Yishan Wong

Solve climate change by turning deserts into 3B acres of forest

Shaan summarizes ex-Reddit CEO Yishan Wong's plan: the world emits ~45 gigatons of CO2/year, forests are the best absorber, so we need ~3 billion acres of new forest. With 4.7 billion acres of desert available and known desert-to-forest techniques (irrigation + solar), Wong bought a Hawaii plot for a proof of concept.

“we produce, you know, 45 gigatons of carbon dioxide every year. And the best way to get rid of carbon dioxide is forests. To get rid of this amount of— we know how much one for— how much one acre absorbs. So that means we need 3 billion acres of forest. Where are we going to get that? Well, turns out we know how to turn deserts into forests.”