Lately I’m astonished by all the efforts to harvest timber.
For instance (i) O’bama did it in Washington State when he granted Sealaska Corp. a sweetheart deal in exchange for a healthcare vote. What Sealaska got was logging access to 65,000 plus acres of Pacific Northwest old growth rainforest.
(ii) Then there is David Obey (D-WI), Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, who (before announcing his retirement) was attempting to time the construction of a bio-fuels plant to coincide with his re-election. The plant to be located in Rothschild, Wisconsin would burn trees to generate electricity. It now appears that the State and Federal Government are continuing with the plans to benefit the election of Obey’s successor.
(iii) His efforts coincided with the Department of Agriculture being ordered to move on a plan to incentives farmers harvesting trees for use as bio-fuels via a proposed rule to the Biomass Crop Assistance Program under the 2008 Farm Bill.
(iv) Recently, Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., proposed the “American Climate Act” - a disaster for our planet and climate – that incentivizes the destruction of forests.
In any event, regardless of the reason, a couple of things bother me about all this glorious logging our National Politicians are trying to do. First off, trees are one of our best lines of defense against a warming planet, and secondly trees really shouldn’t be considered a “renewable” or “sustainable” resource anymore. Let me explain.
By way of introduction to the first assertion (and to avoid pouring over scientific data) let me offer the following exchange of E-mails I had with Timothy J. Donohue at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who is with The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center:
My E-mail of March 15, 2010:
“Dear Dr. Donohoue:
Unfortunately I will not be able to attend your March 16 lecture regarding the future of bio-fuels.
However, I do have a comment. I would assert that the highest and best use of a tree, howsoever bioengineered, in this time of climate change is simply to live as natural a life as possible as a tree and be allowed to die and decompose in the place it grew.
I question whether an accounting of the C02 involved in extraction, processing and burning a bio-fuel from certain plant resources considered “renewable” is really wise when you consider that the act of harvesting the underlying resource is really a forfeiture of the carbon binding properties plant would have otherwise provided throughout its natural life cycle. This type of opportunity cost can be especially large and multi-year in nature when dealing specifically with trees. Can you tell me with certainty that, over time, trees are not capable of binding more carbon than they are capable of “saving” in their use as a bio-fuel?
What is more, my concern is that everything considered the average useable biomass per tree harvested for bio-fuel will be going down in the future. Primarily because the climate is offering less hospitable growing conditions, but also, as the demand for bio-fuel outstrips supply a premium will result in (1) harvesting older, larger, necessarily “wild” trees, and (2) increasing pressure to harvest planted, replanted and/or trees with genetically enhanced growth rates at a younger and younger age. And even trees genetically enhanced to withstand some droughts and a handful of known diseases, as well as perhaps even grow faster, are still susceptible to fire, a few pests, and the pit-falls of “mono-culture”. It wouldn’t surprise if the absolute number of trees also went down in the future.
So, in addition to taking steps to protect trees from the bio-fuels industry might it not be wise to spend energy enhancing their ability to aid us with C02 as they exist in their natural life cycle? Especially, in lieu of the fact that C02 levels are estimated to remain high for centuries to come.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated. As you may know, April 9, 2010, is the deadline for public comment on the Department of Agricultures plan to offer a stimulus to increase the harvest of trees for bio-fuels production.
Thank you”
Dr. Donohue’s Response:
“Hello Thomas
Sorry you can not make the presentation. You are making an excellent point.
In fact it is the same point that Phil Robertson, who leads the Great Lakes Bioenergy sustainability made in a perspective he published in Science magazine last fall, namely that harvesting forests - without regard to their carbon content - doesn't make much co2 sense. Its growing new stuff that makes sense.....
In fact the balance of these issues are being scientifically evaluated in Great Lakes Bioenergy. We hope to get the science on these and other issues to inform environmental, economic, and other policies as society evaluates the relative role of cellulosic biofuels in the energy grid.
Regards
Tim”
These two E-mails cover a lot of ground. Suffice it say that trees take and keep carbon out, and put oxygen back into the atmosphere in a manner most conducive to the planets survival. Technology can’t improve upon this unique offering. Even if you choose to burn trees to make electricity, sequester the C02 that is given off, and replant the forest you’ll end up less than optimal because it can take many, many years for a new forest to extract the same amount of C02 from the atmosphere as did the forest you burned. Also, all the criticisms pertaining to destruction of the rainforest apply to cutting trees to combat climate change.
The second assertion concerning the “renewable” nature of trees you may have already witnessed yourself. The way I understand the definition of a “renewable” or “sustainable” resource is that it is something that replenishes itself naturally. This is increasingly not the case with trees and it is going to get worse.
Firstly, we are now at 391 ppm of C02 in our atmosphere. This is above the 350 ppm recommend by scientists to avoid catastrophic climate change. So let me be blunt. It is very likely that there is no longer ANY resource on our planet that is purely “renewable” or “sustainable” NATURALLY. Such resources, including trees, are going to require increasing amounts of human assistance to replenish themselves.
The reason’s are obvious to any gardener. Irregular rainfall patterns don’t result in the kind of soil absorption that we have seen in the past. Flash floods and droughts are becoming increasingly common. Heat waves will be growing in frequency and severity and many trees that are indigenous to your area are not equipped to tolerate temperatures that are more indicative of climates further south. Worse still the death of a plant by heat exposure is not a function of how long the plant is exposed to its critical maximum temperature. This means that the instant a plant is exposed to its maximum tolerable temperature it dies. A chemical reaction takes place. There will be no “oh, it will come back”, or “it looks like it just needs a little water”. Exposure to less then maximum, but still historically aberrant temperatures result in stunned growth. All told unnatural water and heat conditions can frustrate a trees reproduction, stunt its growth, or even kill it.
