Hollywood Lifestyle Poses Serious Risk to Rainforest

If I wrote the headlines, that's what it would say, but instead the BBC decided to word it this way.

Cocaine use 'destroys rainforest'

Some 2.2 million hectares of rainforest had been lost to cocaine production over the last 20 years, he added.

So we can't drill in ANWR because of danger to the environment, polar bear populations are at an all-time high so let's put them on the endangered species list, and whatever Al Gore is blaming this week on global warming climate change is fine rhetoric to spout, but if we point a finger at all those crazy whacked-out folks in the entertainment business who shove more then their fair share of blow up the nose, why we are [insert your favorite label here].

By the way, notice once again that this is Colombia that is taking the initiative, Nancy.

Mr James, a former cocaine user who recently presented a BBC Panorama documentary on the effects of the drug, backed the environmental focus of the campaign.

He said: "I don't know why we care more about monkeys dying than people dying but we do. So this is a really intelligent way of going about it."

See how your thinking clears up when you're not doing drugs?

Good News: Global Warming Helps Rainforests

Actually, they're known as jungles, but ever since we immersed ourselves in PC psychobabble, the jungles became known as rainforests.

Whatever the case, this report notes how global warming, er, climate change, actually is helping the jungles grown more lush.

Of course, it also comes with ominous warnings.

Climate change may lead to lush growth rather than catastrophic tree loss in the Amazonian forests, researchers from the US and Brazil have found. A study, in the journal Science, found that reduced rainfall had led to greener forests, possibly because sunlight levels are higher when there are fewer rainclouds.

Shocking how there's more sunlight when there are fewer clouds. I wouldn't believe it, but the experts say it's so.

Still, there's a big but coming.

But scientists cautioned that while the finding raises hopes for the survival of the forests, there are still serious threats. Climate models have suggested that the forests will suffer as the region becomes drier and will release huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.