Enviromental type question.....

[ThreeCatNight]

I was discussing trees with a RW friend of mone. (Yes it is possible to have RW friends). He came up with "there are more trees in America now than when we first settled here". I asked him for proof, but of course he couldn't back his claim up. I have also heard this said on some RW radio shows, but no one ever disputes them.
Does anyone know of any place I get evidence to shoot this argument down? I have looked and looked to no avail. I find it hard to believe.

Thanks

Artie

[Shoeempress]

1. How about asking him who counted them originally?

Challenge where he got his numbers, you may be able to force his argument to fall of it's own weight.

[Shoeempress]

2. How about asking him who counted them originally?

Challenge where he got his numbers, you may be able to force his argument to fall of it's own weight.

[ThreeCatNight]

5. Tried that....

he came back with ...prove yours.
I know that legally and ethically I won the argument, but I sure would love to be able to back up my point.

[EstimatedProphet]

12. He can't give you an argument

submit no facts, then tell you it's your responsibility to prove him wrong.
He is an intellectual coward.

[Getchasome]

13. Gotta love these repukes,

They make a statement and then request proof from you.

Just like the religion debate. The god believer tells the person who says god hasn't been proved to show proof that he doesn't exist. Isn't the burden of proof on the one making the statement for existance? Plus, how do you prove a negative. I mean, Rummy asked Saddam to prove he didn't have weapons and when he didn't show him the weapons Rummy said he had em. It's a no win with these idiots. They don't have an ounce of logic.

[LibInternationalist]

3. I'm guessing it's downright false

and if it isn't, then the trees that exist now are in pulp farms rather than old growth forests

[pansypoo53219]

4. it's a bullshit6 lie

but they repeat it and repeat it till the sheeple believe it.

may be trees, but is it QUALITY forrest habitat? i think NOT.

[Rainbowreflect]

6. There is a possibility that this is technically true.

But can you really compare the 3-6 feet decorative trees in the new suburbia hell developments with the trees that have been cut down that were hundreds of years old?

[skygazer]

7. Stupid argument

There's no comparison between the third and fourth growth trees that we have now and the old growth forests that were clear cut. It's not the amount of trees, it's the quality of them. Tramp around in an area that's been clear cut in the past (they are, unfortunately, not hard to find) and you can see what I mean. A lot of scrub brush and mostly smallish, low quality pine.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. He means that we've got a good third growth. You go into any

early colony state you will find that the trees were clearcut a few times over our history of being here.

HOWEVER, given the amount of pollution we have going up into the air from around the world and how many forests are being razed, the trees are no longer able to do their job as air filters. They aren't just for pretty, ya know. Be sure your freep friend understand this.

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[ThreeCatNight]

9. Thanks.....

for all the info and great points.
If I keep this up, I may just win him over from the dark side!

[wiggs]

10. Straw man argument. Not important. Don't go there.

Is your friend suggesting that this fact somehow indicates that the environment is is good shape or somehow better than before we got here?

This would mean that Palm Springs, California, which was rich desert habitat previously, is in great shape environmentally...now that we have removed all native species of animals and plants and replaced them with exotics and golf courses.

This is as false an argument as saying that because the number of rats and pigeons in current New York is greater than the number of deer and rabbits pre 1600 that New York is environmentally healthier than it used to be.

And in case he believes that the number of trees is important in terms of battling greenhouse gases and making oxygen, this also belies ignorance of the complexity and magnitude of the problem.

Don't waste your time figuring out how many trees there are in America, just slap your friend.

[EstimatedProphet]

11. Not true on 2 levels

The obvious one: How much of farmland was cleared? Do they really think that all these farms existed before the Europeans came? It's asinine on the face of it. The point they are trying to make is that we haven't covered the world in concrete yet, but that doesn't mean that we have anywhere near the amount of trees we did have.
The more subtle point: There are a lot of trees in the US, yes, but there's a lot of timber plantations making up that number. Timber plantations ARE NOT FORESTS. Forests have much more species diversity, they have a variety of trees, not just shortleaf pine for lumber. Because of their diversity they can support a more diverse community of plants and animals.
As an analogy, a healthy forest would be similar to the population of the US, within its borders. Tree plantations may be large, but their population by comparison would be only people named Miller.

[69KV]

14. Fire ecology

...is the place to find the answer.

There are more *trees*, that is true.

However, there is far less old growth forest, measured in acreage, not by the number of trees.

The main reason there are more trees is because of wildland fire suppression, which started around 1915 because of a government program - the U.S. Forest Service - led by a Progressive (big-P, Theodore Roosevelt's party), Gifford Pinchot. From 1915 until the 1930s it was still pretty disorganized, usually the local forest ranger would show up at the local tavern whenever there was a fire, and everyone would put down their drinks and be hired on the spot to fight the fire.

The organized fire suppression efforts we still have today trace directly back to the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt's programs. After the CCC was disbanded at the start of WWII, the Forest Service, Park Service, and BLM organized their own seasonal fire crews to replace the CCC boys, and things never went back to the disorganized pre-CCC days.

Before fire suppression efforts, usually a fire would sweep through a forest every few years and clear out the excess fuel, downed wood and so on. Depending on the type of forest, there would also be periodic stand replacement fires which would clear out the entire stand of trees. Even those fires never burned the entire forest. That is a popular misconception. Instead they burned in a mosaic pattern.

The end result of those periodic fires was fewer trees. So we have more trees today, but the important thing to keep in mind is it's because of higher density forests. Ponderosa forests for example now have 5 to 10 times the density of trees per acre than they used to before fire suppression started.

We now understand more about ecology and how fire plays a necessary role, so fire suppression is being targeted around residential areas now, while prescribed burns are being used to replicate the role that natural fires used to play.

There's a good book (very long) on the whole history of the subject - "Fire In America" by Stephen J. Pyne.

But if your RW friend wants to know *why* we have more trees, tell him. Progressives, and Democrats, that's why.

[ThreeCatNight]

15. You rock!!!

I will hit him with this tonite.
I owe ya big time.
He was touting clearing out dead wood to stop forest fires,therfore actually saving forests from total destruction. I nipped that in the bud with the logic of....if that was the case, then North America would have been a barren wasteland when Colombus got here. He hemmed and hawed then changed the subject.
God ....RWingers are sooooo predictable!

[69KV]

16. Thanks

I should add something else.

Where I said that prescribed burns are being used to replicate natural fires, to help clear out excess fuel.

There is also ecologically sound thinning that can do this, and helping to remove downed wood. There's no reason to oppose that sort of thinning per se.

However, three things. The RW is trying to blame "environmentalists" for the fuel buildup because of opposition to clearcutting. That argument is as absurd as it gets, since the fuel buildup resulted from too much exclusion of natural fire from the forests. The RW "solution" - log the forest and it won't burn. The genuine solution - re-introduce natural and prescribed fire, and some ecologically sound thinning and brush removal practices.

Bush's "healthy forest" initiative has been widely condemned for being a front for commercial logging and ecologically unsound.

The third thing is, the point of clearing and prescribed burns isn't to "save the forests from total destruction." It's to save the houses of people who built homes in or near the forests from total destruction. The forests themselves will get a stand replacement fire, which they are long overdue for anyway. Those fires do not "destroy" the forest any more than they used to. They are a natural part of rejuvenating the forest.