Historically, the emissions rate from deforestation was even higher, with the clearing of woods and flattening of forests causing 30 percent of emissions from 1861 to 2000; until 1980, deforestation played a greater role in increases of hottest-day records than did direct greenhouse-gas emissions. There is a public health impact as well: every square kilometer of deforestation produces twenty-seven additional cases of malaria, thanks to what is called “vector proliferation”—when the trees are cleared out, the bugs move in.
