Ah! What widey is missing is the fact that the poor 'tween the aforementioned dates wore nothing. Hence the term "What the dickens" was an expression of surprise or disapproval - later usurped by the literati in reference to Charles Dickens and his social opinions. "dickens" is a contraction of "dick ends" and was a form of euphemism in those days of yore when a quid was called a pound and a virgin, whilst much sought after, was a far thing.
The flyleaf was invented and named by William Caxton following his discovery that children were removing the front and back pages of his publications in order to make paper aeroplanes.
Current thinking is that trees breathe in carbon dioxide and, effectively, seal it within their structure so that it is in turn sealed within the Earth when they die. Given that we have far too much CO2 in the atmosphere the answer is simple - chop down more trees.