Geotherapy April 11, 2022April 10, 2022 Last week . . . the estimable Dana Dlott on geoengineering. Today . . . George Mokray: “Research geoengineering by all means but please, please, please stop ignoring the possibility of geotherapy — helping existing ecosystems to recover from the abuse our species has inflicted upon them. It is the process of restoring the earth’s health by strengthening natural biogeochemical and physiological mechanisms that regulate her planetary life support systems and control global temperature, sea level, atmospheric composition, soil fertility, food, and fresh water supplies.” “Geotherapy,” he argues, “is cheaper, more effective, less dangerous, and has more ancillary advantages than geoengineering with less or none of the unintended consequences. “We know that protecting (and perhaps expanding) existing forests is more effective than planting new land in trees. We also know that remediation of degraded lands can happen much more quickly than we’ve previously imagined if done correctly. We also know that Mama Gaia has put in billions of years into perfecting such systems so that IF we work with those systems, we can repair a lot of the damage our own stupidly silly species has done. Incidentally, seagrasses seem to be able to sequester up to 35 times more CO2 than terrestrial plants according to everything I’ve seen.” → Tikkun olam (“repair the world”) quite literally. And hang in there, world — I just watched Moderna’s chief science officer describe mRNA, “the language of life,” in her TED talk last night. It is astonishing how far we’ve come in figuring it all out. Did you know that each of us is composed of about 30 trillion cells, each with 100,000+ RNA molecules, and that somehow Moderna and others have got such a clear handle on this that when the COVID genetic code was posted on the web, it took their scientists just two days to agree with the NIH where to attack it, and then just one hour to design the vaccine that is currently in tens of millions of arms, and another 45 days to get it sent for trials and approval. (I think I heard all that right. I remember that with each of us has as many RNA molecules in us as there are stars in the known universe.) We are not far from the day we will get individualized vaccines. Not to mention hopeful signs on other fronts, like batteries: Solid state, not lithium-ion. Much faster-charging. Much smaller. So much exciting stuff is going on. Of course, none of it will save us if evil prevails.