Saturday, March 23, 2019

Forest Harvesting; Comparison of American Style and Sri-Lankan Style

Forest Harvesting; Comparison of American Style and Sri-Lankan Style

I was bit inquisitive why there are so many tornadoes and hurricanes in America.
I just went to Google Earth and had a little peep from above of Americas’ West and East.
There is hardly any different of tree cover of the land. Mostly farmland and build up areas. That did not give me a clue to the state of the forest cover. Then I went and searched deforestation.
American harvested the 90% of the land in 70 years from 1850 to 1920.
Entire East was covered with Forest and fair proportion of the West was covered with primary forest.
The deforestation continued to this century and America now has mainly secondary forest covering 10% of the land.
American knew that the CO2 problem started around 1920 and continues even today due to their exploitation of fossil fuel.
Did they tell the truth to the world? Big No.
In Sri-Lanka we had 90% forest cover until around 1850 and British started deforestation for coffee and tea cultivation.
By the time they left in 1948 forest cover was over 60% but before they left they pass a law prohibiting encroachment of Crown Land.
From 1948 to 2000 we have decimated another 40 percent especially after 1970.
We are now below the minimal threshold of 22% to maintain our rivers.
This land now can be called President’s Land instead of Crown Land and the development goes on.
When the thermal power plant is operational we will be approaching 10% level which is the cut off point for desert classification.
Acid rain will do the rest even we stop cutting to Zero.
Then we can say we are better than America in case of deforestation and go for an IMF loan.
Very soon we will be no different from Dubai.
Regards to American tornadoes and hurricanes trees act as a wind breaks and control the water cycle better.
They should reforest America back to 1920 or continue to have this cycle every year.
Problem is there is no country rich American can go to avoid hurricanes since rest of the world is no better including China.
This is what I call the development of the Earth Crisis.
The prediction that world ends in 1912 should be rephrased that irreversible loss of biodiversity is in full swing from now onwards.
We Sri-Lanksn will be drilling oil with Indian help till sun goes down.
The cycle of destruction has begun and it is irreversible unless there is global consensus.
Next biggest crisis will be food crisis and that will be worse than 1973 (due to oil crisis and poor foreign balance) since this time it is related to failure of rain and land becoming dessert.
We are at a cliff edge.
Problem is politicians obsessed with development and energy do not want to see that in that way.
We have no plan for food security but have big plans for 100% energy supply which we will never achieve.
Children who are born today will see the consequences but we do not even have a population plan.

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