Regis Philbin
Nov 14th, 2006, 06:48 PM
Wonder how many millions was wasted on this piece of brillant scientific research? :scratch:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/world/14forest.html?_r=1&ref=americas&oref=slogin
Many Nations’ Forests Regrow, Study Finds
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: November 14, 2006
A large and growing number of countries are reversing the longstanding trend toward destruction of their forests, a surprising new analysis has found.
“From the new data it seems possible that we could reverse a global trend that many people thought was irreversible,” said Pekka Kauppi of the University of Helsinki in Finland, a lead author of the study, which appears today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The report, by a team of researchers in Europe, the United States and Asia, is a ray of hope at a time of ominous environmental warnings about global warming caused by man-made carbon emissions. Forests can act as pollution sinks, easing the emissions’ effects to some degree.
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“This is the first time we have documented that many countries have turned the corner, that gradually forests are coming back,” said one of the authors, Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University in New York, who added that he personally had expected to live in a “skinhead” earth by 2050.
But some experts reacted with caution to the results. The lack of good data on forests in many parts of the world means that it is hard to be confident about the study’s “positive indications of an important change,” said Peter Holmgren, chief of forest resources development at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.
He noted that much of the data for the new study was provided by governments, which he says do not do a good job of measuring forests, or by aerial surveillance, which is notoriously unreliable.
“There are trends that these guys have observed that seem true, but it’s difficult to state for certain,” Mr. Holmgren said. “Is there a global paradigm change? We really don’t know yet.” He called for countries to undertake systematic forest inventories.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/world/14forest.html?_r=1&ref=americas&oref=slogin
Many Nations’ Forests Regrow, Study Finds
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: November 14, 2006
A large and growing number of countries are reversing the longstanding trend toward destruction of their forests, a surprising new analysis has found.
“From the new data it seems possible that we could reverse a global trend that many people thought was irreversible,” said Pekka Kauppi of the University of Helsinki in Finland, a lead author of the study, which appears today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The report, by a team of researchers in Europe, the United States and Asia, is a ray of hope at a time of ominous environmental warnings about global warming caused by man-made carbon emissions. Forests can act as pollution sinks, easing the emissions’ effects to some degree.
-----------
“This is the first time we have documented that many countries have turned the corner, that gradually forests are coming back,” said one of the authors, Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University in New York, who added that he personally had expected to live in a “skinhead” earth by 2050.
But some experts reacted with caution to the results. The lack of good data on forests in many parts of the world means that it is hard to be confident about the study’s “positive indications of an important change,” said Peter Holmgren, chief of forest resources development at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.
He noted that much of the data for the new study was provided by governments, which he says do not do a good job of measuring forests, or by aerial surveillance, which is notoriously unreliable.
“There are trends that these guys have observed that seem true, but it’s difficult to state for certain,” Mr. Holmgren said. “Is there a global paradigm change? We really don’t know yet.” He called for countries to undertake systematic forest inventories.