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Sorry treehugger, but this is a very incoherent article.
There isn't a single paragraph in this article that actually proves wrong the fact that decaying trees from the infestation will release more greenhouse gases if unchecked than if cut and made into products(or buried for that sake). And somewhere it falls out into a totally random argument that houses became too large in the nineties. Doesn't really concern the Pine Beetle.
If they cut the diseased forest and the perimeter, new trees, hopefully more disease resistant, will grow faster than in a decaying forest. Early regrowth forest store much more carbon than old growth They are actually right, wether it resembles bush rhetoric or not. You can summon the whole world if you like, they are still right.
Sorry treehugger, but this is a very incoherent article.
There isn't a single paragraph in this article that actually proves wrong the fact that decaying trees from the infestation will release more greenhouse gases if unchecked than if cut and made into products(or buried for that sake). And somewhere it falls out into a totally random argument that houses became too large in the nineties. Doesn't really concern the Pine Beetle.
If they cut the diseased forest and the perimeter, new trees, hopefully more disease resistant, will grow faster than in a decaying forest. Early regrowth forest store much more carbon than old growth They are actually right, wether it resembles bush rhetoric or not. You can summon the whole world if you like, they are still right.
It is a very difficult subject. I just had to cut down a beautiful forty year old tree on my land. Those damned pine beetles (I hate them) had decimated it to a point where it was a danger to falling on our cabin. The beetles had sapped the poor thing, to the point were it had a pitiful withered trunk bleeding forth sap and giving them a great place to breed and thrive. The tree's are being devastated. Dead tree's must be removed, they pose fire threats. That pine sap is like gasoline. Problem is the pine beetle, an amazingly camouflaged creature. It would be horrible to pesticide an entire forest, so cutting tree's itsabout all that can be done. As the culling of the feral animals on the Galapagos, it is cruel but seems necessary. That's the thing about trying to control natural phenomenon, it's tricky and right and wrong are hard to define.
Sorry, but you simply have no concept of how devastating this pine beetle is, John. I was born in Vancouver and have spent about three months there in 2008 (I'm currently in Vancouver right now). In 08 I spent time on Vancouver Island and in the Okanagan and I can tell you that the damage this beetle is doing is catastrophic. It is very easy to see that if strong and immediate action is not taken in an attempt to get rid of this infestation then we can write off Canada's forests, which make up 7% of the world's forests.
These beetles spread fast and do an absolutely stunning amount of damage. There simply is not enough time to wait around 5 years for studies to determine that we should have removed the infested trees right now. This is not a case of FUD being spread by industry, this is a serious problem that demands a serious solution.
I agree with the first comment (Kj). The article is pretty incoherent. The only thing I can derrive is that the author doesn't like logging, and then starts grasping at straws to support that position. His "economic" argument is particularly bizarre.
"State, Provincial, and Federal forestry agencies, in North America, and likely elsewhere, were historically chartered with one of their main missions being to serve the forest products industry."
Huh? Where do you get this? I think you will find, in Canada, at least, their job is to regulate the forest industry -- a not very subtle distinction!
"This happened nearly a century ago - on the tail of the Paul Bunyan era - when extant national forest acreages were much larger than they are now"
That is a demonstrably false statement. 100 years ago, total forest coverage in North America was approximately 20% less than today.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/x4995e.htm#P56_2748
"This update gets to the meta-point that you can use climate change to rationalize pretty much any thing you want. And the scarier climate change is seen, the is the easier it is for the PR spin doctors and lobbyists to use it to rationalize their view of policy needs."
Are you joking? You have completely undermined your own arguments (whatever they are?). That is exactly what the Global Warming lobby is doing!
Hate to say this, but if anyone here has actually seen the destruction caused by these wretched pine beetles, the best solution is certainly to cut them, and any possibly affected trees down.
A short term clear-cutting is a much better, and more economically viable solution than debating about this any longer, in the time we've hummed and hawed about this problem, more forest than ever is under attack.
A clear cutting of these trees would be a shame, to be sure, but that isn't to say that the areas could not be planted again, after the beetles have died off. In the long term, for mother nature, I believe this would be better than any other possible solution I see presented here.
Little as we may like this solution, it's worth asking what can be done about forests full of disesased trees, which are an actual fire hazard. Perhaps it would make sense to cut down already infested trees (which are no good as timber, of course) and subject them to anaerobic combustion to create syngas and biochar. The biochar could be returned to the ground to sequester the carbon, and the syngas could be used to generate electricity. It might be possible to use syngas to displace coal or natural gas burners. A good replanting program with less susceptible trees could replace the infested areas.
