Posted by Todd Zywicki: Deforestation in Vermont: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_05_29-2005_06_04.shtml#1117723298
My colleague Alex Tabarrok [1]notes that since the 1870s, forestation in Vermont has risen from 20% to 85%. He correctly notes that part of this is tremendous increases in agricultural productivity, reducing the need for farm land. Don't forget, however, the effect of the invention of cars, which dramatically reduced demand for horses--and the need to clear open pastures for horse grazing, thereby permitting reforestation. In addition, wood used to be a primary source of fuel, so the turn toward fossil fuels and away from wood reduced the demand for chopping down trees to burn them. Of course, the discovery that petroleum could be used to produce energy also saved the whales from extinction and eliminated the rivers of manure that used to flow through American cities. There's always tradeoffs... References 1. http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/06/vermont_fact_of.html _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://highsorcery.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
