You need to ask yourself who owns these forests???

It is my understanding that like many of the Alaskan wilderness areas containing minerals and timber your "owner" is China.

When I say owner it means that as long as the money is good enough for the states to sell it it doesn't matter who "owns" it. The end result is the "buyer" owns it.

China owns much of our resource and is buying more as we type.

We are screwed folks......The dollar has become the overiding concern. Empire needs dollars. Lots of them. Earth community dies when Empire thrives.

Stupid foolish Americans

This is one of the most beautiful forests on the planet, its an important part of the earth ecosystem. It's like anything else, it needs sensibly managed. It needs to harvested on a sustainable basis. Clear Cutting is most widely used and destructive proceedure for the Planet. I destroys the natural habitat, the soil and the streams and most of the wildlife that depends on them. Its time for people in Canada and around the world to demand sustainable forestation procedures from their governments.

The other day, Daniel David, I believe it was, brought up an excellent point about forestry. Along the lines of, a well tended forest absorbs more CO2 than a mature forest. Biodiversity issues aside, there is good sense to this, old trees do not grow very quickly, and do not consume much CO2. Harvested and used wood is a carbon-sink, and rejuvenating a forest is a positive step.

~~Avrim Lazar says the association, which represents wood, pulp and paper producers, has agreed there should be no logging in the untouched parts of the forest without adequate planning.~~

We must stand firm on what "adequate" means - Will this planning be done by scientists without finacial constraints on the "results" of their work, or stinkin' MBA who'd spin anything to pump up some bottom lines?

Another, maybe more immediate "Carbon Bomb" is the massive dead pine forests of British Columbia, killed by pine beetles which have flourished as a result of climate warming.

the huge fires of a few years ago may be a prelude.

There's slippery language on both sides in this piece.

The pro-logging voice talks about 'forest maangement practices.' Nice in theory, but if you followed the actual loggers into the forest, do they really do this? My guess is no if there's not someone looking over their shoulders making them do it. A piece of paper in a file in an office doesn't automatically translated to it being done that way in the field.

Meanwhile the Greenpeace voice talks about "In some cases, she says, those emissions outpace the amount of carbon absorbed by young trees planted to replace the logged ones." Well of course, you've got two curves where the emissions or absorbtion rates change with time. The emissions from the logged area would decay with time, as all those branches and other tree remnants left behind decay. And the tiny trees planted at first would absorb only a little carbon, but more each year as they grow to a decent size.

So, the Greenpeace point is technically accurate, but the way its phrased, a less than careful reader could get the impression that this isn't the short-term effect that it in reality probably is.

Of course, then there's the pure junk from the logging advocates at the very end of the piece. Neither statement has to be true. Law enforcement can crack down on illegal loggers if they want (the sound of chainsaws and lots of big logging trucks on the road are not hard to find). Its just a question of whether the government is willing to spend the resources to do it.

And for the second point, there's always the old classic law of supply and demand. If you start to limit supply, then prices rise. As prices rise, consumers react. Restrict the supply when there's a good reason, and people will indeed use less paper and wood in reaction to the new prices.

Cute the way the corporate media slides these two complete garbage points in at the end without giving the opposing voice any chance to make the rather obvious responses.

PS ... if you haven't seen a clear cut right after the loggers leave, you should. It would make anyone who's not getting rich from the destruction cry. The destruction is as if a giant bomb went off. Its unbelievable. And there's so much debris left behind by the loggers that it can be almost impossible to walk through such an area.

Good posts here so far on this excellent article. Thanks ~Big Money~ COMark and ~MIC~.

The most important subject touched upon in the article, is the methane gas in the Arctic.

The Arctic methane is the MOST serious issue facing mankind. Once the methane begins to "burp" out into our atmosphere, there is no turning back, no do-overs. Once it begins to escape from the perma-frost in earnest, as it has done twice previously in Earth's history, it will not stop. We humans will then be history. Time is running out and if you have children and love them, you should be very concerned.__ VERY.

Here is a three minute read on the subject, written by a very highly regarded by his peers, geologist. You may find it is worth your time to read it.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html

mf - actually, I thought that was what this article was going to be about. Like a time bomb, that could go off at any moment, with sudden catastrophic results.