So in the future, if you want trees, your probably going to have to plant one that somebody else grew under controlled conditions and then be sure to check back over the years to water it and keep it cool during heat waves. And once a resource requires human assistance it is no longer, in my book anyway, a truly “sustainable” or “renewable” resource.
Need more? In a joint study between the University’s Wisconsin and Minnesota it was found that current levels of C02 in the atmosphere are actually starting to slow the growth rate of trees. So as far as trees are concerned, we have already achieved a level of C02 in the atmosphere that represents a state of super-saturation. Again let me blunt - there is evidence mounting that it is toxic for trees to be in the earth’s atmosphere.
So why the rush to cut trees at every turn? Lack of campaign finance reform? John Kerry has reported receiving Cash Payments that include $22,750 from the Petroleum refining & marketing industry and $76,586 from Major (multinational) Oil and Gas Producers. [Ken Salazar took $323,000 in campaign contributions from energy interests]
Are Bio-fuels the path of least resistance for the oil and gas industry?
The Valero plant in Jefferson, Wisconsin together with the conduct of Governor Jim Doyle and the State’s Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources (who hired himself a chauffer – at the State’s expense - shortly after being appointed) make a good case study.
Comments
Utilizing lumber 30 years ago could have worked. Whether trees are allowed to decay in place, or are burned, is carbon neutral over time. New, replacement trees ultimately absorb the carbon. A balance that's been in place way before the human species walked the planet.
Burning a lot of trees will add to CO2 in the 30 year span before new tree growth can neutralize it....and 30 years implies quick growing species, such as poplar or pine.
If we could lower CO2 in the atmosphere to previous levels, the use of renewable wood as fuel is a viable energy option...and it isn't as efficient as coal or oil. Energy uses would still have to be cut.
I do foresee the day when we will do that....and not in my lifetime. Perhaps after a recovery from environmental collapse and a smaller global population resulting from it..
Environmental concerns and destruction of the atmosphere are being addressed in a manner that has little effect. Too little, too late. If CO2 emissions were brought down to 30 year-ago levels, the planet would still heat up another 2 degrees by what's already been set in motion. We're a long way from that sort of reduction. Exceeding the 2 degree increase won't be pleasant.
We are Neros playing our fiddles.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
The highest and best economic use of a tree is as a living tree. The economic goods and services it provides as a living tree far exceeds any other use.
If that isn't an offense to human dignity I don't what is. No wonder so many people hate trees.
Nevertheless, only dead trees and trees in the direct path of "human progress" should be converted to energy, lumber and other products.
If lumber products were designed responsibly most could be reusable for many centuries. The greatest obstacle to this is the free-market-driven strategy of planned obsolescence.
(Future historians will pronounce that the highest product of the free market was the landfill.)
Poor Richard is spot on. This is just another indication that nothing we do is sustainable.Fro most Americans, everything is throw away, with the idea that it doesn't matter because trees are "farmed", so people feel it acceptable to buy cheap furniture, which in many cases leads directly to human encroachment into wildlife habitat and devastation of that habitat and slaughter of wildlife. As First-Ever Landscape-Wide Study of Elephants and Great Apes discusses, the only way to log and protect wildlife is to provide strong anti-poaching protections and stop human encroachment. This cost must be added to every wood based product, regardless of where it comes from to help protect wildlife habitat as well as better managing cutting, to ensure a high quality forest. Screw the market as the market doesn't care.
Even without the argument for CO2 sequestration is the argument for leaving trees in place to decay and provide for recycling the nutrients that are the dead tree and provide home for myriad animals.
Even without the argument for CO2 sequestration is the argument for leaving trees in place to decay and provide for recycling the nutrients that are the dead tree and provide home for myriad animals.
Its nice to somebody defending animals. Its true that dead wood is an important part of habitat, and I amend my comment on dead wood accordingly. We use way too much wood and recycle it very poorly. Bad on us.
Tree farm monoculture is NOT habitat. It's essentially sterile.
I agree that a natural forest, trees falling and decaying in place, is full of dead trees and nooks and crannies that serve as wildlife condos. Industrial European mindset is way anal rententive, seeking to make EVERYTHING tidy, planted in rows, and pathologically "clean" (no natural decay/composting). We have to face it: Our culture is pathologically anti-Nature at every turn. We are out of sync with our own biological place in the system of things. Our insistence that Nature be made to comply with our fickle and short-lived notions, our puny technology, and our seemingly insatiable greed is insanity and getting in the way of our own survival.
Thank you very much for all these great posts.
Nora wrote: Our insistence that Nature be made to comply with our fickle and short-lived notions, "
--------
Note that humans, being a part of the natural world, should probably be required to comply with the natural world rather than destroying it...of which they are a part. They can't destroy the natural world without destroying themselves.
We've yet to find a way to eat rocks,. breath poison and drink mercury laced water without ill effects.
Species are inter-related. Remove one, it effects another. Just causing pollinators to go extinct or be reduced in numers would mean little human food. Is mercury a part of a bees diet?
Remove a forest, and you remove a watershed. A lesson learned by Haiti where year-round streams have stopped flowing. Can't irrigate a field with plastic...nor drink it.
At some point, we have to learn to comply with nature...it isn't the other way around.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".
Polycarp2, I so agree (as I do with the majority of your posts).
Its ironic that conservatives are so fond of what they call "natural law" in legal theory. Their trouble (among so many other things) is that they are stuck at the 17th century understanding of nature. If you you tried to offer them 21st century natural science as a political/legal paradigm they would no doubt scream "Godless Socialism!" and run away in horror!
Regardless, I think that is exactly the perspective that political science needs (and to hell with the f-ing troglodyte conservatives, libertarians, etc.).
