Woodsman, Spare That Tree!

Well, on second thought, maybe you should cut it down and re-plant.  As has been often noted here, much to the chagrin of our local "science writer" and all-round expert: adherents to the Religion of Anthropogenic Global Warming Climate Change and who subscribe to the belief that anthropogenic carbon dioxide releases are about to kill the planet - yet who also oppose logging operations - are simply hypocrites.

Scientists suspect that the forests with the biggest trees store the most carbon, and the Northwest forests are probably among the largest carbon sinks in the world. However, they also say that while slower-growing older trees store more carbon, younger trees also absorb more carbon as they grow rapidly.

If you've followed the climate change arguments on this site, then you know that this has been mentioned here time and again.  Nice to see that at least some of the scientists have finally caught up.

But they're still missing the main point.  That sets up a debate about how forests should be managed, particularly whether older trees should be cut to make way for younger ones or whether they should be protected to store the carbon they contain.

No, you don't "protect" old trees as a means of storing carbon.

Doing so means that the stored carbon will be released either quickly, during the course of wildfire, or slowly, as the tree decays.  What you do, to maintain carbon sequesterization for as long as possible, is exactly the opposite: you cut the tree, mill it, and turn as much as possible into long-lived products.  Once the cut is made, you re-plant.

Comments

[Bobkat]

To expand on this aspect, I heard an environmentalist talking about how he designed his "green" home and he made a very important comment. He said that one aspect of living green was to build to last. He said that he used high quality lumber because by the time the studs in his house needed replacing a whole new forest will have grown from where his were cut.
It's amazing how most environmettlists reject the most obvious renewable resources such as hydroelectric and forest products. Or the most effective, nuclear. Makes you wonder how sincere they really are.