Want More Carbon Emissions? Try To Recreate An Old Growth Forest

If one really wants to do a bang up job of assuring we emit more carbon to the atmosphere, one should work hard to try to recreate an old growth forest. 

In my corner of the woods a number of activist groups, individuals and other pop-environmentalists are trying to do just that as they struggle to convince policy makers to convert about 8,700 of working forest to park land today and, tomorrow, place additional tens of thousands of acres on the figurative chopping block.

An 1860s Rendering Of A Western Forest

The activist’s approach is a great way to assure increases in greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere continue into the future.  In addition to generally being less bio-diverse than newer forests (albeit old growth supports a different range of plant, animal and other life), old growth forests offer the advantage of lots of dead and dying trees rotting away to contribute the carbon they’ve stored to the atmosphere and, at some point, the likelihood they will burn and, in burning, will emit that carbon in a short term burst of CO², methane, nitrous oxide and other gasses to what some claim is an atmosphere already overburdened by those compounds.

Stereo View Of The Forest Near Mt. Hood Oregon - Late 1800s

The Whatcom County effort involves removing a middle aged forest stand, a stand that is generally about 100 -125 years or so old, from the harvest cycle of a state agency charged with using the forest to provide funds for schools, libraries, port districts and local government. 

The fetchingly labeled Lake Whatcom Forest Preserve Park is then to be essentially left free of the footprint of man, woman and child until it becomes an “Old Growth Forest.” 

It should be understood that of Whatcom County’s approximately 1,400,000 acres, about 1,000,000 acres is already set aside as National Park, National Forest, State owned forest, private forest, and State and local parklands.  About four acres of park exist for every man, woman and child living in the county.

The term Old Growth Forest should also be explained as it is a misnomer as used by the various activists interested in the new park.

A 50 - 100 year old stand of alder trees is an old growth forest.  The older the stand the more likely most of the trees are beginning to rot or are already rotted at the core and likely to die within half the lifetime of the ordinary citizen.

When the pioneers began arriving in the western United States, a large variety of old growth forests made up perhaps as much as 15 - 25% of the forested area of the west.  In some areas coastal redwood forests were predominant while in others the “old-growth” might be predominantly fir and/or cedar.  Interior forests were heavily populated by species like the various pines, larch, or other species. 

Something has changed in recent years.  In decades past, old growth forests were defined by stand structure and the kinds of flora and fauna inhabiting the stands.  Today, just as global warming has been replace by climate change by the spin doctors of the environmental movement, the terms traditionally defining old growth forest are changing.  Stand structure and the inhabitants of the stand as definitional are being replaced by the number of years the stand has remained undisturbed.  To the pop-environmental community old growth is defined by big trees and lack of human contact.

The pop-environmental community interested in the Lake Whatcom Park wants to recreate a particular kind of Old Growth Forest, one mostly based on the “new” definition as understood by the pop-environmental movement.

So what happens to a forest simply left alone to grow old and, eventually, die?

Well, as is the case with most life forms, nature is not very nice.  In the natural world, most forests do not survive to reach “old growth” status. 

The Forest On Fire In The 1860s

By way of example, the entire 8,700 acres contained in the Lake Whatcom Reconveyance burned sometime in the late 1800s.  As is the case with most burned forests, pockets of the old forest survived the fire but, early photos of Whatcom County at the time and, the analysis of the forest by the U.S. Geological Survey in the last years of the 1800s demonstrates that most of Whatcom County’s lowland and foothills forests were thoroughly burned before the turn of the century in 1900.  A huge part of Whatcom County’s forest products industry in the first decades of the 1900s consisted of cutting down burned trees and converting them to shakes and other products.

The Lake Whatcom forest is already known to have insect infestations.  Across Washington insect infestations have reached epidemic proportions and are responsible for the intensity of some of the wildfire the state is becoming increasingly prone to so, it is at least a 50-50 proposition that fires will ignite in the new “park.”

Early settlers also reported massive blow downs of the original forest, ice storm damage and other natural occurrences. 

So what happens then?

Well, if we are really trying to recreate what is in our mind, original conditions, we would let the forest incinerate when lightening or some other factor starts a fire.  That then creates large areas of ash, tree parts and other materials that will fill streams for years and then, eventually, during the often devastating storms the county is prone to, will run off in the form of earth and debris slides ending up in the lake at the bottom of the hill where it will impact lake water characteristics for decades. 

The burning forest also will pump huge quantities of greenhouse gasses and other chemicals into the atmosphere as it incinerates both endangered and not endangered species, boils water and elements like mercury out of the soil and, starts the natural process of reforestation over again.

The whole thing is, of course, a gamble.  The future Lake Whatcom Forest Preserve Reserve Park could be the lucky one that doesn’t burn and, of course, those of us alive today don’t have to worry; we are gambling with the resources of future residents so we really don’t have to care what the odds of success are; it all makes us feel really, really, really good today and that is all that really matters.