Poor Richard
Well, to some extent, we are behaving as nature designed us. Just as when the brown tree snake got onto Guam, it didn't give much thought to the ecosystem of the island when it started eating and breeding. Nature ain't so great at long term thinking.
Humans have the dubious advantage of being aware of what we're doing. We should strive to understand that we are a part of nature...and be ever vigilant to rise above it.
There's a fascinating organization, the Long Now Foundation, whose goal is to "creatively foster long-term thinking and responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years". I can't help but think we need to find a way to overcome our pathologically short attention span if we're going to make it as a species.
There's a fascinating organization, the Long Now Foundation, whose goal is to "creatively foster long-term thinking and responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years".
That's great but it would be better without the involvement of Stewart Brand, one time creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, who is now a pro-nuclear corporate PR green-washing sell-out.
According to Brand: "Cities are green, nuclear power is green, genetic engineering is green, and geo-engineering is probably necessary"
I do not know how extensively this kind of thing pervades the rest of the Long Now cadre, nor do I probably need to look that far since Brand is a central figgure there.
All that glitters is not gold.
Poor Richard
That's great but it would be better without the involvement of Stewart Brand, one time creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, who is now a pro-nuclear corporate PR green-washing sell-out.
According to Brand: "Cities are green, nuclear power is green, genetic engineering is green, and geo-engineering is probably necessary"
Well, each idea according to its merit. It's not fair to reject a good idea just because we dislike the person who thought of it.
Second, I think it's reasonable to have a nuanced position on these issues. From everything I've seen, Brand's position on nuclear power and geoengineering is predicated on the sincere belief that global warming is real and we are fast approaching the point of no return. If that it true, then taking risky decisive action now to stave off almost certain catastrophe later isn't that unreasonable.
There were great back to back articles in Skeptic Magazine, I believe it was, some time ago, taking opposing views on nuclear energy. I wish I had the issue still. It was a real eye opener for me. I still oppose nuclear energy but I can't say there aren't some legitimate arguments to be made for it and I'm not willing to condemn environmentalists who decide to take a pro-nuclear stance. I think it's possible to do so and still be principled.
Nuclear power is the only other form of power generation that is as harmless to the atmosphere as hydro—and hydro is largely maxed out...
Of course get on with radical energy conservation efforts, and keep exploring renewable technologies.
From an interview.
I would like to respond to the claim that burning trees is no different for the climate than letting the same tree die and decompose. This assertion omits the key difference that when you burn a tree to, say, generate electricity the release of the tree’s C02 is relatively immediate compared to the rate of C02 emitted over the years while the tree dies and decomposes naturally. Burning trees greatly accelerates their release of C02.
Additionally, the rate of C02 absorption is proportional to the size of the tree. An adult tree absorbs more C02 than the sapling intended to replace it once the adult tree is cut down. By harvesting trees and replanting the forests you are trading down on the lands C02 absorption capacity.
Also, I would like to quote a member of a local nature conservancy who once said “we all suffer from the same inevitably terminal condition of being alive. Therefore, to say that you will only cut dead and dying trees is not a sufficient limitation on the number of trees harvested. In any event, inventories of lumber will increase once you assign a value to a byproduct like branches.
Finally, trees provide critical habitat when they are alive, as well as when they are dead, dying or decomposing. Adopting a policy of clearing any stage of a trees existence may violate laws intended to protect the habitat of protected species of plants and/or animals. This is especially the case since the planet is now in the Holocene Mass Extinction.
Thank you
This past week a defiant sounding spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (“DNR”) under Governor James Doyle announced that the State’s plans to burn trees as a bio fuel will proceed as planned. The statement made in an interview on National Public Radio (NPR local station 88.7 in Madison, Wisconsin), comes after the State had been warned by the leader of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center that using trees as a bio-fuel “didn’t make much sense” (ref. article appearing in Science Magazine during the fall of 2009) and that the their actions may have implications under the Endangered Species Act. Their announcement comes after eye-witness reports of Trees being cleared (both indigenous and invasive, and both dead or alive) from State, County and Local Parks, Natural Areas, and Nature Preserves.
(This is the same Governor Doyle under whom the Public Service Commission allowed American Transmission Company to blow a hole through the length of the local arboretum. Apparently alternate, longer routes for the high tension suspension towers didn’t make sense. Worse still, knowing that ice-storms would become increasingly severe in Wisconsin’s future, it was felt that burying the certainly doomed power lines was unnecessary. Finally, this is the same Doyle who earlier defied majority public opinion by vetoing a law that would have made the office of Secretary of Natural Resources a non-political appointment.)
The DNR spokesperson made the comment that there is no difference to C02 from burning a tree and letting the tree die naturally because in both instances the C02 is released into the atmosphere. This statement ignores that fact that burning releases the C02 immediately while allowing a Tree to die and decompose a natural death slowly releases the same C02 over years. The comment is especially egregious as accelerating the release of C02 into the atmosphere stimulates the release of naturally occurring C02 and other green house gases into the atmosphere via feedback mechanisms. Finally, cutting a tree reduces (i) the planet's ability to take C02 out of the atmosphere, (ii) the amount of shade available, (iii) oxygen output, etc.
The State’s decision comes at a time when C02 levels are now at 391 ppm. An amount in excess of the 350 ppm recommended to avoid catastrophic climate change. And again, worse still, it came at a time when the earth is experiencing the worst mass extinction in at least one half billion years. Not only will the plans destroy habitat and take away host trees but also, by focusing on the cash-cow nature of natures the State will continue to ignore other aspects of the forest’s health like the innumerable localized extinctions caused by invasive garlic mustard and buckthorn.
The announcement to use the Commons drive electrical turbines coincides with the energy industry’s plans to build a tree fueled electrical generating station in Rothschild, Wisconsin just out of Wausau, Wisconsin. This is the same heavily wooded 7th District were David Obey recently ceded his seat to a new up and coming Democratic candidate. The plant is supposed to create jobs in time for the November election.