MF, your post came on as I was writing mine, a hearty "thank you" to you also.

What we are witnessing, is the last decades of the planet as we have enjoyed it. The more mankind disturbes the delicate balance that has been constructed over billions of years by the wisdom of evolution, the sooner we'll see our demise.

When another species rises up from the cinders, and that group digs up the remains of our civilization, they will discover two things:

1- we let assholes be in charge
2- we shit in our own nest

Good luck protecting the environment when someone stands to profit at its expense. The only way your gonna stop this (or the conversion of tropical rainforests into cattle farms) is to revalue paper and wood (or cattle) to include the cost of lost opportunity (CO2 uptake, aesthetic/ tourism benefits) and the cost of environmental damage (CO2 release, death of adjacent plants and critters, the landfill where the trees will eventually end up). Then consumption will drop, alternatives will be created, and we'll have less forest destruction. Good luck legislating anything of the sort.

The boreal forest is only "one of the most beautiful forests on the planet" from a distance. I happen to live in it. Up close, it is a bunch of raggedy white spruce trees mixed with a few birch on the better soils and endless acres of truly scraggly black spruce ('Nature's matchsticks') on the worser soils (of which there is a LOT).

Not that the boreal forest isn't important, it is, and I love it. But we shouldn't go mythologizing it. The trees are dying from spruce beetle infestations, then they are burning and succession takes over. Is it wrong to harvest them while they're still useful ?

Growth is slow in the subarctic, I don't think we will see reestablishment of the same ecosystem because the climate is changing. We are seeing this in our own little landholding, we lost both our patch of boreal forest (mature white spruce) and our cabin to a huge wildfire (the Wolf Creek Fire, caused by a lightning strike -- ended up consuming some 800,000 acres) in 2004. Already the successional species are well established and rather than big spruce with a mossy undercover, we now have open grassland. I must say the view is much improved.

Forest fires release huge amounts of carbon too -- in that year alone a total of something like 6 million acres burned in Alaska. Huge fires in Siberia also. That is the nature of things.

Our arctic indigenous peoples have survived for millenia by adapting to extreme climate changes in the course of every individual year -- changes more extreme than anywhere else on the globe -- from midwinter's minus sixty to midsummer's plus ninety in perhaps four or five months (from February to June). We had all better learn to do likewise. (Lots of us really like the huge seasonal cycle here, it's like living in a variety of places without having to go anywhere).

As you can imagine, not all of us up here think that global warming is a Bad Thing. Even if we sink into the melting permafrost while cheering it on !

The problem of global warming is really the ability of species to adapt to changing circumstances. The more that humans exacerbate the problem, the more that we see feedback loops start to kick in which continue to change the climate at extra-natural rates. This dooms many species on this planet to extinction. The pace of climate change if it continues in this manner can outstrip the ability of species to adapt to it. What we're really talking about is dooming millions of species that form an unbroken chain to the beginning of life on this planet to complete annihilation. This would be the first time that one species was at fault for utter degradation and destruction of this many other species. This is heartbreaking to any that believe in the sacredness of life, and also heartbreaking to any who understand the myriad ways that these other species help us as humans to survive.
I canvass on issues on a day to day basis, and the reality to me is that we might not be able to stop global warming, but if we're going to go down, we might as well go down with the metaphorical non-violent gloves on. We should not cede to the forces of corporate greed that will let the world burn so that they can upgrade their yachts and take more vacations in fortified compounds that cater to their desires in developing nations.
The biggest forest destroyer in the Boreal is Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex, Scott, and Cottonelle. This company is responsible for much of the Boreal destruction, which they use to make pulp for one-time use disposable products. The reality is that when we use these products we are blowing our noses, or wiping our tushies on virgin forests, forests that have never been cut before. So if you want to do something to help stop Boreal destruction, boycott this company, tell your friends, coworkers, and the person on the bus. If it's necessary, buy these types of products, but the brands that are recycled material. If you want to get radical, work to help bring back the hankie, the original reusable facial tissue.

Cheering it on ALASKAMAID???

