This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Apocalypse Never" by Michael Shellenberger. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Why are forests disappearing? What’s the impact of deforestation? How much good does reforestation do?
Michael Shellenberger contends that the core of existential environmental dread revolves around the idea that humans are actively killing the planet. In order to remove a certain level of panic from the environmental discussion, he addresses the issues and misperceptions around the loss of rainforests.
Keep reading to learn about the actual extent of the problems caused by deforestation and the outlook of reforestation.
Deforestation
Shellenberger says that habitat loss and declining species populations—two of the problems caused by deforestation—are important metrics to consider. They aren’t the result of “evil corporations” but of the actions of people simply struggling to survive. In Brazil and the Congo, rainforests are disappearing in order to make room for farmland and to use the chopped-down trees for fuel, as was done in the developed world for all of recorded history. Not only are forests disappearing, but what remains is being carved into islands of woodland that break apart species’ natural range of territory.
(Shortform note: Much of the forest being lost in Brazil is due to illegal land grabs for ranching and logging. However, it’s not just the ranchers and loggers who are to blame but the large corporations who knowingly buy their products and sell them to consumers in the US and elsewhere. As opposed to Brazil’s industrial deforestation, the rainforests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been disappearing due to subsistence farming and charcoal manufacture, as Shellenberger claims. Also unlike Brazil, the DRC is taking active measures to restore lost woodlands in cooperation with local communities.)
A misunderstanding that Shellenberger speaks to specifically is the idea that rainforests are vital to providing the planet’s oxygen and removing carbon dioxide from the air. Forest ecosystems actually consume as much oxygen as they produce. And, while plants do store carbon, they don’t to the extent that many activists claim. For example, the Amazon absorbs 5% of the world’s carbon emissions, less than the 25% cited by protestors of Brazil’s deforestation projects.
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Here's what you'll find in our full Apocalypse Never summary:
- An assessment of the climate crisis from a rational perspective
- How climate change alarmists are doing more harm than good
- The problems with renewable energy and why we should switch to nuclear
