[B]Greenhouse effects of clearcutting is debated[/B]

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Published: April 11, 2008

By JAMES DAMSCHRODER

The Union Democrat

A battle of words is heating up as environmentalists and the state's largest timber producer countdown the days to a critical state court decision on timber harvesting in California.

ForestEthics and Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch unleashed a report Thursday detailing the potential negative effects of Sierra Pacific Industries' logging practices on global warming.

According to the report, deforestation is second only to fossil fuel emissions in causing greenhouse gas emissions.

"SPI's clear-cutting, and conversion to plantations, has been known for a long time," said Susan Robinson, of EPFW. "However, this report shows for the first time, the magnitude of this destruction and its undeniable impact on global warming."

The environmental groups were beaten to the punch, however, by an SPI-produced report released last week which argued that "intensive forest management" stored carbon at almost twice the rate of an unmanaged forest.

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Hmmmm.. I just read both ForestEthic's and SPI's reports and they each contradict themselves at points. Neither gives enough details (raw data) to come up with an independent conclusion.

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In my opinion most green groups miss the fact that carbon is still stored after felling, stored in the furniture, flooring, framing, paper and sawdust that is the result of felling, to say nothing of the 30% of the tree (root system) left in the ground after harvest.

Mosaic harvest systems should be implemented to create a patchwork of multi aged and older growth forest with never to be harvested sections.

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dadpad wrote:

In my opinion most green groups miss the fact that carbon is still stored after felling, stored in the furniture, flooring, framing, paper and sawdust that is the result of felling, to say nothing of the 30% of the tree (root system) left in the ground after harvest.

Mosaic harvest systems should be implemented to create a patchwork of multi aged and older growth forest with never to be harvested sections.

ForestEthics did state that 35% of the forest's carbon remains in the stumpage.

The issue of how the wood is reused is teh main item where I noted that they contradicted themselves. They disapprove of the idea that carbon remains stored in the wood used for furniture and building lumber but then contradict that by that it isn't a problem that trees damaged by fire fall and rot on the ground releasing carbon.

It seems to me that most lumber used, for example, in building a house would take longer to release it's carbon than a tree rotting in the elements.

Furniture of course, would depend on the quality of the piece. The stuff made of MDF doesn't seem to last very long for me. But I have several pieces that are antiques too and they've lasted better than 80 years.

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[B]Greenhouse effects of clearcutting is debated[/B]

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