When the Arctic perma-frost melts you won't be doing ANY cheering. The ONLY ones who will bear witness to that coming disaster, will be the humans left in the space station. I can guarantee you of that. Read that link I offered at 12:11pm.

It isn't my opinion that means squat. The global warming is as real as the daily sunset, so is the methane gas release because of it. ___ "Deny and die".

Logging is not a net positive as regards carbon sequestration.

At commercial rotation ages of 50-100 years, only around 1/3 of the tree mass is contained in the "bole", or trunk that is logged. Another third resides in the branches, and the remaining third in the root system, both of which will release their carbon in short order after the tree is cut down.

To net a positive carbon capture, the logs would have to be buried in deep water, where high pressure and low temperature would keep them from rotting before they had been preserved in sediment for long-term sequestration. The carbon needed to transport and sink such logs might be comparable to the carbon in the logs themselves, especially for smaller-diameter second-growth stands.

Old-growth stands would be a better strategy for carbon sequestration, as well as for ecosystem health. The older the tree, the larger the share of the (above surface) mass locked up in the bole, as opposed to the branches.

And canadian boreal forests are being used largely for disposable products like diapers and single-use pallets, which is close to criminal from an environmental and carbon standpoint.

funny thing is, is that it's really not the tree's their after, it's the oil under them, encased in sand. it's called " The Oilsands Project". it's one of the largest clear cuts in the world...and all the oil is pumped south.

"As you can imagine, not all of us up here think that global warming is a Bad Thing. Even if we sink into the melting permafrost while cheering it on !"

I hear people in Canada saying the same things...as if we will suddenly turn into a tropical paradise. They think the only problem will be a few more insects...and maybe some problems with crop insurance from a few extra droughts (That was actually in a newspaper article). As if the drought will not be a worldwide occurance, as if nobody in the arid wastelands to the South will come here seeking shelter, or our water or our food...As if our own mid-west will not be Arid wasteland.

So, you don't think it is a bad thing...well, not if you consider a massive culling of the human population on this planet to be good...along with the ongoing extinction of many life forms unable to adapt at a rate sufficient to survive.

And all of that is without considering the methane problem...or the risks of a new mini-ice age starting as a result of changes in currents or too much fresh water entering the North Atlantic.

How is it that so many people can be so delusional?

Who owns the Boreal Forest? Six Nations People do. Much of this land was never sold or leased to the crown by the Indians. Canada just takes it by raw power, the same way they do the tar sands oil. The Six Nations Peoples do not wish the Boreal to be disturbed, yet Canada continues to illegally lease the property to commercial interests often poisoning the environment. Support the Indian claims to this land and the problem goes away. You may also want to stop worshiping the British Crown, they are behind it all. This is just another example of continuing genocide.

These operations poison the water and this poison water is injected back into the earth. This is crazy to poison the earth, the water, the nations of the earth.

Read a National Geographic article a few years ago that made the obvious point that young growing forests sequester more carbon than mature forests. Makes sense. Wood is a wonderful resource and it is mangable and renewable, but it appears from some of the posts here that there is more going on with the area in question.

Is this really just the clearcutting for going for more oil sands? We are really determined to have our oil in the worst way.

Just keep collecting your BigOil permanent Fund check, Alaskamaid, until it's all over--it won't be long at this rate.... talk about delusional--Jeebus!

Alaskamaid wrote:

"and rather than big spruce with a mossy undercover, we now have open grassland. I must say the view is much improved."

That is exactly what strip miners in West Virginia say - "look we are removing all these boring, eastern hardwood covered hills and hemlock-forested creek-hollows (probably a hundred different tree spieces - but who cares) and turning it into sweeping views of semi-arid grassland like the great American West!"

Ken Patrick should just include links to his innumerable other postings on the same subject every time CD prints an article even remotely pertaining to his numero uno obsession. And wow, this link is only 4 years old:

"Humans appear to be capable of emitting carbon dioxide in quantities comparable to the volcanic activity that started these chain reactions."

The same holds true for those humans capable of emitting methane gas by talking out of their asses.

