Stop the Atlantic hurricanes now

As we sat here cowering in a safe corner of the house listening to the wrath of Hurricane Irma being unleashed on the environs outside, we couldn’t help but experience the helplessness of the moment. With winds in excess of 180 mph destroying buildings and taking lives, one comes to grips with the fact that this might not be an isolated event. In fact, all indications suggest that these hurricanes will be a recurring event in the future. Not only is the prediction for an increase in the number of storms, but also an ever-increasing intensity as we heat up the planet. As we look at the data, the globe is increasing in temperature each year. The planet is on fire.  
It is not in the nature of man to yield to the forces that try to destroy him. So one has to attempt to prevent future devastation from hurricanes that we now see as inevitable. My solution, which does not include the Florida solution, shooting at the hurricane, is delineated below.
The genesis of the Atlantic hurricanes begins in the desert plains of Senegal and Mauritania known as the Trarza desert. They start as tight vortices of particulate matter, CO2, dust, and whatever debris is available. This spiral shape is nature’s way of optimising the movement of a large mass of particulate matter over the hot desert floor.  Many of these vortices disintegrate and disappear because of unfavorable winds, temperature, and pressure conditions, etc.  Others, however, become more well-defined and efficiently collect energy from the desert floor and make their way to the West coast of these two African nations. They then enter the sea, which has ever-increasing temperatures, and, adding to its profile, the moisture of the Atlantic.
From here, the disturbances, which started as small spirals of particulate matter, become what the meteorologist call “a tropical disturbance.” At this point we can only hope that this tropical disturbance doesn’t become a hurricane and, if it does, that environmental conditions favours it to go harmlessly north in the Atlantic and make no landing, or totally dissipate. Either way, we have no way of affecting the odyssey of this storm.  
My suggestion is that we can, with a great deal of effort, prevent the rather small, relatively speaking, spirals of particulate matter from surviving their journey across the desert floor to the African coast. We would literally have to change the Trarza desert and surrounding areas into agricultural lands. It would involve a large number of desalination plants along the west coast of Senegal and Mauritania, from Dakar to Nouakchott, and an elaborate network of pipes and man-made underground rivers to bring water to these prescribed agricultural areas. We would, with proper funding, have to embark on a massive tree planting effort. The presence of the vast number of trees, acting as CO2 receptors, will mitigate the integrity of the vortices. In 2016, we saw India set the previous record when it planted more than 50 million trees in one day at more than 6,000 locations across the state of Uttar Pradesh (I). Under the Paris Agreement, India agreed to spend $6 billion to reforest 12 percent of its land and help mitigate the effects of climate change. We will in fact be doing a similar kind of thing.
There is also a precedent for the underwater rivers and vast pipeline network as well. A similar effort was made by Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. He turned a vast area of the Sahara desert into agricultural land so as to stop the encroachment of the desert, which was displacing the farmers into the cities. The Great Man-Made River (II) (GMR, النهر الصناعي العظيم)  is a network of pipes that supplies water to the Sahara in Libya from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System fossil aquifer. It is the world’s largest irrigation project. The late Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi described it as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Since the death of Muammar Gaddafi, I hope that some of the expertise around him has not gone with him. Maybe, hopefully, some of the engineers that worked on that project were not killed, and we can have the benefit of their expertise. It would also be productive to take advantage of the technique invented at the University of Chung Cheng in China, where they have been successful in turning sand into soil (III). They have turned the desert of Inner Mongolia into agricultural land that support some 70 crops, including tomatoes, corn, sorghum and sunflower, to name a few.  We will also need the expertise of climate scientists, geologists, agriculturists and hydrologists.
As usual funding becomes an issue. The three billion dollar price tag is a small investment when compared with the U.S. $180 billion damage to Texas by Harvey and U.S. $95 billion damage to Puerto Rico by Maria, et al. One can ask 10 billionaires worth more than U.S. $40 billion to donate 300 million each to the effort. This donation most certainly would qualify as a tax write-off, and most of the capital equipment will probably be purchased from their corporations. Besides, they have the most to lose. If the planet, as we know it, is destroyed, having a billion dollars might not mean much. Kurt Vonnegut once said that if everyone did the right thing environmentally from now on, it is still too late. We have lost the battle. Even if Kurt is correct, we can certainly slow down the destruction and be around a little longer.
Although the powers to be in the U.S. might not be big on science or climate change, obviously a Chinese hoax, the U.Ss military is. Hence, we might be able to convince the military to close five of its over 800 bases around the world and donate the structures and relocate them to five strategic location in the Senegalese and Mauritania deserts as staging points for this massive tree planting effort. A couple of helicopters and landing strips wouldn’t hurt. In particular, bases such the one in Okinawa, which the military itself says no longer has any military value, would be ideal. The residents of Okinawa have been protesting and clamouring for it to be closed for some time.  
All that is said above means nothing and will not happen without the blessing, cooperation and desire of the Senegalese and Mauritanian people and their governments. They will have to be the first people to be consulted, and although this project will represent a huge improvement in job opportunity for the citizenry and a significant emerging agricultural industry, it cannot be assumed that approval is guaranteed.
References:
India’s Tree Planting Project  
www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-05/india-breaks-record-planting…trees…/8677302
Gaddafi Man Made River
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/07/the-great-man-made-river-of-libya.html
Chinese sand to soil conversion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8_Hnmty4vY