You may want to check the website of American Forests
(www.americanforests.org). They have done a lot of work on urban forest loss
mainly using satellite data, but they might have access to some GIS data from
their clients or be able to direct you to some local GIS data providers. Your
work
In regards to science and religion I wanted to alert folks to a June 07 article
in Sci.Am, where physicist Lawrence Krauss discusses the issue with biologist
Richard Dawkins. I found it interesting. Read it using the following link.
http://genesis1.phys.cwru.edu/~krauss/sad0707Krss4p.pdf
Ram