However, let's be clear here, while the arctic methane/seabed clathrate bomb problem could indeed wipe out humanity, it is not going to do so in a time frame of people being born today. It will instead be a slow, multi-generational descent into increasingly hot, malnourished, nasty, brutish and short lives until few or no people, and most other complex life spiecies are left.

This of course does not diminish the seriousness of the problem, but produces an intractable political problem, because humans societies - especially capitalist ones, just aren't geared to caring about the welfare of humans hundreds to perhaps a thousand of years hence. I suspect only do due to my Geology education which gives one a proper perspective of time - particularly how short a thousand years really is.

So yes, I find Alaskamaid's views pretty objectionable.

The analogy that comes to my mind when someone says they are looking forward to global warming - especially the oil companies who are eagerly awaiting ice free arctic seas is a heroin addict who appetite for smack becomes even more ravenous as the fatal terminal point of the addiction is reached.

So many posts, so little time.

Kem Patrick writes "methane begins to "burp" out into our atmosphere, there is no turning back, no do-overs. Once it begins to escape from the perma-frost in earnest, as it has done twice previously in Earth's history, it will not stop. We humans will then be history. Time is running out and if you have children and love them, you should be very concerned.__ VERY."

Kem, with all humility, i say, don't resist this. The human race is due for the wakerupper that peak oil is bringing. There is nothing that will wake the sleeping denier faster than reality brought on by global warming. First the big mammals will become extinct. Then the trees will be gone. The honeybees will wave bye-bye as they fade into the sunset.

Man will be left alone, if he remains on this course, naked and alone. Who will want to live here when nature becomes extinct????? Who will save the humans?

I think Alaskamaid was indulging in a little end of the long hard winter humor. Everyone on this post is so angry! What gives?

Ever seen the gypsy moth devastation along the Blue Ridge Parkway (Virginia)? It has to be similar to the pine beetle infestation, and it was a sad sight when I was down there about 10 years ago.

We can only make "educated guesses" about the effects of all this, but that CO2 hockey stick graph keeps climbing, and climbing faster.

Kimberly Clark, mentioned above, should be held responsible for sustainable forestry, which should help with a carbon deficit. Are they? How can they balance carbon if diapers, tissues... all end up in landfills turning into methane? Sounds like a consumer awareness thing, but the stuff is so darn convenient!

USAn: The mining is wrecking the water quality in both W VA and Alberta, too!

If you cut down trees and preserve them, and replace the trees you will reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Notice how the carbon Greenpeace is talking about is if there's a fire or the soil disturbed. The important one is the burning and the decay of wood. We don't need to have forest fires. If we had the same enthusiasm for building water bombers that we have for building regular bombers we would have squadrons of bombers putting out forest fires. Instead you will see one or two. The logging issue seems rather mixed up. The permafrost and methane problem seems more significant to me.

Brian Brademeyer: Your post refutes mine beautifully. Thank-you. I will change.

The soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq should be civilians. They should be employed by the Forest Service removing dead wood from U.S. forests and grinding it up into useful products. This would remove the hazard of serious fires that blaze in the crowns and destroy forests. It would also give useful employment to soldiers and mercenaries in Iraq. The forests should be managed like eternal gardens, not like strip mines.

The trouble with the naive fringe programs I urge is that they do not funnel huge sums of money to a few individuals like George Bush and his friends. Instead, they distribute the benefits of our labor to society as a whole.

remember when all the new tech computers etc hit every business they said it would save paper and the forests. Well almost every company now says it uses 4 times as much paper as before. Where does this paper come from? Just look at the amount of ads, junk we get in the mail box daily

Brian Brademeyer: Excellent case, thanks.

I am glad I plant trees on my farm. So far I am up to 1700 trees my kids and I have planted. I have another 300 to plant this spring.
BUT if I cover the farm land with trees where will I plant the corn for food?????

You beat me to it, Brian Brademeyer. Yet another thanks. I'll also add that the amount of time it takes a newly planted forest to accumulate as much atmospheric CO2 that the old-growth forest held is...is never granted to those newly planted forests in the first place. Sequestration levels drop, and then bounce up and down at a very low level as the plot is "farmed." Nevermind the rate comparison, because the total amount sequestered is so different as to make rate comparisons pointless.

