Some on /out/ claim that there are more trees on earth today than there has ever been in history. Others strongly disagree. No one is citing sources, just a lot of name calling and sarcastic green texts. I want answers, not banter. This is important to me.
The destruction of the forests throughout most of europe, much of central north america, and all throughout the amazon suggest otherwise.
Deforestation is a huge problem recognized by a lot of environmentalists. This is absolutely not the time period with the most trees.
http://www.greenfacts.org/en/forests/l-2/2-extent-deforestation.htm#2
>>2079874
There is no way that's true. Considering how much space is being used for human sprawl and the fact that humans inhabit basically all the forested regions, this is simply a physically impossible claim. And there are more people in the rainforests now than there ever have been in recorded history, so at the very least for rainforests you can be 100% sure this claim is false.
>>2079874
>Some on /out/ claim that there are more trees on earth today than there has ever been in history.
I don't see how that could be possible. Our current population is ridiculously higher than it has been in any point in history. Add to that industrialization. We have to cut away forests to make room for power plants, refineries, housing units, etc. There's a lot of industrialization that goes into keeping a city running. And it's not as if populations in developed countries live within tiny Crackjack housing.
Sure if comparing to something like ice ages.
Maybe the person who claimed that got that idea from articles like
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/more-trees-than-there-were-100-years-ago-its-true
Which is of course very limited view.
>>2080098
Looks like that article is only referencing the number of trees in America. That is most likely true. 100 years ago the environment was in a shambles in this country. But for the planet, no. There were FAR more trees 100 years ago than there are now. Most rainforests hadn't been touched yet for the most part.
Can it be said that there was a period when earth was likely most forested? Which? Carboniferous?
>>2080118
My guess would be carboniferous as well.
There's no way the earth could have such extremely high levels of oxygen for that long without a lot of trees performing photosynthesis.
>>2080134
I'm pretty sure most of the planet was desert back then. And I think the oxygen thing is a myth because "muh insects can't get that big!" bullshit.
>>2080136
It may have had some desert where there was not jungle or tropical forest but I doubt most of of it was. There's a reason it's called the carboniferous, because a lot of coal was generated by animals and plants during the timeframe.
From wikipedia:
>Terrestrial life was well established by the Carboniferous period.[8] Amphibians were the dominant land vertebrates, of which one branch would eventually evolve into reptiles, the first fully terrestrial vertebrates. Arthropods were also very common, and many (such as Meganeura) were much larger than those of today. Vast swaths of forest covered the land, which would eventually be laid down and become the coal beds characteristic of the Carboniferous system. The atmospheric content of oxygen also reached their highest levels in history during the period, 35%[9] compared with 21% today. This increased the atmospheric density by a third over today’s value.[9]
and
>Fossil remains of air-breathing insects,[24] myriapods and arachnids[25] are known from the late Carboniferous, but so far not from the early Carboniferous.[8] The first true priapulids appeared during this period. Their diversity when they do appear, however, shows that these arthropods were both well developed and numerous. Their large size can be attributed to the moistness of the environment (mostly swampy fern forests) and the fact that the oxygen concentration in the Earth's atmosphere in the Carboniferous was much higher than today.[26]
>>2080145
Also, this is kind of how stuff was so proliferated throughout the world. It definitely didn't take as long for things to spread around and the "world" seemed quite a bit smaller.
>>2079874
Even with commercial tree farming and replanting some of what's been cut, that can't be true. No one will have an exact number for you, because that isn't possible.
It was said that a squirrel could travel down the East coast without ever having to touch the ground (via climbing tree to tree, not telephone and cable wires)
Can't find it now but I remember reading that there are more trees in the USA now than when it was discovered by Europeans.
>>2080435
That's absolutely not true. It's only true from the early 20th century when rampant industry and capitalism destroyed everything without any regulations. Since the era of the robber barons, forest cover and trees generally have increased again but they are NOWHERE NEAR what they were before European colonization, even if you include the shitty tree plantations that aren't real forest.
Let's also not forget that time when the Earth was significantly warmer and their were forests extending much further north and south into polar regions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_forests_of_the_Cretaceous
>>2080435
White people destroyed the Americas
getout and take your smallpox with you
