Townhall columnist Jonah Goldberg pens a good column today after having a boo at the latest United Nations report. Personally, I try my hardest to avoid reading them but I just can’t help myself—I mean just for the chuckle factor. Liberals are so funny.
The report which came out this week painted the usual liberal symptomatic gloom and doom scenario, in which, unless we change our horrendous ways, the world will obviously summarily end in a big huge pile of awful pollution and unspent U.S. government money.
But Jonah Goldberg, conservative, found the silver lining, and it is a big, thick, shiny lining.
It’s the end of the world, and I feel fine
The bad news is that a new United Nations report says the world’s coming to an end.
But, first, some good news: America’s doing great!
Seriously, forests are breaking out all over America. New England has more forests since the Civil War. In 1880, New York State was only 25 percent forested. Today it is more than 66 percent. In 1850, Vermont was only 35 percent forested. Now it’s 76 percent forested and rising. In the South, more land is covered by forest than at any time in the last century. In 1936 a study found that 80 percent of piedmont Georgia was without trees. Today nearly 70 percent of the state is forested. In the last decade alone, America has added more than 10 million acres of forestland.
There are many reasons for America’s arboreal comeback. We no longer use wood as fuel, and we no longer use as much land for farming. Indeed, the amount of land dedicated to farming in the United States has been steadily declining even as the agricultural productivity has increased astronomically. There are also fewer farmers. Only 2.4 percent of America’s labor force is dedicated to agriculture, which means that fewer people live near where the food grows.
The literal greening of America has added vast new habitats for animals, many of which were once on the brink of extinction. Across the country, the coyote has rebounded (obviously, this is a mixed blessing, especially for roadrunners). The bald eagle is thriving. In Maine there are more moose than any time in memory. Indeed, throughout New England the populations of critters of all kinds are exploding. In New Jersey, Connecticut and elsewhere, the black bear population is rising sharply. The Great Plains host more buffalo than at any time in more than a century.
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