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Antoninus said: But that's not what the article implied, was it?

Oh yeah? The astronaut said: "Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It's very widespread in some parts of the world," Collins said in a conversation from space with Japanese officials in Tokyo, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

What part of some parts of the world tells you she was talking about the US? The parts of the earth with widespread deforestation are not in the US, but in the tropics, especially the Amazon basin and Indonesia. It is seeable from space. I have seen pics from some of the satellites and there are times where an amazing number of fires are burning up the forestlands there.

Here's a pic from 2003 that shows the huge numbers of fires, most intentionally set, to clar land (and it's just from a small piece of Brazil:

http://www.osei.noaa.gov/Events/Fires/Brazil/2003/FSMHSbrazil288_N6.jpg

Too big to post here here. Every single red flick is a fire. And the smoke is visible from space. And the burned clearings afterwards are too.

Some parts of the world are deforested. Some parts of the world practice good land management. No where did she say the US was guilty of being eroded and deforested. Draw what conclusions you like, I didn't see where she implied where the US was in that condition.

Draw what conclusions you like, I didn't see where she implied where the US was in that condition.

She didn't. And if I had to guess, I'll bet she did single out some areas of the world which were more affected. This was most likely excised by the Reuters editor so that the article could serve their purpose.

And note that I wasn't the only one who drew that conclusion. This article, written as it is by Reuters primarily for an audience of liberal Americans and, coincidentally, featuring the Prime Minister Koizumi is meant to be fodder for the "It's America's fault for not signing Kyoto" crowd. Do you disagree?

I am fully aware that serious environmental degradation is occurring in many places around the world--very few of which are in North America. But I think we can agree that the US signing the Kyoto accord will have little to no impact on what happens in, say, China, India, Brazil, or the Philipines.