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.”

Is Climate Change Beneficial?

Is global warming real?

If global warming is real is it being caused by the actions of humans?

For every billion words written about the two questions, global warming (now reconfigured as “climate change” by the spin doctors) about ten words in total are written about the more valid question, “What does it matter whether the earth’s atmospheric temperatures are warming or cooling?”

If global warming, or global cooling, were not taking place the earth would be in a great deal of trouble.  The earth is just not set up to be static.



Even an 1870's school child understood thermal zones and their importance



 The second question is a silly one as well.  Of course the actions of mankind have some amount of influence on overall warming and cooling.  This blog includes many entries discussing how the inappropriate actions of the pop-environmental movement result in increased releases of carbon to the atmosphere.  In fact, if it could be measured, I believe the pop-enviros are almost certainly responsible for as much climate change as industry is, at least in the United States (see earlier blogs on the greenhouse gas and toxic metals emissions of forest fires).

Politically, of course, the two questions posed above matter a great deal.  In idle moments between inventing the internet and helping to run the United States Al Gore almost singlehandedly invented global warming and, just incidentally, made a great deal of money doing just that.

The pop-environmental movement raises and spends more money each year than the Democrats and the Republicrats (we used to call them Republicans in the United States but now, for the most part, the two parties are pretty much indistinguishable) do in a presidential election year.  A large part of the money raised is provided by raising the specter of death and destruction coming to fuzzy little creatures as the result of climate change.

More significantly, especially in terms of the ability of "environmental" groups to raise money, individuals may be impacted, or be led to believe they are impacted, by climate change. 

American politician Tip O’Neill is famously cited as at least one source for the quote, “All politics are local.”

In terms of global warming, or any other issue, the perceived impact a person feels overcomes all the science surrounding an issue.

By way of example, one of the most influential people in the world is Bjorn Lomborg, a European scientist who’s written devastating critiques of the hysteria surrounding climate change.  It should be noted, the devastation is not due to Lomborg’s positions; instead, Lomborg is hated by the pop-environmental movement because he fearlessly puts forward irrefutable science regarding warming and cooling of the earth's atmosphere.

If you don't already own this book, you should buy it and, more importantly, read it!

Lomborg points out that far more people in the world die each year as a result of cold than die from heat.  But if your 110 year old grandmother dies in the middle of summer on an especially hot day you will, if you are like most people, be forever convinced that global warming killed the old girl.

But Grandma’s death leads to a more important question.

Are there benefits to global warming?  Should we, as Al Gore would try to convince us, automatically assume global warming, or climate change, is a negative thing?

If ten grandmas die from heat, for example, but 20 children do not die from cold have we not benefitted from global warming?

As the atmosphere warms, temperate zones move north and south in terms of the globe.  The area where I live was, a few thousand years ago, covered by a thick sheet of ice.  Now it is home to some of the world’s most livable cities, large expanses of forest and thousands of acres of farmland.  We’ve certainly benefitted from global warming and climate change in Bellingham, Washington.

The movement of the temperate zones opens up incredibly productive lands to agriculture.  It’s no accident that the Canadian northlands are breadbaskets for the rest of the world.

But we concentrate on the downsides of the equation.  Forest composition, for example, changes when the temperate zones move.  Old trees die as their surroundings lose their hospitality to this or that species.  But that is the nature of things.  The sandstone found near Bellingham contains palm frond fossils meaning that before the region was buried in ice, it was covered by tropical forests.  Tropical forests that died at least partly due to climate change. 

Of course climate change is real and, of course the activity of mankind is responsible for at least some small amount of that change. 

What we really need much more discussion about is the possible benefits of climate change and about how we can use some of the tens of billions of dollars we waste on “fighting” the inevitable to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on those who are harmed by the change.

The earth will change with or without us.  If we are willing to use that change in beneficial ways we can build a better future for all human kind.  If we are not willing to adjust to that change, the earth may go about its own change; without us!

Should We Ban Dihydrogenmonoxide?

Dihydrogenmonoxide is one of the most dangerous chemicals on earth.  It is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year.  It is used in nuclear power plants as a coolant, in sewage plants as a medium to blend and treat sewage, in cogeneration power plants and in hundreds of other industrial operations each year.  Those operations attempt to treat the chemical then spew it out into our air and into our streams where fish swim in it and humans are directly exposed to it.

Perhaps worse, dihydrogenmonoxide, when it vaporizes, is a major component of the world's green house gas inventory by volume. 

Well, sometimes we all take environmental issues too seriously so;

Dihydrogenmonoxide is found in even the most remote areas of the world

For a hilarious treatment of the issue watch two of America’s best comic performers, Penn and Teller, discuss the issue at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi3erdgVVTw.

In the video, Penn and Teller send an agent into the crowd at an event evidently titled “World Fest.”  The object is to get as many signatures as possible to help ban Dihydrogenmonoxide.  The effort is incredibly successful, demonstrating the commitment people like those attending World Fest have to the environment.

Had Penn and Teller come to Whatcom County in Washington they’d have gotten enough signatures to give Congress pause.

By the way, dihydrogen H2 and monoxide O, in combination is more commonly called H2O or, water.

The dihydrogenmonoxide practical joke has been around a long time.  Penn and Teller are not the first nor, hopefully, the last to use the approach to burn unquestioning "environmentalists" but, in the thought that it's good to have a little fun sometimes, and make a point consider:

The video pretty much says it all about the integrity of the pop environmental movement with its passionate advocacy of causes that, in the end, not only do not enhance the environment but, as often as not, degrade the environment.

That Penn and Teller do it in a funny way only adds to the BURN!

Enjoy the video.