It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.
The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.
The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change." Circle of 13 http://circleof13.blogspot.com/2008/10/nature-loss-dwarfs-bank-crisis.html
If that is true in Europe, Europe is in a sorry state. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forestry Service:
"It is estimated that—at the beginning of European settlement—in 1630 the area of forest land that would become the United States was 423 million hectares or about 46 percent of the total land area. By 1907, the area of forest land had declined to an estimated 307 million hectares or 34 percent of the total land area. Forest area has been relatively stable since 1907. In 1997, 302 million hectares—or 33 percent of the total land area of the United States—was in forest land." [emphasis added] http://fia.fs.fed.us/library/briefings-summaries-overviews/docs/ForestFactsMetric.pdf
The E.U. reports states: "The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis..."
If both the E.U. and the U.S. reports are correct, America is holding its own against the losses of the rest of the world. In other words, the "global economy" where it regards the "disappearance of forests" is affecting all parts of the world except the U.S.
Forests, Science, Left-wing Politics continuedThe question asked was this: "Does the morality of the universe depend on the presence of moral beings to "judge" it? Like the question of whether the tree falling in the forest makes any sound if there is no sentient being present to hear it...So, would good and evil exist at all in a world without human beings?" Ask Philosophers http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/2350
It is unfortunate that the philosopher did not draw a distinction between the actions of humans on other humans as "morality," versus the question of the "tree falling in the forest." She does ask the question,
"is there a more independent standard -- provided by God, for example...?" but never addresses the question of the conundrum of the "tree."As I stated in my blog titled If A Tree Falls, Does It Make a Sound?--the Primacy of Existence , "Every answer I have ever read misses the essential point, which is not about 'sound or sound waves being heard or not heard,' nor about whether sound is different from noise. Those are the excuses of metaphysicians who will not, or cannot, face the real question, or who have no idea that another question more real exists.
"The question is: Does existence exist independently of consciousness? When seen in this context, it does not matter if 'sound" or "noise' is used as the definition of what happens when the tree falls; it matters whether you think things happen whether or not a consciousness is there to perceive that it happens."
The point is that given the Primacy of Existence [see the article] the tree does not require "the presence of 'moral' beings to judge" whether a sound or a noise is created. The laws of physics states that it cannot be otherwise. If the only point to the question is whether or not it takes an animal's ear to perceive the sound or noise, then of the course the answer is yes.
And if that is all there is to the question, then why bother asking it?
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of the
