> > > We complain about people on other continents destroying their rain forests, but we are removing forests at an alarming rate. Sure, our forests don't produce oxygen year around like rain forests do, but we may be destroying twice as much.
> >
> > Not really. There are more trees in this country now than there were two and three hundred years ago.
>
> I would tend to agree. Although I wasn't actually walking around counting trees a couple centuries ago, I have seen many old sepia photos of my city/region from a hundred years ago. It's startling at how sparce everything was; the contrast is amazing. Mind you, these are just pictures of areas that are now covered with houses, streets, and other buildings. I can only assume that similar growth would be experienced in more rural, or even remote areas.
>
> Tra "we's gots lotsa dem dare trees" nio

Yes, we still have a lot of trees. But more than two or three centruries ago? I don't think so. It was once said that a squirrel could go tree to tree from the east coast to the Mississippi without putting his foot on the ground. These days he would fall on his pointy little face until he wore it completely out. Kentucky, Tennessee and the states that border them used to be wall-to-wall climax forest with enormus hardwoods standing with their branches touching. Now those areas are farmland and scrubby second and third growth trees that are somewhat inferior. The loss of quality forest resulted from the practice of cutting the best trees and leaving the scrawny, crooked, sickly ones to produce the new generation. Such forests don't produce as much oxygen as the old original forests did. As an oxygen-breathing animal, I think that is the bottom line.
How"breathng deeply"ard