Does Saving Our Forests Cause Global Warming? Adam Taylor K uznets (1955) proposed that, as economies develop, income inequality initially increases but then de- clines. This model has been adapted to describe environ- mental problems, including air pollution and deforestation (Figure 1). The reality of such “environmental Kuznets’ curves” is debated (e.g., Chowdhury and Moran 2012), but they can provide reason for optimism: according to such models, environmental improvement is a natural con- sequence of economic development. The explanation is that richer people move toward less environment-damag- ing, service-based occupations and can afford to pay to clean up their environment. The history of forests and timber in the United States appears to follow an environmental Kuznets’ curve (Figure 2). Early settlers used a lot of wood for fuel and products and cleared forestland for agriculture. As the United States developed economically, wood fuel use declined (Figure 3) and Americans moved to the city, and, in many cases, trees returned to degraded areas. These trends in forest resources suggest that the envi- ronment improved as the American economy developed. However, considering forests as an independent environ- mental indicator is a mistake because it ignores the connec- tions between wood and alternative resources, specifically fossil fuels. Americans substituted fossil fuels for biofuels such as wood to power their developing economy (US Energy Infor- mation Administration 2011, 2015). This substitution (Fig- ure 4) enabled the unprecedented increase in wealth and a simultaneous return of trees to previously exploited acres. The burning of fossil fuels is also the main cause of climate change; deforestation is a relatively small con- tributor to the increase in atmospheric CO 2 levels (Barker et al. 2007). The United States now consumes about 80 quadrillion BTU of fossil energy per year, and the path of economic development taken by the United States—a reliance on fossil fuels to escape the con- straints of the biological carbon cycle— has been, or is being, followed by other countries. There is no evidence for an environmental Kuznets’ curve for fossil fuel- based carbon emissions (Figure 5). While fossil fuels can be substituted for wood energy, there has not yet been any demonstrated alternative to fossil fuel-based eco- nomic development. Most of the world’s energy comes Received June 4, 2015; accepted August 4, 2015; published online September 3, 2015. Affiliations: Adam Taylor (adamtaylor@utk.edu), University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN. Acknowledgments: Comments from University of Tennessee forestry students, class of 2015, are gratefully acknowledged. Figure 1. A generalized depiction of an environmental Kuznets’ curve. Per capita income (x-axis) can be ex- pressed as time when a country is developing economi- cally or can represent a range of poorer and richer coun- tries. (Source: Yandle et al. 2002. Reprinted with permission from PERC.) Figure 2. Forest area and timber inventory in the United States over time. (Data from Smith and Darr 2004.) Figure 3. Wood energy use in the United States over time. (Data from US Energy Information Administration 2011.) COMMENTARY J. For. 114(2):144 –145 http://dx.doi.org/10.5849/jof.15-080 Copyright © 2016 Society of American Foresters 144 Journal of Forestry • March 2016 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jof/article-abstract/114/2/144/4599163 by guest on 20 June 2020