More Trees for Tree Huggers

All of a sudden the Main Stream Media is giddy with delight about the “news” the environment may not be collapsing. When you take the time to look - (like out the window) - the world is still full of trees. Amazing.

Forests begin to revive: By measuring the density of trees rather than simply the area on which they grow, scientists have calculated that forests are increasing in almost half of the world’s 50 most wooded nations.

Of course leftist spin is that Mother Nature still needs help from the caring humans in government to protect her from the selfish private sector.

Thanks to government policy: In China, reforestation and afforestation efforts, spurred by government policy, allowed forest areas to increase from 96 to 143 million hectares.

But it also helps to have a thriving oil based economy so millions of poor people aren’t burning wood for fuel or clear cutting patches for individual food gardens.

End of Deforestation in View? Fears of a “Skinhead Earth” not borne out by data. … In countries where per capita Gross Domestic Product exceeds US $4,600 (roughly equal to the GDP of Chile), richer is greener.

This link goes to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences where a PDF version of the actual paper is available. The history in America is described as follows:

Before 1800, European settlers cleared a comparatively modest area. The number of settlers then increased and expanded farming by clearing forests. In the 60 years from 1850 to 1910, American farmers cleared 77 million ha, more forest than the total cleared in the previous 250 years of settlement. Although the total area of American forests changed modestly after 1920, regional transitions occurred in more and more states, diffusing transitions across the nation and continent.

Just to be clear, once mass production of the Model T Ford initiated the ascendancy of the internal combustion engine and the oil based economy, the deforestation of the continent essentially stopped. I suppose all the carbon dioxide emitted from those gas burners went into the air until photosynthesis pulled those atoms back out to make trees. I wonder why none of the press picked up this story line.