Some Tools For Worldwide Adaptation Initiatives. by jimthegeordie

Hi Jim, Interesting proposal! Thanks for submitting! I look forward to seeing further developments on this proposal, especially who you envision taking action on this idea. Cheers! Hannah

Wow, this sounds liek a very great idea. I am looking forward to read more about it. My suggestion is that it might be more realistic to go step-wise by the implementation, so the projetc actually c an be realized by your group, resp. other target groups. You might want to refer to the final goal of realizing this projetc worldwide, but you start with defined target groups on a regional level. I wish you all the best, Alexandra

Thanks, colleagues all, for your kind interest. Hannah, I responded to your comment with such excitement that I mistyped my blogsite name. It is actually reengineeringaustraliaq.com. Alexandra, the "project" in the first instance is to set up the database and populate it with all of the information we can muster from known sources such as satellite scanning. The next step is to get as many people and organisations to look at the material and hold up their hands if they have any proposals on climate-friendly work to be done within their fields of interest. Next, we look at the relative values of single proposals or (preferably) groups of proposals close enough to be serviced by a single project. Finally, we try and marshal resources (including money!) all the way down the list from governments to crowdsourcing to complete the projects. Some of my "tools" are actually suggestions on economical ways to build transport, dams, housing and suchlike to give a worthwhile life to the people on the ground (whether temporarily or permanently). Hemant, your proposal regarding the recapture and reuse of fruit seeds would fit quite well within my concept. I can go a little further and combine your ideas with water conservation. I designed an underground car park with a special shape of roof which allowed trees and lawns to be grown over it. It was very economical to construct because of the repetitive nature of the shape. Water dams can take away useful agricultural land, but if a dam is covered with a similar roof, the space over the dam could be used for agriculture (including fruit trees!) and to increase water yield by up to 30% because of the prevention of evaporation. Best regards to you all. It is a privilege to be able to participate in this extraordinary world of ideas. Jim W.

Hi, Hannah, There is only one implementable feature to start with and that is the audit database. I originally conceived it as a way of identifying sustainable population limits in Australia based on varying levels of land recovery, agricultural improvements and so on. Once it is in place and thrown open to interested organisations and members of the public with information to offer, the way is open to effect climate change improvement in two directions. One is to identify multiple usages for individual BLUs to optimise their potential value. The other is to find BLUs all over the world which have similar features which would justify larger investments in climate change amelioration processes suitable for all. Actually, I think I know where you are coming from. It is a little bit too diffused, which is partially due to the limited amount of words the proposal has to be fitted into. I recently went back and looked at some of the material I had collected and found that my concept sprang from the activities of people like Robert Vincin and Tony Rinaudo who have rescued thousands of hectares of derelict land in Africa and Asia by planting trees and other vegetation which use C4 carbon. The other potential activities such as building communities, agriculture and so forth are adjunct operations to help justify the expense or provide income and shelter to people engaged on the land recovery (and any other operations reducing climate change effects). I am currently doing a bit of a rewrite along the above lines which might be more to your liking. The target will be essentially carbon capture by various means with other activities offering support. The transport, housing and other ideas (all useful tools!) will be thrown in as an addendum to combat criticism about the difficulties of working in remote areas (even though we really need every bit of land we can get hold of to fight climate change!). Regards, Jim W.

Hi, Pete, I am amazed at the encouragement I (and no doubt every other contestant) have received in preparing a proposal. I am currently rewriting my proposal off-line (so that I can keep focus) but it will take note of helpful remarks from people like Hannah and yourself. All land areas in the world have multiple usages, some of which support each other and others which are in conflict. Some are doing OK but others will need changes to optimise their role in combatting climate change. Essentially, my database will provide the hooks which will allow information from all sorts of sources to me amalgamated under a single BLU ID. The structure of the information will be specific to the current usages and analytical procedures will need to be developed to determine what, if anything, needs to be done in particular places. My proposal will describe the core database (describing the BLUs), but I am also going to provide a sample project regarding which there is a fair amount of data already available. This will be a carbon capture project, using C4 carbon plants which lock carbon into the soil. There have already been a couple of major projects like this in Mongolia and Africa, but I am going to try and localise it for inhabitants and volunteers (perhaps crowdsourced). The transport and other ideas I mentioned are related to population redistribution, which I see as another possible means of reducing carbon dissemination, but for the moment I will (perhaps) include them only as an illustration of other longterm possibilities. Regards, Jim W.

Thank you for your comments. I am in the course of rewriting my proposal, taking account of the comments already made. I will take due notice of your welcome comments, too. My database is not a comprehensive information centre, which will replace other databases already in existence. Rather, it is more like a directory and is intended to localise all of the information available worldwide, so that people on the site can take charge of their climate amelioration projects on a scale that they can handle. Hopefully, they will be able to go to all of the databases you mention and, using their GPS data to zero in on the information they want and make their own decisions as to how to achieve the improvement or recovery targets they are looking for. They will also be able to search their own database for other locations with similar characteristics and learn from their operations (whether successful or not). I am familiar with some of the remediation work carried out in Africa and Asia by the likes of Robert Vincin and Tony Rinaudo. The former did a lot of work for the Mongolian government, recovering many thousands of hectares of damaged grazing land. The latter recovered a lot of land in Africa by reinstating woodland, but some of this was promptly cut down again by natives to sell and to make the land available for growing vegetables. From a cursory examination of your references, the data appears to be held by governments and other large organisations who undertake large-scale projects. I see my proposal as being complementary, providing help to local people in smaller areas to achieve similar results. My proposal will hopefully include a trial project (possibly using C4 carbon plants) as a proof of concept. Regards, Jim W.