The Oil Drum

It's not as simple as that. Forests actually promote rainfall. Plants when hot transpire, let off moisture - that's why they turn limp in the heat, the moisture is also used for them to stand up.

The transpiration collects and becomes clouds, and this encourages other water in the atmosphere to condense ("snowball effect"), which gets you more rain.

The reverse has been seen in Australia, where removing forests dried out the land. Bear in mind that for a good part of our history we actually paid farmers to clear their land, and if you were squatting or leasing land and didn't clear it, you'd lose it.

I mean, you can't just chuck half a dozen pines out in the middle of the Simpson and expect them to do alright, you have to work with current vegetation and build out from there. And you have to choose the right trees and plants, and tend them, and so on.

Now, we are not going to turn this,

into this,

But we can perhaps turn this,

into this:

which I reckon would be an improvement.