The world is getting greener

[pmccarthy]

A while ago I posted that the world is getting greener and got some disagreement. Here is the hard evidence.

 

It’s official: the planet is getting greener — Lonely Planet

 

Specifically, across the state of Victoria where I live (not referenced in this article) there has been massive planting of trees across denuded properties, as wide swathes of windbreak and on roadsides. This is all obvious from the air. There has been no significant clearing for a decade at least. There has been logging, but all logged areas are replanted.

 

 

[old man emu]

It's a Give & Take process.

 

Where I live (Southwest Sydney) Developers have stripped the hills of all vegetation, and even top soil, in their race to put thousands of "little boxes made of ticky-tacky" in its place. Admittedly, the native forests that existed 250 years ago had been largely removed to make grazing land before the developers stormed in to denude even those remnants. Their environmental rape makes the deforested areas of Brazil and Indonesia look like the Garden of Eden. Not intent on that sort of destruction, they replace it with tar and cement, which not only will result in massive flooding of the Nepean/Hawkesbury River system if ever we get massive rains, but in the meantime, the heatbank created by the tar and cement will alter the air patterns over the Sydney Basin, dragging the pollution from the Parramatta River valley out to the very areas where the developers are touting "rural living"

 

On the other hand, the Federal Government is funding many projects to aid the recovery of areas already affected by European pastoral and agricultural activities.

 

Department of the Environment and Energy

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Agreed re urban sprawl. The difference around Melbourne is that most new areas have few trees to begin with.