Well ...

... Oh God, am I just being neurotic? (Hat tip, Dve Lull.)

My small town is more forested than it was either a century or two centuries ago. So clearly the "we" in my part of the world does things differently than the "we" in Sudan or Rwanda or the Brazilian rainforest. But the possibility that political, cultural or civilizational factors might be determinative is one to which Mr. Martin is fiercely resistant. The idea that the human species -- rather than Belgians or Saudis or Fijians -- is responsible for this or that environmental crisis is deeply appealing to the eco-doom-mongers because it casts the problem as a moral failure.

In a couple weeks, we'll be back in Tunkhannock. A century ago next door, in Sullivan County, every tree in sight had been cut down. Now you can't find the towns that flourished there at the time.