[extropy-chat] LUDDISM: Neat article on N.A. reforestation...

[spike]

> ...BillK
...
> 
> The USA has already experienced its wave of deforestation, with the
> exception of small areas in the west and Alaska...
> 
> BillK

This is what convinced me that the Kyoto agreement was not
really about reducing greenhouse gases: it didn't take into
account reforestation.  It focused only on CO2 *production*,
not CO2 reduction by growing wood and leaves.  

Anecdote: in 1844 a number of William Miller's followers
gathered on his farm on Ascension Rock in upstate New York
to await the expected apocalypse.  Paintings made by the 
disappointed apocalypsers show farmland in all directions.  
If you go there now, all you see is really big forest, really 
dense, huge trunks, too jungley to walk in.  All that was
farmland 1.5 centuries ago, but the economic breakeven
line moved steadily south.  It might be an interesting 
exercise to estimate the *net* CO2 production by nation.  It
might turn out that the developing nations are the greenhouse
bad guys, and the US and Europe are green in comparison.

But it must wait.  I hafta go play amateur cowboy this weekend.  

spike