I agree, the article is outraged, but largely incoherent. No real alternative solution was presented.
Update acknowledged.I do appreciate the point that the climate-change argument can be championed for dubious purposes, good point. And I am not contending the building-economics point that is made. But as I can gather from the article, the statements that; [the decaying forests are becoming a net carbon emitter], and that; [more wood products in construction is good for the climate], are from two different sources (are they)? Anyway, treating the statements as two different issues, the latter one may or may not be true, but I am more interested in the first one; what to do with the areas with Pine Beetles, and what strategy emits less carbon. That may be just logging, and logging isn't inherently bad.
=== author's response follows ====
Thanks.
Seems likely that there is a hope to use logging revenues to offset the cost of containing the disease. Just a guess.
I do not know enough about the beetle's life cycle to speak authoritatively, but it seems to me that unless one clears both the stumpage and branches on the periphery of an outbreak, as well as salable logs that the disease source will not be contained. Logging companies are not going to pay for that without subsidy.
Secondly, it seems to me that the construction of logging roads and subsequent hauling of potentially beetle containing logs to mills outside the contaminated zone is likely to spread the disease unexpectedly unless very strict decontamination measures are imposed all along the supply chain. Has the cost for this been thought about? Not addressed in any of the articles I saw.
It is probably best to think about this issue in several scenarios.
One in which various control measures are attempted in a research mode until one or more are shown to work and are then widely deployed over the course of many years, which means a lot of damage will be done during the process.
Another in which nothing works effectively; and it truly is an ecosystem disaster that results.
It is important to remember that dead trees in the far north do not decay in a year or two. Winter stops that process for a third of the year. I've seen stumps and logs charred and still around 70 years after a fire. That would be an outer time bound I suppose. What is the minimum avg time that passes before significant decay occurs - in which harvest can be done to avert a climate impact?
All of these issues and many more need to be addressed by a body of scientists of diverse background, as I alluded to in my post. Attacking me for "incoherency" on a subject where much more information is needed (as some commenters have done) seems to miss that point.
Lack of controlled burns have created very high fuel loads in Western US forests, there's no avoiding that. Also, the beetle-killed biomass tends to burn. The US Forest Service had been trying to manage the crisis, but cannot do it economically as the loggers didn't have enough economic incentive to selectively cut over large areas even when prices for wood were high, and the government didn't want to pay.
With employment low and fuel prices likely to go high, and with the government printing money, a CCC-type labor-intensive operation could remove this growth more selectively, and lower-tech human labor could salvage the wood on sight, so you don't truck out logs, but truck out finished dimensional lumber and even built products (furniture kits, building members) cut on site by CCC people using portable mills and shops.
Of course, not economically efficient, but with a government-financed labor program, that's not the point, plus it creates perhaps a sustainable-practices local industry that can endure beyond the immediate crisis.
You bring up some interesting objections to the logging-route, now. Another objection I saw in another related article here, was that standing trees decayed trees served as windbreaks and nurses for new trees.
The complexity presented by these and other objections, would have definetly calmed me when initially reading the article. Logging will probably be one of the measures, and hopefully it can be done relatively sustainably, and it would only be a benefit if some value can be extracted in the form of energy and materials. Some may profit by it, but I would still not assume that the canadian forest agency is running errands for big industry. I question the need for the IPCC, and Kyoto-agreement holders(especially), being involved in an urgent biosecurity issue, considering their mode of operation isn't exactly configured for urgency... For long-term forest management globally, that's another issue.
Charred trees will stand for a long time, but that would assume they actually have been through a fire, before that being a serious fire risk. Obviously an unacceptable one in populated areas.
On-site conversion of the biomass to methanol, as proposed by this washington U research is an alternative to transport of logged wood out of infested area.
http://www.cfr.washington.edu/research.Forest_E...>
On-site conversion of the biomass to methanol, as proposed by this washington U research is an alternative to transport of logged wood out of infested area.
http://www.cfr.washington.edu/research.Forest_E...>
I thought these updates and endorsements may interest you,
Senator / Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar has done the most to nurse this biofuels system in his Biochar provisions in the 07 & 08 farm bill,
http://www.biochar-international.org/newinforma...>
Below are my current news & Links to major developments;
Biochar, the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages… SIMULTANEOUSLY!
