From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.0 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,ec3b1a84cab8fc8a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-09-08 09:35:20 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!out.nntp.be!propagator-SanJose!news-in!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3B9A4CA7.A3231B1F@home.com> From: Larry Elmore X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.7 i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD) References: <3B970152.4AC6C6E3@PublicPropertySoftware.com> <3B9795E1.54B12E70@worldnet.att.net> <9n882d$rsh$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3B97C5D4.2AFBAEDF@san.rr.com> <3B97EEC5.B9109D9F@san.rr.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 16:35:19 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.10.25.74 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 999966919 65.10.25.74 (Sat, 08 Sep 2001 09:35:19 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 09:35:19 PDT Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:12932 Date: 2001-09-08T16:35:19+00:00 List-Id: Ted Dennison wrote: > > ... When we first came to this > continent it was covered with forests, except for the Great Plains in the > middle, which was covered with bison. Forests covered the entire eastern > seaboard, which is now just one big city from Boston to DC. At the time, the > forests were just cleaing up all the CO2 the bison were putting out. We replaced > the bison with domesticated cattle, so there's no net gain there. We cut down a > lot of the forests, and are still not planting more than we are cutting, so > there's no net gain there. Then we industrialized and started pumping out > *extra* CO2 by the ton. Saying that these forests are cleaing up our new CO2, > when they were cleaning up other CO2 sources (that are still around) before we > ever got here is just plain silly. The fact is, there is a great deal more land under forest in America now than there was 100 years ago. Nor was much of the continent a primeval forest when the first Europeans landed, though as the plagues reduced Indian populations by upwards of 90%, much of the land under their care did rapidly revert to heavily forested wilderness. America was not a virgin land, but a widowed one. see: http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/landscapes.htm http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/AmIndian.htm There's quite a lot more about the subject available, but these are good introductions. Larry