Stevieslaw: Fact or Fiction?
Yale forestry researcher, Thomas Crowther, reports that there are roughly 3 trillion trees now on earth. Wow! And in 300 years, if we project from the current loss of trees there will be none. He mostly blames people, as they cut down about 15 billion trees a year and only replant 5 billion.
As expected, Obama has weighed-in, asking the EPA to limit clear cutting and mandate the planting of more trees. Once again, he used the Clean Air Act as justification. While Democrats have applauded his action, Republicans claim that the death of trees happens naturally and man is not to blame. They further argue that this blatantly, unconstitutional use of the Clean Air Act will kill hundreds of thousands of highpayingjobs for hardworkingamericanworkers in the tree harvesting industry. In a speech this Thursday, Obama pointed out that better jobs in the tree planting, cultivation and management industry will more than make up for any job loss. The Republicans countered by saying that the science and technology necessary to plant trees is largely unknown and that any attempt to scale up to a large program is not cost-effective and doomed to failure.
In a related development, Google has announced that it will begin taking high definition photographs of the world’s most majestic trees over the next several years. To enhance the value of the photographs, Google will cut the trees down after documenting them. Images of the trees will be available free to Google Prime members and for a small fee to others.