Chew on this | 182 comments (182 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Red in tooth and claw (none / 0)

Spain cut down most of its trees to build ships. Britain cut down its entire stock of yew to make longbows. Deforestation in Europe by and large took place before the industrial revolution, which was fueled by coal and iron, not wood. So I don't know what a fair point of comparison would be, really. But it is clear why the lop point of deforestation should have happened in the 1800's (with cross-country variations of a few couple of decades).

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jan 26th, 2006 at 12:16:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Red in tooth and claw (none / 0)

Coal and iron, but then what about charcoal? I'm sure you're totally right about pre-industrial age deforestation, but I still think that the industrial age was particularly nasty to our forests.

by Alex in Toulouse on Thu Jan 26th, 2006 at 12:36:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Red in tooth and claw (none / 0)

What about charcoal? Please enlighten me.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jan 26th, 2006 at 12:37:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Red in tooth and claw (none / 1)

Wasn't charcoal still used as a cheaper energy source than coal back then?

Anyhow about the industrial age, I found this on the CIDA forestry advisers network website:

Meanwhile, back in Europe, the arrival of the Industrial Revolution put tremendous pressure on the remaining forests to supply fuel for the smelters and foundries of the new industries. Before the end of the 19th century, most of the Europe's ancient forests were only distant memories.

by Alex in Toulouse on Thu Jan 26th, 2006 at 12:47:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Aahh (none / 1)

Wikipedia: Charcoal

Historically the massive production of charcoal (at its height employing hundreds of thousands, mainly in Alpine and neighbouring forrests) has been a major cause of deforestation, especially in Central Europe, but to a lesser extent even before, as in Stuart England. The increasing scarcity of easily harvested wood was a major factor for the switch to the fossil equivalents, mainly coal and brown coal for industrial use.

This is terrible: the switch to coal happened because we run out of wood...

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jan 26th, 2006 at 12:39:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Aahh (none / 0)

Ahh I thought coal was more efficient, which is why the main industries shifted to it. But this would also have meant that charcoal would have been used by all the poorer folk/industries, given the expenses surrounding coal extraction (as opposed to the easy way of producing charcoal).

But this bit you cite from Wikipedia clearly tells me that I was way off!!

by Alex in Toulouse on Thu Jan 26th, 2006 at 12:50:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Aahh (none / 0)

After you take into account the cost of extraction, I wonder whether coal is really more efficient than charcoal.

It's like oil: at some point before it's totally depleted it will take more oil to power the extracion operations than is produced. At that point, oil ceases to be an energy source and becomes an expensive input to the chemical industry.

Remember the plan to build a nuclear power plant in order to get oil out of the Canadian oil sands?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jan 26th, 2006 at 12:57:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Chew on this | 182 comments (182 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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