Yes, trees can take in CO2 and give off Oxygen, but the amount they do is virtually insignificant.

Something like 99% of the work is done by phytoplankton in the ocean.

We see the effects of global warming on the oceans, because the oceans have the biggest impact back at us.  We may not think anything of seeing global temperatures rise a few degrees, but that small temperature change can affect vast amount of different lifeforms in the ocean - many lifeforms which our lives depend on.

  The more energy we waste the more it will come back to bite us in another form.   Every thing has a balance, mother nature will balance things out in her own way... we may not like the way she does the balancing but I assure you it will work.  Unfortunately, we may not be around to enjoy the balance.   Since we are the problem, assuming we don't do something about it now, the solution might be one without us.

  Quite frankly, unless something comes along that is good for the planet and will fill the pockets of the greedy nothing will change. As well, If some type of population control isn't put into place worldwide we'll be left to eat each other.   Our lovely planet will reject us, rebalance itself and there will be very few if any to see it.  

  Just imagine, 100 starving dogs in a pit... 1 steak droped into the pit...  We are 6 billion and growing far to fast, soon it will be our pit !  We need to change.... very soon...

The bad news is all that carbon is returned relatively quickly to the atmosphere when the trees die and decompose, or when they are burned. How long might the cycle take? A few hundred years or whatever the lifespan of the tree is? But sequestering that carbon would help even if only for a short time.

Now think about petroleum and coal. This represents the carbon of that was taken out of the atmosphere to grow trees and other plants over a span of millions of years. Humans have mined it, or will have mined it, and burned almost all of it in just the last couple centuries comprising the industrial age. That's a lot of carbon released all at once. We need to find ways to sequester it for more than just a few hundred years. We need to think BIG, almost on the scale of continents. There's limestone, calcium carbonate, and coal and shale. Or maybe we could make frozen methane, called methane hydrates, could be stored at the bottom of the ocean where it occurs naturally. Do you think humans are able or willing to build islands the size of Greenland out of carbon taken from the atmosphere? --tom

"The scientists' estimate of the full-resource, average wind power output of 330 gigawatts over the Middle Atlantic Bight is based on the installation of 166,720 wind turbines, each generating up to 5 megawatts of power."

As is being proven, if we want to stop an increase in production of CO^2 then we need to work with China and India seeing as these two countries contain almost half the worlds population!  

If we want to stop current CO^2 production then sorry but the USA has to play its part, around 5% of the worlds population using around 25% of the worlds primary energy.  The world average for primary oil consumption per person per day is about 5 litres per person, European average is about 10 litres per person but the USA is around 25 litres of equivalent energy in oil per person per day!  Around 5% tax on road fuels, 82% in the UK currently.  

Like has already been said, trees are a short term measure not a real alternative to simply stopping production of CO^2.  The worlds oceans are suffering from acidification where the PH of are worlds oceans has decreased by around 0.7 within the last 30 or so years.  No I won't get started about Global dimming as that's an area in its own right, but yet another area of concern!  

I write this been as much to blame as the next 'average Joe' but yet I am trying to do my bit, car sharing, less usage of motor vehicles, owning a car with better mpg, using a bag for life instead of plastic carrier bags, recycling, shopping locally buying local goods.  

I know I have come way of topic but this sort of post doesn't come around on this board very often.  

Google any of the above to find out more!!

Jon M

1.  In Brazil, which does most of the world's ethanol production right now, performs slash-n-burn agriculture (a huge CO2 release mechanism) on the rain forests (a known CO2 absorber) to create farmland.
2. The crops that produce the ethanol do not absorb CO2 from the atmosphere at the same rate as the forest biota they replace.
3. The crops do not restore nutients to the land as the original biota do -- therefore the land is abandoned at regular intervals and not reseeded with new-growth biota (which would actually accelerate CO2 uptake over old-growth biota)
4. Ethanol is energy-negative compared to the product it is supposed to be replacing.  I would submit that, combined with production, ethanol ends up releasing more CO2 than gasoline for the same effect.

1. large-scale planting of new growth trees.  This could coincide with the harvesting of old-growth (where some studies have shown that old-growth uptake of CO2 is far less than that of new-growth) at a 5:1 or 10:1 ratio.
2. genetic engineering of trees, algae, and other biota for the explicit purpose of CO2 uptake
3. planting of the above near locations of high CO2 concentration and CO2 point sources (population centers, power plants, etc) for both absorption purposes AND later harvesting for industrial needs.