I was just told there were more trees now than when Columbus landed

[sarah FAILIN]

I am floored. This person is supposed to be fairly smart, but dismisses climate science as not real because people can only observe what they know in their lifetime. He said Indians burned all the trees to plant their vast corn fields. And that is why the land was flat when Columbus got here. So climate change isn't real since a volcano can pollute as much as a factory. Omg...

Then he said he agreed with Bannon about tearing the government apart and wants to move the Capitol to the middle of the country to get away from the swamp in Washington.

I have been shaking my head since lunch. Wow.

[Tracer]

1. He's a little off about the trees!

Actually, in New England, there really ARE more trees than when the Pilgrims arrived. But not due to "Indians burning the trees" (although I'm sure they cleared trees for planting), but due to FARMING as the main industry in the 17th and 18th centuries.

[matt819]

30. True.

New England was heavily forested prior to the 17th century, but with illegal immigration of white Europeans, there was a tremendous need for wood - housing, firewood, farming. New Hampshire was pretty seriously deforested by the end of the 19th century. Thanks in large part to the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests - https://forestsociety.org/ - there has been a tremendous turnaround over the course of the 20th century. Also, there are county conservancy groups that have been active in trying to get people to put their land into conservation. I don't know if it is more forested now than before the 17th century flow of immigrants, but it really full of forests.

Whether this applies to the rest of New England, I also don't know, but at least many in New Hampshire are doing what we can. Not all, mind you.

[Doreen]

2. OMFG!! He is right they did drain the swamp.

They just replaced it with a sewer full of stinky shit though.

[appleannie1943]

3. I wonder how he thinks Pennsylvania got it's name?

[Cattledog]

4. That "fact" came from the great scientist, Rush Limbaugh.

[njhoneybadger]

15. Yeah about 30 years ago

[Brother Buzz]

5. I won't address that Bannon shit, but in many area, there are a ton more trees

There are many overcrowded, diseased forests in areas when fires have not been allowed cycle through and renew things on a regular basis.

[TheMastersNemesis]

6. What An Idiot. Here Is An Anecdote About His Bullshit.

The anecdote that I have heard is closer to the truth. The story is that when Columbus landed that the forest was so thick that a squirrel could go from tree to tree to the Mississippi without touching the ground.

I am from Illinois and used to go with my dad when he hunted and helped look for mushrooms in the 1950's. The woods were really thick in our area around the Sangamon River. And when you go to New Salem State Park and go down near the river there it is thick thick woods.

Even during Lincoln's time there was thick rain forest conditions. It was hot and humid in the summer and it rained a lot. So that person is so full of it.

In fact even now there are areas in Illinois that have dense thickets of forest. And look at Appalachia and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

[JaneQPublic]

11. I am originally from Illinois, too.

And I was told that very same anecdote by my 7th grade history teacher.

You have to figure a great number of trees had to be felled to build all those Lincoln-style log cabins and clear the land to farm that terrific Illinois topsoil -- the best soil on the planet!

Thanks for the memory!

[GaYellowDawg]

21. And even in Appalachia and the Blue Ridge mountains...

... the forest is considerably thinner than it once was, thanks to the almost-extinction of the American Chestnut. 1 in every 4 trees was a chestnut before the blight hit the species.

The entire Eastern Seaboard was one big forest in the time of Columbus. Rush Limbaugh is, as usual, FOS on this one.

[spanone]

7. well, it's 82 here in tennessee.....the stupid burns

p.s. it's February.

[world wide wally]

8. Two things:

1) There are NOT more trees now than when Columbus landed. You may find very localized areas where this is true, but the rainforest (where 25% of Earth's oxygen is created) is being cut down at a rate of 250 acres per hour.
2) We can observe the birth and death of stars even though they last for millions of years by seeing various stars of various ages and adding 2 plus 2. Therefore, we can know much more than we see in our lifetime alone. We know for a fact that a plague gripped Europe 500 years ago even though none of us were there.

Your friend is not as smart as you give him credit for.

[moriah]

17. I thought the "floored" was at the stupidity of believing those things. Nt

[world wide wally]

18. Just given them some more ammo

[jberryhill]

9. More trees where?

Columbus never landed anywhere which is now part of the US.