The IBI Announces Success in Having Biochar Considered as a Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Tool;
POZNAN, Poland, December 10, 2008 - The International Biochar Initiative (IBI) announces that the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has submitted a proposal to include biochar as a mitigation and adaptation technology to be considered in the post-2012-Copenhagen agenda of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A copy of the proposal is posted on the IBI website at
The International Biochar Initiative (IBI).
Modern Pyrolysis of biomass is a process for Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration,10X Lower Methane & N2O soil emissions, and 3X Fertility Too.
Every 1 ton of Biomass yields 1/3 ton Charcoal for soil Sequestration, Bio-Gas & Bio-oil fuels, so is a totally virtuous, carbon negative energy cycle.
Charles Mann ("1491") in the Sept. National Geographic has a wonderful soils article which places Terra Preta / Biochar soils center stage.
Please put this (soil) bug in your colleague's ears. These issues need to gain traction among all the various disciplines who have an iron in this fire.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/soil/...>
I also have been corresponding with Michael Pollan ( NYT Food Columnist, Author ) to do a follow up story.
Since the NGM cover reads "WHERE FOOD BEGINS" , I thought this would be right down his alley and focus more attention on Mann's work.
It's what Mann hasn't covered that I thought should interest any writer as a follow up article;
Biochar data base;
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node</p>
NASA's Dr. James Hansen Global warming solutions paper and letter to the G-8 conference, placing Biochar / Land management the central technology for carbon negative energy systems.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.112...>
The many new university programs & field studies, in temperate soils; Cornell, ISU, U of H, U of GA, Virginia Tech, JMU, New Zealand and Australia.
Glomalin's role in soil tilth, fertility & basis for the soil food web in Terra Preta soils.
Given the current "Crisis" atmosphere concerning energy, soil sustainability, food vs. Biofuels, and Climate Change what other subject addresses them all?
This is a Nano technology for the soil that represents the most comprehensive, low cost, and productive approach to long term stewardship and sustainability.
Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
In a recent National Public Radio interview, Michael Pollan talks about how he was approached by a Democratic party staffer about his New York Times article, The"Farmer & an open letter to the next president concerning U.S. agriculture/energy policy. The staffer wanted Pollan to summarize the article into a page or two to get it into the hands of Barack Obama. Pollan declined, saying that if he could have said everything that needed to be said in two pages, he wouldn't have written 8000 words.
Michael Pollan is well briefed about Biochar technology, but did not include it in his "Farmer & Chief" article to President Obama, (Which he did read & cited in a speech) but I'm sure Biochar will be his 8001th word to him.
Erich
540 289 9750
Why the attacks on the author? Is that why you logged in, so that you could get your daily steam off? And that comment about how there is no time to review the matter, the forest needs to come down now, sounds alot like "drill, baby drill!" Scientific reasoning should never ever be circumvented by popular opinion. Let's hope our humble opinions, our intuition, our interests don't decide the fate of Canada's last forests. Like the author said, fear should not drive the climate discussion, and our opinions are latent with fear.
So, by putting our own interests aside, we may find that the solution here is simply: " What is best for the forest?" Is that not the healthiest solution for us? And the whole economic argument: using this beetle phenom as an excuse to stimulate the construction industry and provide housing is simply a moot point, propagated by industry, which itself has no other interest than to reap whatever bounty that has been left unguarded.
Wouldn't one diseased tree used to produce lumber mean there would be one less living healthy tree cut to produce lumber? The lumber companies will clean up the stumpage and branches after harvest if those who own the tree mandate it as a condition to obtain trees. No the lumber companies aren't going to pay the cost, as they will pass it on to the consumer. One way or the other the consumer will pay the cost of mitigating the pine beetle. Yes the article is difficult to read. Looks like something I would have written.
Even if forests switch from being carbon sinks to carbon sources, logging will only make it worse by increasing the rate that the carbon is transferred to the atmosphere. Forest conservation is still the best course. See this slideshow to better understand why this is so:
http://www.slideshare.net/dougoh/forest-carbon-...
I live in Prince George BC , north of Vancouver, where the pine beetle has done most of it's damage. Every pine tree in and around the city was affected by the beetle and these now dead trees have been cut down to eliminate the real threat of forest fire every summer. A lot of it has been taken to local mills and made into dimensional lumber, sold as firewood for use in stoves with catalytic converters or, used to build log houses, like we did two years ago. If the beetle killed pine is harvested quickly it still retains enough strength to be used in building projects. Researches at the University of Northern British Columbia come up with innovated uses for this wood , with it's characteristic blue stain, every day.