The announcer went on to name – while salivating - several counties in Wisconsin where the Emerald Ash Tree borer beetle posed a threat. People have been known to preemptively cut down Ash Trees to combat the beetle despite the other means available to fight the beetle,…but trying telling that to a DNR Secretary who for one of his very fist official acts hired himself a chauffeur at the public’s expense.
There is big money in natural resources. And there is every indication that our forests – regardless of their designation – are our oil fields of tomorrow.
So when it boils down to politics and nature, nature losses. But I’m curious, in a caged heat between Mother Nature and what ever god it is you believe in then who wins?
Thanks for listening.
Tom
p.s. Governor Doyle was invited to attend the Copenhagen Climate talks on behalf of America.
Perhaps we should amend our Constitution a bit. The new Bolivian Constitution has constitutional protections for nature. Nearly all species are protected. Some, like the polio virus, can still be exterminated, and it's o.k. to kill without restraint any bacteria that causes human disease
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
That's great but it would be better without the involvement of Stewart Brand, one time creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, who is now a pro-nuclear corporate PR green-washing sell-out.
According to Brand: "Cities are green, nuclear power is green, genetic engineering is green, and geo-engineering is probably necessary"
Well, each idea according to its merit. It's not fair to reject a good idea just because we dislike the person who thought of it.
I reject the person because of the ideas (which I made brief but specific reference to) and not vise versa as you imply. I started out admiring Brand in the 60's and gradually changed my opinion because of his ideas and actions alone. Calling him a sellout is based on his behavior, not on some personal grudge. I used to think he was cool.
Though I haven't made a close inspection, the whole operation at Long Now looks and smells fishy. In fact I feel I've seen all I need to steer clear of them. I'm not the first to say so.
In my opinion Brand's opinions ARE unreasonable and untrue. The arguments on both sides do indeed get very nuanced and I am intimately familiar with them. I have followed the debate closely for 40 years and I cannot even begin to summarize the arguments for you here.
You may be right that a pro-nuclear stance could be taken in good faith, but I have seem far more evidence to the contrary. If you follow the money, you usually find a rat.
This is disingenuous on its face. No one has ignored the the favorable comparison of nuclear vs fossil fuels on the basis of CO2. What are the other relative "benefits" supposed to be? His glib generalization that the dangers have been "systematically exaggerated" is the like the cast-iron pot calling the copper kettle black or the cat calling the mouse unfair. There may be exaggerations on both sides, but if you weigh them fairly, it isn't the environmental community that looks like the big fat liar.
Sounds like you have drunk the corporate Kool-aid. Solar-thermal, geothermal, photovoltaics, wind, and ocean hydro are all harmless to the atmosphere. Nuclear power is not. Radioactive particles are routinely released into the air and water during nuclear fuel processing and plant operation. In addition, the amount of fossil fuels consumed in producing nuclear fuel and building and decommissioning plants is a closely guarded secret. The industry has spent hundreds of millions (including non-disclosure legal settlements) specifically to cover up all negative information. If you doubt me you will need to dig into the data. I am not going to try to spoon feed you facts that you may choose to ignore anyway.
For every fact or report I can cite, the industry has developed 1000 times as much disinformation. This is classic information assymetry, a core corporate tactic. Stewart Brand is part of that disinformation campaign (or perhaps more properly, disinformation culture) in several technology areas. If he is acting unwittingly and in good faith, then he is simply an old fool.
With nothing but a level playing field, renewable technologies can be brought on line just as fast, kw per kw, as nuclear plants.
Poor Richard
You misunderstand me. I'm saying that institutions dedicated to taking a long term view are a good idea, regardless of who thought of them. This particular institution may be full of crackpots, I don't know that much about it. I read Brand's book "The Clock of the Long Now", and he was quite reasonable. That is about the extent of my knowledge of him or the institution.
Those were Brand's words, not mine. I oppose nuclear power. As he said, we should be putting a ton of resources into developing the various alternatives mentioned above. I gathered the gist of his point was, given the proven technologies available right now, and the time crunch, nuclear power should play a role in fighting climate change as the lesser of two evils.
I disagree with him, and think we are technologically capable of meeting the challenge with safer energy sources, though I think that was less clear at the time of his writing. Or at least less clear we could scale them to the levels needed soon enough.
But I'm really not interested in defending the guy. I don't know all that much about him. He hasn't seemed like a complete nutjob from the little I do know and that's about all I can say.
This seems a little uncalled for.
/Environmental_Performance_Index
measures quite a few variables to achieve a meaningful index. We have decommisioned nuclear plants, are geo strategically located for geo thermal, and we du use some timber, but some such as birch is harvested branches only, that grow back, the co2 absorbed while growing more than offsets the co2 released. Hay is in the same category used in Denmark and South Sweden..
One other thing about Brandt, his nuclear position was nuanced rational, sources of fuel being decommisioned warheads from former Soviet countries. Accounting for loose nukes, converting it , reducing our own, converting, mainly stop gap measure, to solve a few problems at same time, and buying time for alternatives to increase efficiency, and logistics.
You misunderstand me. I'm saying that institutions dedicated to taking a long term view are a good idea, regardless of who thought of them. This particular institution may be full of crackpots, I don't know that much about it. I read Brand's book "The Clock of the Long Now", and he was quite reasonable.
Sorry if I jumped to the wrong conclusion
My point about Brand and others at long now is not that they are nut jobs (at least not on the surface) but that I suspect them of being sly disinformation peddlers paid (probably very circuitously) by mega-industry. Industry has a geoengineering and bioengineering agenda.
But I don't want anybody to just take my word about Brand et al (unless they really want to). My comments were just intended as a "heads up".
