This is not good news because clouds reflect sunlight and are a very important source of global cooling. In fact the amount of water vapour in the air is far greater than the amount of CO2 in the air and water vapour is a green house gas like CO2. And yet because water vapour can be turned into clouds, water vapour is a bit like a switch. Increase clouds - decrease temperature, Decrease clouds - increase temperature.

You see, water vapour is transparent to visible light and thus lets in the sunlight but it is opaque to infrared light (heat) so it traps the heat just like CO2 or a greenhouse. Now if the conditions are right, water vapour forms tiny ice crystals and/or water droplets in the air. There needs to be low temperature and there needs to be tiny particles like dust in the air and when water vapour does this trick, it makes clouds that are white and are opaque to all light. This means, that while the clouds do not let heat escape they, also prevent the sunlight from fully reaching the earth.

So clouds are a net benefit. So it would appear, that to fight climate change, you might wish to increase cloud cover. And you would be correct in thinking that. In fact there are designs for giant machines to make clouds and yet it would appear to be an act of hubris to try to use artificial means to address the problem of climate change. If you can increase the cloud forming material in the air, you might be abel to address the issue using natural means, but until recently we did not understand where a lot of the material that seeds clouds came from.

Recent research though has been demonstrating a link between tiny airborne bacteria and cloud formation. So called bio-precipitation has received little attention in the past and is now becoming better and better understood. It turns out that plants have bacteria on their leaves that, when blown into the air by the wind, are very good at seeding clouds so that they can hitch a ride on the rainfall back down to the earth.

If you imagine the wind blowing across a plain of grass, it will pick up some bacteria. But if you imagine the wind blowing through a forest, then you can imagine that from the tall trees in the canopy, there will be far more bacteria picked up and blown high into the air. Here then is a link between forests and cloud cover. What makes this so significant, is that this also means that there is another link that you can immediately infer, the link of cutting down forests and increasing climate change.

It is well known that one major cause of desertification, where the land dries out and becomes desert, is deforestation. Now consider that cutting our forests also reduces the chances, that clouds can form. The picture becomes grim indeed. Yet there is also cause for hope, perhaps even celebration, because if cutting down trees makes climate matters abruptly worse then the converse is likely to be true.

Planting trees in forests can very likely cause more biomass to be blown into the air and thereby an increase in cloud cover and thus a return to a lower temperature on the planet. As well planting trees into bio-diverse sustainable forests can be done relatively quickly and possibly even profitably. This is very good news because it gives us a direct natural method of combatting climate change that we did not understand before.

If we could increase global cloud cover by just 2%, we would be able to halt climate change long enough for us to develop the energy miracles we need to reduce our carbon foot print. To do this, we need to change mind sets and get really clever at designing new forests that can support people, bio-diversity and generate income.

All over the world, there is a feeling that cleared land is more valuable than forested land. Farmers and developers see the effort they have to put in to fell the trees and remove the forest. They then feel like the cleared land is worth more because it is manageable and has had the effort of clearing put into it.

Forests are often seen as impediments to progress with a residual value being the value of the timber that can be harvested during clearing. A big problem in the world to day is that once the land is cleared of its forest it tends to degrade in quality. Precious soils erode, vital nutrients are lost and irrigation often is needed which brings new problems like salination, where the land retains too much salt. The cleared land often becomes worthless, so new land is then cleared of forest.

While we must stop deforestation it is also clear that we must do more and better than that. Using advanced ethical design techniques it is possible, to rehabilitate degraded land and replant the forest. If it is done in an intelligent way, it is possible to produce a range of cash crops in a bio-diverse massive forest garden that easily makes the rehabilitated land more productive and more valuable than even the freshly cleared land. It is possible to feed people and animals both domesticated and wild simultaneously in such a food forest.

The key is education and knowledge. Once you understand permaculture design principles it is quite cheap and much easier to plant a forest that can support your family. Also land ownership rights can play a vital role. Once people understand how to make a sustainable living from an area of forest, it is powerful to allow them ownership of the land albeit for specific purpose.

We have an opportunity to use reforestation to restore the balance of the world and to provide for billions of people and while we have many fixed mindsets about forests, we also have the greatest chance ever for global education with the penetration of mobile internet across the planet to disseminate techniques like permaculture design to even the poorest of the poor in the world.

So what can you do? There are thousands of organisations dedicated to protecting forests and to reforesting. Join one such as weforest.com There are many permaculture design courses in the world. Go and learn for your self! Plant trees in your own habitat and donate to organisations like the green belt movement so they can also plant trees in their habitat.

Above all share what you have just read with others so that we all might create a movement that boycotts products from clear felled and unsustainable farming practices and so that we may all finally put a real value on forested lands that allows us to treasure what is surely the greets asset we can pass on to our children and future generations.

(von Bill Liao/news.ch)