If we are talking about Cuba and the island of Hispanola, for example, there are some pine forests at altitude, but large-scale maize cultivation would have been pretty dumb, when there was an abundance of seafood and other crops (yams, cassava, etc.) which don't require going up to the hills to cut down trees.

Is he talking about palm trees? I mean, sure, there are more banana trees now, since that is an engineered crop in the first place which was introduced to the Caribbean by Europeans. So, sure, they went from zero banana trees to however many are there now.

Your friend is outstandingly ignorant.

[Stallion]

16. Oh! A Trick Question-Huh

Smarty-pants*

* a compliment

[Newest Reality]

33. Also,

As per your map there, why doesn't Amerigo Vespucci get mentioned? After all, the first use of the name America was used in 1507 and it was based on his explorations which began in 1497 and seem to be more significant concerning North America.

[get the red out]

34. Did the Vikings count trees?

They beat Columbus by 1,000 years and had a small settlement in Newfoundland.

Maybe they wrote about trees?

[JaneQPublic]

10. Nope. Not true...

...so says the Ten Billion Acres organization

LET'S TAKE A LOOK BACK IN 1492:

When Columbus first landed in America in 1492 nearly 18.5 Billion Acres of Forests covered Planet Earth. Yet, the total human population of Earth was only about a half billion. Today, there are in excess of six billion human beings: but there are far fewer trees. Only 8.5 Billion Acres of Forests remain in the world today.

http://www.tenbillionacres.org/

[LeftInTX]

12. There are more trees in the Great Plains now

than during the 19th century.

Many former grasslands are now semi-forested, mainly due to people planting trees, decline of bison, availability of irrigation etc.

[TheMastersNemesis]

13. Without Irrigation Trees Do Not Grow Well On The Great Plains Even Today.

Now I live in Westminster, Colorado north of Denver. We have a lot of trees. Of course they are irrigated. But if you look around natural trees only occur in the mountains and foothills, and river and stream basins on the plains. Other than that there are no trees to speak of.

[world wide wally]

19. Only riparian vegetation near the rivers and grasslands everywhere else. Almost desert.

[gratuitous]

14. Give 'em the creationist excuse

How do you know there are more trees than when Columbus landed on an island in the Caribbean? Were you here then?

[ismnotwasm]

24. Because trees are trees are trees?

[marble falls]

25. Seriously. You think there is no evidence of where forests were ...

before Columbus arrived???

[TwilightZone]

27. There's more to science than personal observation.

We know about plenty of things that occurred when we were not present. Your assertion otherwise is rather odd.

[jberryhill]

35. Almost as odd as choosing to post a comment in a two-year old thread on your first day at DU

[Mike 03]

37. +1000

Gone in a puff of smoke.

[jberryhill]

38. Ah, do we know on what aisle was the clean-up?

[Mike 03]

39. Ha...

That was a brilliant reply you made to the poster. Wish I could bookmark just your comment.

[Mendocino]

20. There was a time

when it was said a squirrel could cross the eastern US from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River and if it picked it's route along watersheds and divides, would never put its paws on the ground. These days all those old forest lands produce mostly corn and soy.

[EarnestPutz]

22. The continent was described in a book called "1491"...

...(America before "discovery&quot , as having forest areas that were managed by the natives. The forests in southern Ohio were described as being cleared by controlled burning (to facilitate hunting) and so open that one could drive a carriage through large areas.

[wryter2000]

26. That person is a moron

I don't know why he'd give you the impression he's smart.

[get the red out]

28. But the truth is

That there were a lot fewer idiots, since the murderous Europeans were greatly outnumbered by the First Peoples.

[applegrove]

29. The indigenous did burn trees to plant. GOP think they are great on

climate change because number of humans alive is the greatest cause of climate change and they are into letting people die by bad policy or no policy. See? They are great climate change fighters!!!

[Downtown Hound]

31. Not true

There are more trees in the U.S. than there were 100 years ago, that is true, and thanks for that go entirely to conservation and reforestation efforts. But there still aren't anywhere even close to what there were in pre-Columbus days.

[enid602]

32. LA and BA

Los Ángeles and Buenos Aires have more trees.

[braddy]

36. Here is a very good discussion on the topic, it doesn't seem so easy to answer.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=377879