Chris

True, but there’s very little equivalence between rapid deforestation in the tropics and incremental deforestation in temperate latitudes. For a start the land area we’re talking about here is much smaller than what’s being lost in Brazil year on year, and has been deforested over a much longer period of time (there’s evidence of forest clearance in Great Britain going back thousands of years). And in terms of the carbon cycle, the tropical rainforests lock up a lot more of it than vegetation growth at high latitudes is capable of doing.