The pitfalls of renewable energy

[StarCruiser]

From a purely historical standpoint - I wonder how much of "Global Warming" might actually be due to deforestation, rather than industrialization?

Britain is a good example. For thousands of years, the British Isles were covered with trees - millions of old growth White Oak trees in particular. The English got themselves into a long, and repetitive, series of naval wars with France, then Spain, and then France again, then The Netherlands and so on until they basically stripped all of the largest and strongest of the old Oaks to build fleets of warships.

By the 18th century, they pretty much imported most of the wood they needed to build the Royal Navy from the Americas or Continental Europe. There just weren't enough big, health White Oaks left. They even had to resort to building some smaller ships from Fir instead - which didn't last anywhere near as long as good solid Oak...

HMS Victory (1765) was built with the wood of about 6000 trees - most of which were Oak. That's just one 3-decker...

 

[XCV330]

From a purely historical standpoint - I wonder how much of "Global Warming" might actually be due to deforestation, rather than industrialization?

Britain is a good example. For thousands of years, the British Isles were covered with trees - millions of old growth White Oak trees in particular. The English got themselves into a long, and repetitive, series of naval wars with France, then Spain, and then France again, then The Netherlands and so on until they basically stripped all of the largest and strongest of the old Oaks to build fleets of warships.

By the 18th century, they pretty much imported most of the wood they needed to build the Royal Navy from the Americas or Continental Europe. There just weren't enough big, health White Oaks left. They even had to resort to building some smaller ships from Fir instead - which didn't last anywhere near as long as good solid Oak...

HMS Victory (1765) was built with the wood of about 6000 trees - most of which were Oak. That's just one 3-decker...

I know in the original 13 colonies there were rules preventing cutting down of even pines of more than 12 inch diameter. Royal surveyors were to mark those trees with a broad-arrow mark showing they were to be harvested for naval use. By that point, even not very large pines were considered a valuable resource from across the atlantic. Not well remembered now, claiming timber rights on people's private property was yet another point of enmity leading to the revolution. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Tree_Riot

Europe has never entirely recovered her forests. I recall hearing that they are going to have to redo the roof of the cathedral of Notre Dame differently as there aren't any beech (or ash.. I forget) trees tall enough in europe anymore to provide a replacement for the original beams.

 

[StarCruiser]

Exactly - so many trees have been lost (and it's only natural since there are more and more people).

I know there was an article - years ago - that stated that the industrial revolution shouldn't have had as much impact on the overall temperature as it seems to have, due to particulate emissions. Good ol' smog was supposedly compensating somewhat for CO2.

Loosing so many trees (and that still going crazy in South America and Asia) accelerated the whole thing.