re: #121 Gus 802

Climate change is only one face of the challenge.

That deforestation in the Amazon issue is multi-sided, but the bottom line is that there is world-wide demand for Amazonian tree material (wood) and demand for agriculture products grown on the deforested land.

Long before climate change can wipe out the forests on the planet, human economies will cut them down.

Over the next few decades the inability to raise petroleum production to meet new demand and replace depleting old reservoirs will drive the hunger for fossil fuels to natural gas and coal increasingly. However, as cheap supplies of those fossil fuels are used only the lower quality supplies will be left. This will drive up all energy costs, and though it will make wind look better comparatively (for near term costs), wind is viable only in certain areas.

Thus increasing agricultural production by increasing the use of fossil energy - the key to the 20th century agricultural revolution - will hit a wall. This, on top of increased population will drive even more deforestation.

After the Amazon, the remaining large supply of land and burnable and building material are the boreal forests of Siberia and Canada. I expect them to be deforested before the end of the century, leaving the planet with no pre-human large forests left (since African forests will be rapidly depleted, along with Malaysia/Indonesia.)

Again - our future is challenge by more than climate change, though that is the heavy hammer over the coming centuries.