Probably. I apologize. I enjoy much of what you post and should not be offending you.
Its my damned robotic temperament calibrator.
Poor Richard
douglaslee, since your bio is blank, who is "we"?
I see no another reference to "Brandt" in this thread. If you mean Stewart Brand, I agree that he is nuanced. A spoon full of sugar...
I can possibly see using decommissioned warheads as nuclear fuel for existing plants but don't know enough about the handling, processing, disposal, safety, etc. issues. However I am for shutting all the plants down as soon as possible. Catastrophic failures (ask BP) are not only possible but fairly probable the longer they run.
Poor Richard
President O'bama appointed Errol B. Davis, Jr., and William K. Reilly to his National Commission on Energy Policy. Mr. Davis is a board member at BP and Mr. Reilly sits on the board of ConocoPhillips, which has a number of joint ventures with BP, including the massive Tiber field in the Gulf of Mexico.
Mr. Davis joined Alliant Energy (an energy utility) in 1998 as president and chief executive officer. Davis retired from his dual roles as president and CEO in July 2005, and retained the chairman's post until his move to the University System of Georgia.
Prior to the creation of Alliant Energy, Davis served as president and CEO of WPL (Wisconsin Power and Light Company) Holdings, from 1990 to 1998.
Davis' higher education experience includes serving as a member of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents from 1987 to 1994. The University of Wisconsin system owns the arboretum that the public service commission allowed American Transmission Company to blow a hole through with new high tension power line towers.
At this writing Davis’ ties to the Rothschild, Wisconsin energy plant that generates electricity by burning trees is unknown. It is hoped that the results of plant’s deforestation efforts will be different than the Gulf Oil Spill but it is doubtful. The announcement of the tree burning plant coincides with the areas Congressional election (7th District).
Davis also presently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago.
Poor Richard:
Brand is who I had read when offering the decommissioned warheads to existing powerplants
Poor Richard:
Congratulations to Sweden. I would love to visit there, but I consider flying commercial airlines to be a faith-based activity so I don't believe in it.
Since you write "country of residence" where are you actually from?
Poor Richard
Poor Richard's Almanack 2010
I lived in Columbus as a kid. I didn't know Bart was from there. Cowabunga.
I take it you like Sweden. Anything else recommend it besides its environmental index and the Swedish Bikini Team? (I bet you're tired of that question)
Poor Richard
Poor Richard's Almanack 2010
Poor Richard, maybe you heard
McGuffey Lane when you were in Columbus?
Forgot Tommy James is from Dayton.
Very interesting. Thank you for that post.
And, may I add that removing trees (for lumber), and also clearing the forest floor -- these mean the soil is not being replenished.
Similarly, tree farms where trees are harvested and taken away also do nothing to replenish soils.
eco-watch/wickedproblems.
There are organizations that actually consider all the inputs to a grand matrix, with time sometimes being the lesser considered variable. I can see no value or excuse to trashing old growth forests or trees or the undergrowth that accompanies the conservation.
Some of the places we get mushrooms have been untouched for generations, and even have required a bit of research on my part after the fact to explain with knowledge to my kids the complexity of the parts involved in the exercise. I include sound and smell, then the silence, too. Walking on pillows, hearing real cuckoos, climbing in hollow trees, testing how some of the parts change because we are there. Did they hear us, see us, smell us, or feel us?-[ none tasted us]
from the link
Value conflicts are not limited to management of public lands. Disagreement over forest practices has prompted the environmental community to foster ballot initiatives in California (Davis et al. 1991) and in Oregon (Forest Conservation Council 1992) calling for timber practice reform on private lands. Reflecting widespread public concerns, forest practices acts in both states have been substantially altered in recent years, with provisions for increased protection of wildlife habitat, additional scenic buffers along state highways, and stricter riparian zone requirements. Currently, no debate may be more contentious than the one over endangered species and how the Endangered Species Act affects private landowners.
Natural resource managers and citizens alike are constantly evaluating decisions about their environment, "but they do not decide simply on some objective basis of right and wrong, safe and unsafe. Instead, decisions on environmental use are reached in a social context: they are influenced by such factors as cultural values and attitudes toward the environment, social class, and our relationship to others" (Cable and Cable 1995, p.5). Although individual values and attitudes shape the issues people see as important, the theory of reasoned action suggests that behaviors are also influenced by more subjective societal norms and social pressures (see Ajzen and Fishbein 1980).
Over time, numerous social researchers have examined changes in the value structures associated with natural resource management (e.g. Cramer 1997, Steel et al. 1994, Fishbein & Manfredo 1992.). Bengston (1994) summarized the usefulness of this inquiry by asserting that managers, policy makers, and scientists can benefit from a better understanding of public values for forests in several ways: establishing appropriate goals for ecosystem management by shedding light on normative and ethical questions, predicting how people will react to proposed forest practices, and dealing with inevitable conflicts over public forest management.
It is difficult to disagree with Bengston's findings, and his thesis that those operating in the public policy arena need a broader awareness of the diverse and multidimensional values associated with forests is supportable. Indeed, identifying people's values about forest resources is important in that it informs the policy process. We believe, however, that merely possessing this knowledge does not adequately provide solutions to the complex problems facing decision-makers today. Too often, different social values for forest resources mean fundamental differences in world view and, as we have seen most recently, the clash of values clearly plays out in the political arena (FEMAT 1993, Salvage Rider Act 1995). When politics is the forum for choosing among values, we must go beyond simple identification of values to improving our capacity to sort through complexity and uncertainty.