A more logical thing to do would be to manage the forest for a variety of natural characteristics even as carbon is sequestered in the lumber taken from, for example, dead and dying trees removed to control severe insect infestations or root diseases or, whatever.  Carefully done, forest management on an on-going basis allows for a full range of values to be realized from the forest.  But it does have the downside of denying total control to those who constantly inform us they know best because they are the true “environmentalists.”

Bad Study... Go Away: Suppressing Evidence In The Environmental Discussion

Whatcom County in Washington State is home to a holy body of water.

The water must be holy because nothing else can explain the almost religious fervor exhibited by the pop environmental movement as it mounts battle after battle over what the movement appears to consider the sanctity of the holy water flowing through the lake and on into Puget Sound.

Whatcom County residents discuss Lake Whatcom water quality

Controversy has surrounded use of the lake for at least the last two decades.  Anyone reading the history of discussions regarding the lake would think they’d been transported back to the days of the Crusades as the knights of the lake raise huge sums of money to outfit yet another attack on the infidels occupying the shores of the holy waterway.

The discussion regarding Lake Whatcom over the years serves to illustrate a serious problem with most discussions about environmental issues in recent times; science has become something to be manipulated for result and, if the result cannot be manipulated, science is to be suppressed.

That on-going attacks on science by the environmental movement would be the cornerstone of the future movement first came into clear focus for me when, nearly 20 years ago, I attended the Clinton Forest Summit in Portland, Oregon as an analyst for a number of forest products industry oriented trade magazines.

The experience was a stunning one in a number of ways, especially since I was considerably more naïve in those days regarding the environmental movement and some of its approaches; I still thought that science and reason mattered when it came to environmental issues and that the excesses of the pop-environmental movement mostly came from lack of information.

So I was pretty optimistic about the Summit.  It was billed as a science based, rational look at environmental issues surrounding the health and use of the forests of our nation.

The event was held in Portland’s convention center.  Reporters, including myself, were allotted space at tables surrounded by broadcast trucks sent in by the major U.S. and regional media.  Around the edges of the Convention Center floor were several hundred stations manned by activist groups providing studies, brochures, letters, press releases and other material designed to influence the reporters at the event.

Had I not known in advance the Summit was about forestry I’d have thought I was attending a druid’s convention.  At least 80% of the materials provided by “environmental activists” had to do with Earth Mother Gaia, the sacred ocean or some other religious enterprise involving how trees scream when they are cut down and so on. 

Almost nothing involving forest health, responsible harvest, fire reduction strategies or any other aspect of the actual point of the Summit was offered.

Even worse, twenty years ago the Northern Spotted Owl was all the rage, or at least everyone was all enraged, over the controversy surrounding the little bird.

The timber industry in the United States was in the process of being decimated with the need to protect the Spotted Owl being used as an excuse to suspend logging over huge expanses of timber land.

But wait!  Scientists had discovered in the years immediately preceding the conference that the Spotted Owl was not only far less endangered than had been thought, the little creature could also survive nicely in second growth timber stands; a cornerstone relied on by the pop-environmental movement to prop up their end of the discussion had been removed.

Whoops!

Guess what?  Evidence regarding the potential widespread occurrence of the bird in ranges previously thought unsuitable was very specifically banned from discussion.  Only discussion revolving around the need to preserve old growth forest to save the Spotted Owl was allowed to be presented.



The Pop-environmental View - Nothing Should Ever Change



Back to holy water.

Near the turn of the century, after years of discussion about Lake Whatcom, a highly respected engineering firm was hired by local authorities to prepare a report at assembled all of the various studies about Lake Whatcom, analyze them, then draw conclusions regarding the entirety of the data about the lake, especially in terms of the Lake’s being used for drinking water.

Well, unfortunately, the firm hired to do the analysis was infested by engineers and scientists who hadn’t been informed about the desire outcome of the study.  That meant the draft was based on science.  The final report was particularly disdainful of some of the work being done by the local university so, when a preliminary draft was circulated to a small number of local officials, the proverbial excrement hit the fan.  In very short order the report was fitted with concrete boots and “disappeared,” to use a term often attributed to gangsters eliminating a rival. 

Similar studies in recent years have suffered the same fate as the jihad against any use of land around the lake has continued. 

The experience with Lake Whatcom data is, of course, not unique.  More and more we see science being cooked to match emotional needs rather than as a learning tool. 

The essence of drawing conclusions about any issue is the attempt to use observable fact and rational thought to inform decision-making.  Often, properly done studies will point to data allowing for differences of opinion.  We learn when we, from the differing perspectives we all have, discuss, comprehend and arrive at agreement with the data in mind.

The problem comes when data is deliberately suppressed so that pre-determined decisions can be supported.  If only data supporting one point of view or another is allowed in the discussion we get only one result; the wrong one. 

The larger problem comes in that suppressing data that might be in opposition to a desired conclusion is no longer seen as particularly inappropriate by the environmental industry.