Oh, and "good luck," what kind of trees are you planting? May I suggest sugar maple, black walnut, apple, and cherry?

Conservation, not conservatism.

Conservatism is ecocide.

Thank you, bbr-001

If people read my post objectively, they would see the major point I'm making is that we have to be flexible. And yes, the view is definitely improved, altho I really miss picking lowbush cranberries in the moss under the spruce trees. The fire was not started by humans and was definitely unstoppable.

Succession happens. I didn't say that I specifically was cheering on global warming, just that we don't all think it's a Bad Thing. Personally, we would like to be able to raise hemp rather than hay. And I wouldn't mind a few grape vines.

We are used to extremes, I am just suggesting the rest of you should think in terms of more extreme climate variability too (one of the symptoms of 'global warming'). As we sink into our thawing, methane-burping permafrost . . .

C'mon, lighten up, don't project your own fears, do something useful instead !

My posts disturb you ~MISANTHORPE~. Don't read them.

Methane gas was one of the subjects in the article and I posted an important link pertaining to that very serious subject matter, as there may be some who read the article and the comments and are not aware of that most serious problem. BTW, I could care less of what you may think of me ~Messanthorpe~.

The reason I often post that link, is because it is the __'very most'__ important issue humanity faces. There are hundreds of other articles available on the net concerning methane gas, one can read them by Googling Arctic methane gas.

Global warming is a fact and the fact is, it is going to allow the (400 gigatons) of Arctic methane gas to release into our atmosphere and when it suddenly does, it will be over-night, the end of almost all life on our water-world planet. Some deep sea creatures, plankton and bacteria may survive.

~Misanthorpe~ has often been critical of me here over the months, for whatever reason he or she may have.___ The FACT is, We must begin a massive world-wide effort to solve the global warming issue. Time is fleeting and if you have children or grandchildren and you wish for them to have any fair chance of a future, you may be inclined to agree that we should at the very least, attempt to avert the disaster of the methane gas escaping into our atmosphere. ___ It can be averted but we humans have to work quickly to do so.

Or, we can ignore the issue, deny it and criticize any who bring it up, as ~Misanthorpe~ chooses to do. I'll be so bold as to post the link again, as it truly is our MOST important issue.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html

This report is just a bit exaggerating on the high end of a quite legitimate carbon bomb threat.

It's painful to rein in the outliers, and I'd classify myself as a high-end outlier all the way through the growth of global warming awareness, but there's no guarantee of a full-tilt carbon bomb.

There's a perfectly good threat of a half-tilt carbon bomb. Scientists have gone to Siberian permafrost puddles and lakes and have measured the methane coming up several years ago.

One reason to talk about a half-tilt carbon bomb is because it's something humanity can fight and solve. Similarly, a 50 foot rise in sea level is something New Yorkers can run away from if necessary, but the locals would grieve for their subways and roads. A full-tilt carbon bomb wiping out 99% of humanity is only a reason to have a big party now.

~ALASKAMAID~ Who sounds like a very decent person, but not educated about the serious nature of the problem.

You say, "lighten up and don't project your own fears, do something useful."

Well, what is useful, is to attemt to insure our elected know about this issue and perhaps they will become well educated and work with other nation's leaders to solve the man-made global warming problem.

If you knew for certain, that a deranged madman was coming to attack your home and kill everyone there, would you do something about it? ___ Or, would you ignore it and say, "I'm not going to project my fears, I'm gonna lighten up."

That's a serious question Alaskamaid, think aboutt it.

~USAn~ posted at 4.45pm, that the methane gas release may be a serious problem, but it won't occur in our lifetimes.

Well, several thousand scientists who have spent their entire adult lives studying our planet disagree with you ~USAn~. Some give us a hundred more years, most say from 50 to a 100, and some say 10 to twenty, maybe even less. Most all agree it's going to happen, they just don't all agree on the time frame.

Just recently, the scientists who study the enviroment were "astounded" at the rate of the ice melt in Antartica and Greenland. Time is not on our side. We can act, or we can deny and hope. ___ Hope is good, but actions are far better. ___ Denying that which is painfully obvious is not so good, or even smart.