In illustration, several scientists described the nature of this dilemma by characterizing it as a "system of problems" problem. Ackoff (1974) acknowledged that we are increasingly faced with clusters of interrelated or interdependent problems of "organized complexity." Such situations, which cannot be solved in relative isolation from one another, form what Ackoff termed messes. Today, we sort out a mess through systems methods, that is, by focusing on related processes and interdisciplinary approaches. Rather than breaking things down into parts and fixing individual components, we examine interactions among the parts (King 1993).
http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-community/the-truth-about-vegetarianism.aspx
Ren has done coverage of the interconnected with eco threads. The post I just did was only a small bit of a small surviving forest eco system. The link in this post is a bit about the prairie. I won't be doing desert, but this summer I will be doing a Cliff's notes tutorial with my daughter on a sea part of the eco puzzle. [We did fresh water with the stream in the forest, so brackish now with the Baltic]
http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-community/the-truth-about-vegetarianism.aspx
The link in this post is a bit about the prairie.
From the article:
I believe that agriculture has created a net loss for human rights and culture: slavery, imperialism, militarism, class divisions, chronic hunger and disease. “The real problem, then, is not to explain why some people were slow to adopt agriculture, but why anybody took it up at all, when it is so obviously beastly,” writes biologist and author Colin Tudge. Agriculture has also been devastating to the other creatures with whom we share the Earth, and, ultimately, to the life support systems of the planet itself.
I have stopped fighting the basic algebra of embodiment: For something to live, something else has to die.
I have no problem with the nativist philosophy of reciprocal maintenance being applied by some to justify killing animals for their own nourishment. I often share the table with such people, but their hunting or animal-keeping enthusiasm is lost on me and the hanging deer, goat or chicken carcasses break my heart. Knowing that the animals lived free or in humane captivity does little to ease my cognitive dissonance.
The article's points about agriculture as practiced in history are fair, but when it romanticizes about native societies eating meat it doesn't give equal time to native gardening practices that may or may not have had negative ecological impacts.
I have found little in any past tradition of agriculture or subsistence to satisfy my own need for compassion, empathy, and respect for animal life. I am glad to be reminded that vegetables may be grown at the expense of habitat and other negative impacts on the ecosystem and its animal life. But I am not persuaded to start eating happy, grass-fed critters.
The standard version of the "vegetarian myth" may be a load of bull, but the vegetarian goals and values are not. They need new reality-based embodiments like home-grown food, local organic cooperative gardens and garden markets, and eating less.
I don't know why the article concludes we should go ahead and eat animals rather than advocating for green agriculture. It seems like a case of using a true argument to support a false conclusion. Whenever I find stuff like that, I usually suspect some cognitive bias or conflict of interest.
Poor Richard
"Green Free-enterprise"
"Green Revolution 2.0"
Poor Richard's Almanack 2010
Once again the Department of Agriculture is all “wee-wee’d up” to lay its hands on some trees to kill. I swear they must be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Timber, Paper and Pulp industry.
Anyway a Giant Ag firm was granted permission to test plant a genetically engineered foreign species of tree throughout several states.
Many aspects of the plans concern me. For starters, this is the first I ever heard of it. What happened with the period for public comment? Also, in lieu of the fact that we are in the midst of the one of the biggest environmental disaster in human history, running a large scale “test” involving the ecosystems of several states strikes me as a bit reckless. Especially, you’re your testing an invasive species of plant! Invasive plants have a very bad track record even without being genetically enhanced. Frankly, I don’t think I know of ANY foreign or invasive species of plant that once widely distributed in great numbers had a positive outcome.
Anyway, here is the beginning of the article written by Associated Press:
“The commercial paper industry's plans to plant forests of genetically altered eucalyptus trees in seven Southern states have generated more cries from critics worried that such a large introduction of a bioengineered nonnative plant could throw natural ecosystems out of whack.
ArborGen, a biotechnology venture affiliated with three large paper companies, got U.S. Department of Agriculture approval last month for field trials involving as many as 250,000 trees planted at 29 sites during the next few years. Much smaller lots of the genetically altered trees have been growing in some of the states for years.
Australian eucalyptus trees grow faster than native hardwoods and produce high-quality pulp perfect for paper production, but thus far, they have been able to thrive only in very warm climates. South Carolina-based ArborGen genetically altered the trees to withstand freezing temperatures, and the idea with the test forests is to see how far north they can now be grown.
The test sites will cover a total of about 300 acres in Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana.
While genetically engineered crops such as corn and soybeans have become common, ArborGen's experiment marks the first large planting of designer trees in the United States. The company says plantations of hearty, faster-growing eucalyptus could produce more timber in a smaller area and allow conservation of natural forests.”
Anybody know which politician(s) got what amounts of money? Is the administration playing politics with our natural resources? Is the pope catholic? Is a hog’s rump pork?
...a Giant Ag firm was granted permission to test plant a genetically engineered foreign species of tree throughout several states.
Many aspects of the plans concern me. For starters, this is the first I ever heard of it. What happened with the period for public comment?
There was recently a good documentary on the downside of GMO trees on LinkTV or Free Speech TV. You could probably find it on one web site or the other.
Poor Richard
Poor Richard's Almanack 2010
Hasn't anyone noticed yet that the more we attempt to manipulate the environment to serve our own interests...the more we destroy it?
Invasive tree species were introduced into the S.W. American deserts as windbreaks. They are depleting the ground water.They also increase salts in the soils as a means to compete with other species. The salts prevent other plant species from growing near them....forever!.
Forunately, deer don't have the capacity to clear-cut forests to make more grazing land. Our mountains would come to resemble Haiti's. Bare rock and streams that flowed only when it rained.
Cree Prophesy
Only when the last tree has been cut down
Only when the last river has been poisoned
Only when the last fish has been caught
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".
http://www.ted.com/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse.html Cree Crophesy was good
stewart_brand_on_the_long_now.
