> However, the worst offenders are developers who bulldoze and burn forests near growing cities. Subdivisions and shopping centers are spreading out from Atlanta like a mushroom cloud. It's also true of many other cities that I visit on a regular basis. Nashville, Knoxville, and Murfreesboro in Tennessee are good examples. I saw two aerial photos of Murfreesboro made in 1955 and 1995. It was unbelieveable how much forest was gone, not to mention farmland that was covered with houses. The population of that relatively small city went from about 12,000 to almost 45,000 in that period.

Now, that's an interesting question and a different issue, I think. Because the question arises, if cutting these trees down to make room for people to live is bad, what are we going to do with the people? The population of the world is always increasing; we have to live somewhere. It's not an easy question to answer.