Logging is not the only activity that threatens the Canadian forests. Go to Google earth and enter these coordinates: 56 56.2571'n, 111 23.5281'w
This is just north of Fort McMurray Alberta, Canada where there is extensive strip mining for tar sands. Zoom in and you will get an upclose picture of absolute destruction. Zoom out and explore the area - you will see thousands of square miles of land that have been gridded for mining. All of this for "OIL".
Following is an article that lays out the positive and negatives of this devastating activity.
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=30703

MISANPATHROPE

'and wow, this link is only 4 years old.' that's the whole point that you don't seem to grasp. scientists have been talking about this methane for a long time, but no-one seems to be addressing the problem.................as for obsessions: what harm is it doing you that KEM takes this matter seriously?

Does "KEM take this matter seriously", -coco?

If he truly does not understand that his "the sky is falling" tone and barely on topic or in context repetitive technique are doing "this matter" more harm than good than I feel a bit sorry ol' KEM PATRICK.

I can understand -misanthrope-'s exasperation.

When I read this headline, I actually said to myself "I wonder how many posts before KEM PATRICK mentions the Killer Artic Methane Gas?".

How 'bout just one suggestion as to what we can do my capitalized friend?

Pretty Please? Cherry-full-of-deadly-methane on top?

-matti.

As for the topic of the Article, I think USAn made a good point about the "tricksy tactics" the groups involved seem to employ.

Also what's up with the Lead Headlines always being "mainstream" here at CD?

Or can I even write that about a Canadian paper?

-matti.

reminds of a tombstone inscription I read on Boothill: "I told you I was sick".

Help me understand the argument that forest managed to produce lumber is not a net absorber of carbon. If you build relatively perminent structures with the wood, does'nt that sequester the carbon for a long time? If you keep the planting and harvesting cycle going, where does all the new carbon come from that is replacing the carbon sequestered in the lumber? Areyou saying that processing and transporting the lumber releases more atmospheric carbon than is in the lumber that is used to build the structures?

Mr. Obvious, 2/3 of the carbon in tree-farmed "forests" is lost immediately (a few years) after logging by decay of the roots and branches. Very little of the canadian boreal forest is used for dimensional lumber (it is scrub spruce).

The mass of carbon held in the "bole" of the tree can increase basically linearly for several hundreds of years (the mass in the roots and branches essentially stops increasing after around a hundred years for pines, which can live for 700-800 years).

Logging is a short-sited loser, with essentially NO environmental benefits compared to leaving the forest alone.

Brian - Is this specific carbon balance specific to the boreal forests, or does it also apply to lumber harvested for lumber? I ask because selective harvesting of hardwood species is commonly practiced by my neighbores and I have been approached as well (although I love the big trees and will not sell them for asthetic reasons).

I think that Gaia has a lethal infection and there is no cure, unless the extraterresterials abduct all the humans and dump them on Mars, where we'd probably repeat the process. No wonder George Carlin is actively rooting for our destruction.

Mr Obvious,

Good question. I am thinking primarily in terms of conifer forests, those that I am locally familiar with. Hardwoods are slower-growing than conifers, so I think the argument would be similar, but the time frame would be longer.

The main point is, Mother Nature has given us these beautiful organisms that remove carbon from the atmosphere (plants) for free!. Cutting down the tree (any tree, I believe) interrupts this organic carbon-sequestration process, and resets it to zero, with a net loss of around 2/3 of the carbon currently sequestered in that tree ( its trunk, roots, and branches).

Letting new-growth trees again mature in a cropping cycle never gets you back to where the original tree was when you cut it. And not even close to the stage that tree would be at if you had simply let it keep on growing, and keep on sucking carbon out of the atmosphere.

The goal should be to keep as many (large) trees alive, for as long as each can possible live, before the inevitable decay cycle consumes (recycles) their remains.

Hope this helps, and I hope that you keep the hardwoods currently growing on your property for your, your children's, your grandchildren's, and your great-grandchildren's lifetimes for them all to enjoy.