That’s right 12 billion, with a ‘b’, in just five years. Clearly they know something about trees!