It seems that there IS hope in SOME places

[LONDONER]

Liberia signs 'transformational' deal to stem deforestation

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environm...a&ns_fee=0

[Steve]

Good news is so rare these days, especially in the news. My only wish is that it would happen sooner 2020. Oh well, can't look a gift horse in the mouth.

[Virge]

It's not as if Liberia did it out of the goodness of their hearts or with concern for the environment.

There is was in the first words of the article. "Norway will pay the impoverished West African country $150m (£91.4m) to stop deforestation by 2020."

Oh...... and do you really wanna bet they'll completely respect the treaty? hahahhahahahahahha! *Sure*they*will*.

[LONDONER]

Oh...... and do you really wanna bet they'll completely respect the treaty? hahahhahahahahahha! *Sure*they*will*.

Let's try to remain positive, eh?

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Considering that by 1970 the UK and the US and most of Europe were on the verge of killing off all their forests, and by 2000 there were more trees in these areas then before the late 1800's (before industrialized, mass deforestation was possible). I find it hard to believe that we in the 'first world' have a right to tell emerging and third world countries what to do with their forests.

Eventually these nations will have the economy and ability to actually go from mass deforestation to mass tree farming to meet their lumber and wood product needs and all of that.

Mind I am a tree hugger and love trees and have planted thousands upon thousands of seedlings in my effort to undo the damage of previous generations. However I understand economics and understand that most of the developing world and third world nations are not maliciously murdering tree Ents for fun and pleasure.

Once these nations economies hit their stride, once they have farming lands down pat, their kids will do pretty much what I did, and that is go out and restore forest lands. Their governments will have the time, energy and money to throw at the problem.

The first world arrived there first. Good for them. However the first world has got to keep in mind that no one put a gun to their head and forced them. They figured it out on their own, they sorted all of the attending crap to the problem then went out and fixed it themselves.

Same applies to human rights, to liberty and what we laughingly call Democracy. We already know that no external force can come in and institute policies and practices and those stick. Ask Iran how democracy forced upon it worked out.

And we in the first world have no room to complain about the environment. We still produce the most pollution, trash and other issues. Those ocean plastic islands are ours - we did that - and I don't see us cleaning up our ways. Cars? sheesh in the USA the car is so fracking important that we have paved a lot of land. Pavement now covers more than sixty thousand square miles of the United States. That's 2 percent of the nation's surface area and 10 percent of the arable land.

The First world wastes everything - everything is disposal, planned obsolescence. Wanna talk trash?

This sort of 'do as we say, not as we do' politics has got to stop. Really, I can't see the First world being in a place to discuss any environmental issues and point out the flaws of other nations until they pull their collective heads out of their butts and actually stop being the most damaging influences on the environment.

Oh and I have room to tell others how to be green. My carbon foot print is about 13%-15% of that of the average American. Perhaps less since the calculators I have seen do not account for the thousands of trees I have planted, the mountains of compost I have made and spread, and all of the other 'organic' and 'back to nature' crap I have done over the decades.

When the majority start living eco conscious (really not just separating paper from plastic in their recycling bins) in the first world, then we have room to tell the emerging nations what to do...

Until then we are hypocrites.