How did Avatar Earth become totally deforested?
 

I do have to ask because it cannot be that people decided to mow down all national parks in fact if Obama was to declare that he is going to mow down Yellowstone, cover up the grand canyon to make a Stadium etc, people would have his head on a pike the next day, seriously!
It had to be a disease brought by climate change or something along those lines.

It's not really covered well as far as I know. Somehow I have a hard time believing it. The earth has a lot of land that goes almost straight up and down, yet has trees. That land is just not all that useful to people. Even with various diseases and climate change I still just don't see it happening 100%.

I agree. I kind of beleive hat when Jake makes the comment about earth having no green, it is more of a general statement. I don't think he meant ALL of earth.

Nuclear war.

Overpopulation.

Then there would not be that many people as most would have perished as a result of that nuclear war. Unless most of those are RDA grown worker clones. I would not be surprised if that were the case.
Try again because to blame that alone is just so out there is not even funny. What the people ate all the trees, plants and blades of grass on the planet? Hmm I had no clue bark tasted so good.

It is not too far fetched to believe people can completely deforest the environment in which they live; though, I don't see it happening on a global scale with much probability. An example of a society that completely deforested their environment was the inhabitants of Easter Island. But so far I do believe we have deforested about a half of the planet's forests and jungles.

On the flip side, there have been societies that have done a great job of protecting their environment from deforestation. Japan would be an example of this. One thing to note is, while Japan may have protected its own land from deforestation, this may have meant they purchased lumber from other countries that were/are in the process of deforesting the environment around them.

Used them for building, for fuel. In Haiti, people cut down all of the trees to make charcoal. Know what they eat? Mud. Now, with the earth's population growing at a larger and larger rate, and the way most people live in excess, In a 150 year period there's going to be a heck of a lot more of us. We're destroying an alarming amount of forests each year, and when people are dying and starving, national parks aren't going to mean diddly squat.

Actually that's not entirely true, the overpopulation problem is centered around the developing world specially Africa and not the developed world where Birth rates if anything have declined.

Haiti is a poor example as is the poorest nation on the face of this planet.

If in this age a country can be like that, how do you expect it will be in 150 years when there's 20 billion people running around?

Except that as I said the overpopulation problem you keep arguing about is fixated on the third world meaning is a problem that has be dealt with on a nation by nation basis and not on a one solution fit all. And the answer is education, now I don;t care if Spock or anyone here advocates genocide or deliberate starvation of Africans and other so called undesirables because I will never side with such policies.

Frankly I doubt it will get that high, right now Africa is teetering just with the current population. Probably new diseases will spread from there as well as viruses are opportunists and such a swelling population is to viruses what fertilizer is to a plant.

I expect a virus will wipe out most of the people living in horrible conditions where as the people in the first world will stay safe and protected and continue to breed like rabbits.

The developed world is not where the overpopulation problem is but the third world, what part of that don't you understand? Geesh!

That's right, Japan isn't overpopulated at all. Also, I'm not talking about now. I'm talking about 150 years in the future, which you seem to be forgetting.

In 1860, the US had a population of 31.5 million.
Today, 150 years later, the US has a population of 307 million.

That's a nearly 1000% increase in 150 years, and the current is only documented citizens, I'm sure there are several million illegals in the country as well.

Lets multiply 307 million by 10, and we get 3070 million people by 2160. Now, factor in medical advances which increase longevity and survival of infants, and you can see that overpopulation will be a major problem.

You are ignoring a lot of factors when making that comparison, people in the 19th century had large families that could be as many a 6 or even 8 children at times within a household. Where as today the average is 2 or 3. And yes Illegal immigration is a huge problem that needs to be capped otherwise the U.S will end up becoming inevitably another third world country. Is the same as when too many people straddle a lifeboat it just sinks. No nation has the capacity to absorb and unending number of immigrants which is what is happening with both former Republican and now Democrat policies.


But again keep in mind that the overpopulation problem is largely concentrated in Africa. And try not to ignore fact such as number of children in households today vs the number in the 19th century and so on.