Even Sherwood Forest is Hosed

EDWINSTOWE, England - Robin Hood might have a hard time hiding out in the Sherwood Forest of today.

The forest once covered about 100,000 acres, a big chunk of present-day Nottinghamshire County. Today its core is about 450 acres, with patches spread out through the rest of the county.

Even Robin Hood's hood is hosed.

When Columbus first landed on Hispaniola, the part of the island that is now Haiti was largely forested. Today the largest tract of forest there is 450 acres. On Barbados the largest tract of forest is 50 acres. Robin Hood and his "merry men" used to hang out in a 100,000 acre forest that is only 450 acres and to "save" it will require the efforts of hundreds of people and millions of dollars.

Instead of controlling growth and thinking about the future, the English just like Americans and just like everyone else have continued to destroy mother nature to make room for more highly fecund humans to further despoil the earth. Of course there's not a politician alive outside of China who has the guts to bring up the need for population contro - the real answer to all of our long term environmental issues. Instead we'll all cow-tow to the religious fanatics and developers and everyone else who feeds the political machine and nothing will be done to control population growth. But, someday, not long after I'm going, Mother Nature is going to strike back and its not going to be pretty. Luckily I wont be here to watch the collapse. Unfortunately my children might see it and their children likely will.