Some parts of Lebanon are greener today than they were a generation ago. People in Lebanon keep bemoaning the degradation of the environment, overbuilding, etc. These are true, but, outside of urban areas, parts of the countryside seem greener today than 120 years ago, something obvious when we look at old pictures (and paintings). This picture is the back country between my ancestral village (Amioun) and the Mediterranean (Shekka), taken during the winter. When I was a child, the hills were completely barren. The greenplan planted trees 35 years ago: this is the payoff.

Reason: Irrigation during the summer months, planting of cypress tress, and the disappearance of the goat (which wrecked the Mediterranean after the elimination of the lion that kept the numbers in check).

This may not be true for the Bekaa valley and AntiLebanon. I haven’t been there since my childhood.

via Timeline Photos – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.