Remember Stewart Brand from early in this thread? His talk and design exercise is interesting, and beautiful. 5000 year old bristle cone pines, remnants with a tree line count of 10,000 years.
He makes a note of altitiude vs stupidity correlation, and until your blood is adjusted, hypoxia does have a strong effect. Pike's Peak [elev.14k] had me giddy. Interestingly smokers are less effected, because their body makes more red cells to compensate for their habit. [Patients with sickle cell are immune from malaria, too]
http://www.ted.com/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse.html Cree Crophesy was good
Interesting. The Inuit, who adapted to the environment rather than insisting the environment adapt to them survived. The Greenland society that insisted the environment adapt to them disappeared.
What I found telling was the predictive response made to Mr. Diamond's lecture.....denial in the posted reponses to his lecture. Downplaying island collapses as being irrelevant...while ignoring large society collapses such as the Maya or the Soviets....similar general causes....and nit picking the word "society".
Societies with a connection to the natural environment adapt to it and survive. Those that don't, ultimately collapse....at their peak of wealth and power.
What were the Easter Islanders thinking when they chopped down their last tree?
The Inuit were spriritually alive. The Greenlanders, with all their churches, were spiritually dead. Maybe watching the movie Avatar would have saved their fannies...if they got it.
When a people lose their connectedness to other living things and to nature, torture, destruction become common place...extending even towards other human beings. Native Americans didn't look upon their streams as an "other". 60 million Native Americans could safely drink from any creek, stream, river.They knew their own lives were connected to the life of the water.
While Native Americans took other life, they gave thanks to it for its sacrifice. They didn't do this. They didn't torture their "relatives" for fun....or before they ate it. They were spiritually alive.
Warning: GRAPHIC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kQw8aCqVbU&feature=related
Most Americans are spiritually dead. An inheritance from Europe shared by much of the world. Destroying the planet, destroying life, is no bigee as long as they can have their plastic trinkets and fill their storage sheds. It isn't sustainable...thank God. Perhaps nature will force us to become human beings...again...or vanish.
Retired Monk -"Ideology is a disease"
IMG_3387
And it begins,....On July 23, 2010, in an interview with a representative of "Old World Wisconsin" on NPR radio's morning edition it was reported that:
a couple of trees were knocked down (in a storm) and all told 3,000 trees had to be removed.
Why did they cut down 3,000 trees when only two were tipped over? Answer: Wisconsin's Public Service Commission has allowed timber from "storm damage" to be sold to energy companies to be burned to generate electricity.
Is Jim Doyle/Barac O'bama's "new energy policies" a slipperly slope? If a tree in a Nature Conservancy looses a branch or maybe just a couple of leaves it will probably be cut down and sold to the likes of Valero (one of the original seven sisters) because of a nice fat campaign contribution.
sigh. i give up. the ability of man to reason is maladaptive to long term survival.
sigh.
Momma Mia!!!...if they don't want to listent it doesn't matter what you say but here goes with my two cents on the world adapting itself out of Global Warming.
Yes adaption is key and I'm sure there will be at least a remnant of the current civilization around for a while. (Global Warming does not stop in the year 2100 and you do not want to read what happens by the year 2200 – ("will the last on the planet please shut out the lights").
Adaption is a function of evolution. The problem is the evolutionary pressure imposed by Global Warming is coming at a rate that far exceeds most species ability to incorporate advantageous genetic mutations. For instance, it takes a tree, say, eight years to reach reproductive maturity and cast a fresh lot of genes skewed toward surviving the last heat wave. However, the maximum temps reached in a heat wave are rapidly approaching the need for a tree to incorporate more than a modicum of unseen genetic adaption – they will have to change morphology if they want to exist and that is a big, VERY BIG evolutionary adaption that most, if not all, flora and fauna will not be able to pull off by the year 2100, 2200 or even the year 2400. You would have just as much luck capturing a grass hopper in your backyard and then having it mutate into a full grown polar bear overnight.
Think about it. How many cycles of reproduction, followed by a period of growing to reproductive maturity and then casting another lot of genes skewed toward survival (natural selection) would it take for your average oak tree to mutate into anything whose physiology even remotely functions like a cactus? Cellular function, structure, and every aspect of organization will have to change.
Remember, the more the average annual temperature increases the more out-of-balance our atmosphere gets and the higher will be the temperatures reached during a heat wave. Again, this process will out pace much of our salvation from Global Warming by the natural process of adaptation and evolution.
In the near and mid term the planet is going to loose a substantial number of individuals of any given species of plant and animals.
Worse still the Administration is lying about C02 like it lied about the amount of oil leaking into the gulf.
So, …..ROCK ON! Live HARD, times a wasting! But what ever you do, deal with the reality of the situation
If we stopped all CO2 emissions tomorrow...the warming already set in motion will still increase the planets temperature. enough for unpleasant consequences. Changes are more pronounced at the beginning the closer one gets to far northern and far southern latitutudes.
Our of control fires in Russia are one consequence of that. Temps way, way above normal. Breathing the air in Moscow is equal to smoking 40 ciggs a day....from the forest fire smoke.
Global warming becomes self-feeding...causing methane gas in the melting perma-frost to be released. Methane has many times the effect on the atmoshere as CO2. and is being released in quantities higher than CO2.
In the meantime, there is capital to accumulate. If one doesn't do it, their competitor will. The foundation of our structures is capital accumulation. One capital accumulator being in competition with another. There is a built-in impetus to destroy the planet...turning its resources into money in order to win the game. Guess who has the financial clout to determine what governments will or will not do.
It should come as no surprise that the Copenhagen talks on climate change became a bad joke. Addressing climate change in a meaningful manner is contrary to the economic structures set in place by nearly all countries. Capital accumulation for the sake of capital accumulation...with nothing allowed to put a damper on that. . That's the purpose of the WTO...to remove remaining capital accumulation restrictions.. Bolivia may be an exception to that structure..
