On Nov 26, 1:19 pm, john fernbach wrote:
On Nov 26, 12:17 pm, LiquidSquid wrote:



forests, are the best absorbers of CO2.

-LS

Oh and... If that wood were instead harvested into firewood/wood
pellets, sold (for profit of course) just like a crop, and used for
heating homes up here in the NE US and Europe in the winter, then it
is that much less fossil fuel burned to heat homes, so we wind up
SAVING CO2. *gasp!* a real use for trees that fell down.

A real solution, and people make money. What more do you want? Oh,
wait, some environmentalist probably wont let me import wood from
another state because of fear of disease spread in the woodlands, and
another environ"mental"ist wont let me burn wood because it makes
smoke that they can see, smells funny, and makes the sunset prettier.
(As they sit in their 5000 sq foot house smelling my smoke while
eating nuts and twigs).

-LS

Firewood is, in fact, a form of "biomass" energy. When the firewood
is harvest from "plantation" style forests like those that
Weyerhaueser maintains, maybe environmentalists should be supporting
it.

Massive deforestation, whether brought about by timber industry clear-
cutting or by other causes (e.g. Katrina), does have some other
negative consequences, too. Dangers to watersheds from flooding,
siltation and increasing erosion; the loss of habitat for a host of
different forest critters, etc. And the environmental impacts are
particularly severe when old growth forests, with advanced canopy
characteristics and "climax" ecosystem characteristics, are clearcut
to produce new tree plantations.

Most forest managers with half a skull know that clear-cutting is only
a short-term cash cow for "cut and run" a-holes. After that, it takes
a long time to get money back from the land again. Selective cutting
has a lot less money per harvest year, but over many years, it has a
much better net gain. Not only that you have a healthier forest with a
much more diverse set of wildlife due to the varying ecosystems and
cover provided by the leftover tree tops, you also can grow more wood
per acre due to a variety of natural factors.

Of course some bozo has to come up with some kind of willow (shrub)
that can produce more energy per acre than wood so we may wind up with
a lot of mono-culture land like corn in the interest of "saving the
world" from ourselves.

-LS