When I was a kid, I always thought that where I grew up (southern Indiana) was basically a forest and that the farms and towns and roads that I saw were just "nestled" in the forest. That's because everywhere you look, there's almost always a line of trees on the horizon. Not being particularly mountainous, or even hilly, it looks from a distance like the tree line is the "forest". In pretty much every direction. I was a boy scout, and we did a lot of camping at various parks. I really didn't know exactly where I was, I just thought we were out in the "forest".<p>It's a trick of perspective. I had never really seen my local area from the sky until about 2000. Now, Google Earth can show you the whole thing, at zoomable resolution.<p>Boy, was I wrong. Not only is southern Indiana mostly <i>not</i> forest, it's mostly farms, roads, and fields, and towns, with only scattered lines and splotches of trees. In reality, those boy scout trips were basically in nature preserves and national forests, the few remaining places of actual forest. Human habitation has absolutely <i>decimated</i> the forest...across the entire midwest. And the many millions, billions of animals that lived in the forest, they're gone, numbers dwindled, or exinct. Bears and big cats and wolves and elk....almost all gone here. Not to mention the intricate ecosystems full of life, from squirrels down to insects and ants...uncountable the individual living things that have been absolutely obliterated by our hunger.<p>Just take a look at Google Earth, switch to satellite mode, turn off all labels, and take in the vast green patchwork of farms that stretches for a thousand miles in every direction in the middle of North America. There is precious else <i>but</i> farm and city and road.