The structure itself precludes meaningful solutions.
Environmental/social/economic problems are structural. I don't see anyone addressing the structures. A "tweak" here and a "tweak" there won't do it. 500-year-old structures have come to the end of their rope...just as the structures of feudalism did when they could no longer address the realities of the day.
Like it or not, we are entering a period of profound change..either planned..or forced....in order to maintain survival of the species..The longer change is forestalled...the greater the consequences.
Retired Monk - "ideology is a disease"
How can the Administration concentrate wealth by combating global warming?
Trees for Votes?
After an exhaustive search agents of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources have reported – while salivating - that in fact there is evidence for the first time of “Oak Wilt” in impoverished Oneida County. Oak Wilt is a fungus that has been around for a long time and can kill its host tree.
The recommended treatment is to remove all Oak trees, including those that may be found on Federal land in the Nicolet National Forest, that may be growing the fungus. The “tragedy” is tempered by the fact that Oneida County has plenty of unemployed workers eager to harvest trees and those trees that are cleared can be sold to a new $250 million biomass-fueled power plant at Domtar Corporation’s Rothschild, Wisconsin that creates electricity by burning trees.
The energy plant financed by We Energies is one of Democratic Governor Jim Doyle’s biggest campaign contributors, with $121,360 coming from company executives and its political action committee from 2002 through June 30, 2008. We Energies is also engaged with Alliant Energy to construct a $300 million energy plant in Fond du Lac County. Errol Davis Jr. is CEO and chairman of the board Alliant Energy and is also on the Board of Alliant Energy is home to Errol Davis Jr. who sits on the Board of Directors of BP Amoco plc. Mr. Davis was appointed by Barac O’bama to be on the National Commission of Energy Policy. A position he continues to hold despite the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
The wind energy plant in Fon du lac County is in Wisconsin’s 6th Congressional District overseen by Thomas E. Petri (R-Fond du Lac). Barack Obama narrowly won the district in 2008 with 49.91% of the vote. The plant in Rothschild, Wisconsin that burns trees to generate electricity is in the State’s 7th Congressional District. Congressmen David Obey (of the U.S. Committee on Appropriations), who is not seeking reelection in the 7th District where he has served since 1969. Julie Lassa is the likely democratic for his seat in this fall's election.
Harvesting trees for energy has been endorsed by provisions of the Federal 2008 Farm Bill. As well as a propsed rule for the Biomass Crop Assistance Program and Wisconsin’s Clean Energy Job Act. It was further facilitated in Wisconsin when Governor Jim Doyle, despite overwhelming opposition by a majority of the voters, vetoed a law that would have required the State’s Secretary of Department of Natural Resources to be an independently determined hiring from candidates who possessed at least a scientific background instead of the political appointment that it is now.
Sadly growing conditions for many arboreal fungi are greatly facilitated by invasive Japanese Honeysuckle and Buckthorn. These invasives act together to greatly decrease the amount of air circulating through a forest while their thick foliage obliterates the normally occurring ground cover of forbs, sedges, and wild flowers necessary to sustain a diverse host of wildlife.
Our forests “the oil fields of the future.”,….any loosely construed reason will do
Duke Energy will be able to use whole trees harvested for power plant fuel, the N.C. Utilities Commission says.
A commission order Monday clarified the type of wood that may be used under the state's 2007 renewable-energy law. Wood is part of a broad category of organic fuels called biomass that will play a large role in helping utilities meet the state green-energy mandate.
Duke had argued that the state green-energy law allowed any type of wood to be burned, including whole trees chipped into fuel. Limiting it to the "wood waste" referred to in the law would not provide enough fuel for power plants, the utility said.
The commission agreed, ruling that whole trees could be used to help fuel Duke's coal-fired Buck power plant in Rowan County and its Lee plant in Williamston, S.C. Wood would be mixed with coal.
Duke expects biomass to play "a significant role" in complying with the green-energy law, spokesman Jason Walls said. Buck and Lee together will use less than 100,000 tons a year, Walls said. By 2021, when the law is in full effect, the annual volume could rise to about 1 million tons.
Environmental and energy advocacy groups warned that allowing trees to be harvested for power plants, rather than logging debris or wood scraps, could lead to overharvesting and other environmental problems. Those advocates now say the state needs rules to ensure that wood is harvested sustainably despite the fact that projections of the North Carolina’s future clearly show a climate that is no longer maximally – if at all - hospitable to further tree growth.
"I think there is a growing awareness that we need to be proactive before problems come up," said Kristen Coracini of the Environmental Defense Fund, which with the Southern Environmental Law Center that initially fought Duke's proposal prior to the run up to this falls' midterm elections.
Ms. Coracini’s revised stance is consistent with the White House Administration’s belief in the Harvard Business Review’s recent announcement that Climate Change (and therein our environment) should be viewed as an opportunity for gain. A sentiment reiterated by Rahm Emmanuel’s comment that no crisis should be wasted.
The state's rule-making Environmental Management Commission or legislators could call for harvesting standards. The EMC, in a report last March, had warned of the potential for "significant impacts" if whole trees were used as energy fuel and called for strict harvest standards.
The EMC's renewable energy committee will discuss the Utilities Commission ruling at its November meeting, said committee chairman Dickson Phillips III, a Chapel Hill lawyer. "It's fair to say it's on the table," he said.
Utilities commission member William Culpepper echoed those concerns in dissenting from the majority vote Monday. Had the legislature intended to define trees as biomass, Culpepper wrote, it would have clearly done so.
By Bruce Henderson
bhenderson@charlotteobserver.com
Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/13/1757813/duke-can-use-trees-for-power-plant.html#ixzz12Kd7SXYd