No mention of trees decimated by acid rain, though, as in the Black Forest.
Also, trees sequester carbon, which many people believe is a crucial
element in any effort to capture and contain carbon dioxide and slow
greenhouse warming. Maybe I just don't have a sense of humor -? Or maybe
Chad's just trying to get a rise? Guess it worked.
At 06:29 PM 9/5/98 -0700, Beth von Gunten wrote:
> VIEW FROM THE LAB: WHY TREES MUST GET THE CHOP
>London Daily Telegraph
>3 September
>Internet:
>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000647321007942&rtmo=wnllAA5b&atmo=99999999
>&pg=/et/98/9/3/ecrlab05.html
>
>Prof Steve Jones has a unique solution to solving the world's global
>warming problems
>
>NEXT week's great extravaganza of science, the meeting of the British
>Association for the Advancement of Science at Cardiff, has (among
>sessions on "The Day the Sun Goes Out", "Computers in Engineering" and
>"Exploding Custard") a whole morning devoted to "Forestry: A Growing
>Challenge". The message is simple - England, the barest country in
>Europe, needs more trees.
>
>The real issue, though, is not too few of those leafy objects, but too
>many. Scientists are warning of a new ecological problem: a rapid
>spread of forests that is threatening the world's landscapes.
>
>Some mistake, there, surely? We all know that the rainforest is being
>destroyed, and that the fires around Athens this summer were the worst
>there have ever been. In many places, though, timber is not in retreat,
>but in swift advance. In my favourite bolt-hole in southern France the
>markets sell photographs of the villages taken from old postcards. They
>are bought mainly by locals, who look wistfully at streets without S-
>reg Volvos or mime-artists, but the biggest change is not in the people
>but in the scenery.
>
>Fifty years ago, the rocky hills of Languedoc were almost bare because
>they were grazed by sheep or terraced into tiny vineyards. Now, the
>land has been abandoned; and, in some places, the amount of cover has
>gone up by 15 times. The trees are taking over, and there are thousands
>of acres of oak and pine on what was once farmland. The same is true
>all over southern Europe, and the great Mediterranean Forest is today
>bigger than it has been for centuries.
>
>Ecologists are alarmed: birds such as the Dartford Warbler, the Serin,
>the Stonechat and the Linnet - all inhabitants of open scrub - are in
>rapid retreat and are being replaced by common woodland birds found
>throughout Europe. The Black Wheatear, a lover of rocky places, was
>declared extinct in France two years ago. The scrublands of the
>Mediterranean contain 20,000 species of flowering plant, most of which
>die as soon as they are shaded out. Some nature-lovers are calling for
>the fires to be allowed to burn to rescue the flowers and the birds
>from their gloomy fate.
>
>Trees are galloping across the United States, too. A recent meeting of
>the Ecological Society of America heard that, with global warming,
>there are more summer rains in the deserts of the south-west, and that
>this "Arizona monsoon" is predicted to increase over the next century.
>A simple experiment on watering the shrubby oaks that dot the hillsides
>shows that, when it does, they will produce three times as many
>seedlings as before.
>
>The greenhouse effect comes, of course, from carbon dioxide in the
>atmosphere, up by a third since the Industrial Revolution. That gas,
>too, stimulates tree growth; and a test on Texas trees shows that the
>increase above natural levels likely within the next century will
>double the number of plants that survive. If that is not enough, the
>other great air pollutant, nitrogen, does its bit. There is plenty of
>it in car exhausts, and it falls miles away from the cities, spurring
>the growth of distant forests.
>
>The Volvo as the friend of the tree means that a third of America's
>open deserts and scrub may soon be covered by forest. That causes
>concern; not just because the Lone Ranger will have to carry a machete,
>but because the country's precious national parks are threatened. No
>doubt, the sound of the conservationist's chain-saw will soon be heard
>in the land.
>
>However, the woody plague hit the United States long before air
>pollution. In the Shenandoah Valley, in Virginia, growth rings in the
>largest trunks show that, at the time of the Indians, fires were set
>every five years or so. Many of the early travellers commented on the
>park-like landscape, with open grasslands and not much standing timber.
>Today's Shenandoah National Park, though, is in the main an
>impenetrable, and strictly protected, woodland.
>
>Trees are inexorable things, always ready to take over as soon as they
>get the chance. At the end of the last ice age, seeds preserved in peat
>show that spruce and pine followed the glaciers northwards at a mile a
>year - which means that Birnam Wood could easily have marched on
>Dunsinane (some 10 miles away) within Macbeth's lifetime.
>
>Something must be done to stop the forests before it is too late. The
>message that the British Association should pass on to the ecology
>movement is clear: Save the Planet! Chop Down a Tree!
>
>from the climate change list: <climate-l@mbnet.mb.ca>
>
>Chad Carpenter
>International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
>New York, NY
>Tel: + 1 (212) 643-9599
>Fax: +1 (212) 644-0206
>E-mail: chadc@iisd.org
>Internet: http://www.iisd.ca/linkages/chad/chad.html
>Linkages Journal: http://www.iisd.ca/linkages/journal/
>
>
>
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