Trees in the News
Article by Patrick Moore:
An inconvenient fact
Despite the anti-forestry scare tactics of celebrity movies, trees are the most powerful concentrators of carbon on Earth Dr. Patrick Moore is a co-founder of Greenpeace and chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. in Vancouver.
Patrick Moore, Special to the Sun
Published: Wednesday, August 29, 2007
It seems like there's a new doomsday documentary every month. But seldom does one receive the coverage that Hollywood activist Leonardo DiCaprio's latest climate-change rant, The 11th Hour, is getting.
When we're bombarded anew with theatrical images of our earth's ecosystems when the film opens across B.C. this Friday, I'm concerned that we're losing sight of some indisputable facts.
Here's a key piece of information DiCaprio, collaborator and long-time activist Tzeporah Berman and the leadership of my old organization Greenpeace are ignoring when it comes to forests and carbon: For British Columbians, living among the largest area of temperate rainforest in the world, managing our forests will be a key to reducing greenhouse gases.
As a lifelong environmentalist, I say trees can solve many of the world's sustainability challenges. Forestry is the most sustainable of all the primary industries that provide us with energy and materials. Rather than cutting fewer trees and using less wood, DiCaprio and Berman ought to promote the growth of more trees and the use of more wood.
Trees are the most powerful concentrators of carbon on Earth. Through photosynthesis, they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in their wood, which is nearly 50 per cent carbon by weight. Trees contain about 250 kilograms of carbon per cubic metre.
North Americans are the world's largest per-capita wood consumers and yet our forests cover approximately the same area of land as they did 100 years ago. According to the United Nations, our forests have expanded nearly 100 million acres over the past decade.
The relationship between trees and greenhouse gases is simple enough on the surface. Trees grow by taking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and, through photosynthesis, converting it into sugars. The sugars are then used as energy and materials to build cellulose and lignin, the main constituents of wood.
There is a misconception that cutting down an old tree will result in a net release of carbon. Yet wooden furniture made in the Elizabethan era still holds the carbon fixed hundreds of years ago.
Berman, a veteran of the forestry protest movement, should by now have learned that young forests outperform old growth in carbon sequestration.
Although old trees contain huge amounts of carbon, their rate of sequestration has slowed to a near halt. A young tree, although it contains little fixed carbon, pulls CO2 from the atmosphere at a much faster rate.
When a tree rots or burns, the carbon contained in the wood is released back to the atmosphere. Since combustion releases carbon, active forest management -- such as removing dead trees and clearing debris from the forest floor -- will be imperative in reducing the number and intensity of fires.
The role of forests in the global carbon cycle can be boiled down to these key points:
n Deforestation, primarily in tropical forests, is responsible for about 20 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. This is occurring where forests are permanently cleared and converted to agriculture and urban settlement.
n In many countries with temperate forests, there has been an increase in carbon stored in trees in recent years. This includes the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Sweden.
n The most important factors influencing the carbon cycle are deforestation on the negative side, and the use of wood, from sustainably managed forests, as a substitute for non-renewable materials and fuels, on the positive side.
To address climate change, we must use more wood, not less. Using wood sends a signal to the marketplace to grow more trees and to produce more wood. That means we can then use less concrete, steel and plastic -- heavy carbon emitters through their production. Trees are the only abundant, biodegradable and renewable global resource.
DiCaprio's movie, The 11th Hour, is another example of anti-forestry scare tactics, this time said to be "brilliant and terrifying" by James Christopher of the London Times.
Maybe so, but instead of surrendering to the terror, keep in mind that there are solutions to the challenges of climate, and our forests are among them.
This film should be a good, clear reminder for us to put the science before the Hollywood hype.
Dr. Patrick Moore is a co-founder of Greenpeace and chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. in Vancouver.
Here is another article on the cork tree situation:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2007-08-26-cork-debate_N.htm
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Comments (20)
Unfortunately, what many people will remember about this article is not that the writer was a co-founder of Greenpeace, but that he singles out and attacks other people for their well-intended efforts rather as much as he tries to correct what he feels to be misinformation. This is akin to the same tactic that the Bush administration has so successfully to divide Americans: he attacks the messenger as well as the message.
Co-founder of Greenpeace or not, I think that Dr. Moore's words would sound better if he dropped the use of certain tactics. The words "latest climate change rant" make me feel as if I am reading something written by someone from the American Enterprise Institute and/or the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and not an environmentalist.
Read more about Dr. Patrick Moore here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle
and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore_(environmentalist)
Comment #1 Posted by: phalarope | August 29, 2007 09:32 AM
Well, if I had a brain I probably would have edited that a bit better before I hit "post".
Comment #2 Posted by: phalarope | August 29, 2007 09:49 AM
Nicely put, phalarope.In 1976, Moore called nuclear power plants "the most dangerous devices that man has ever created. Their construction and proliferation is the most irresponsible, in fact the most criminal, act ever to have taken place on this planet". Today, he is one of the primary cheerleaders for nuclear power.Talk about climate shift.....
Comment #3 Posted by: Dennis Rice | August 29, 2007 09:54 AM
Brian (and everyone!):
local action and education group Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions will be hosting a two-part meeting this coming Sunday September 2 from 3-5pm in the Topping Room of the E.P. Foster Library at 651 East Main Street in Ventura. relevant to this topic, the first part of the meeting will feature a Union of Concerned Scientists speaker on "Why Nuclear Energy is Not the Answer". no discussion is complete without a well-rounded selection of viewpoints, so we encourage all positions to be present and heard.
Comment #4 Posted by: evan | August 29, 2007 10:55 AM
All I can do is post information that addresses solutions to some of our environmental problems. ( You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink). If I can get through to just one brainwashed individual it will have been worth it. I am going to try and get a speaker for the Ojai Green Coalition concerning the benifits of nuclear power, if that is aggreeable to the OGC. In the meantime the brainwashed ones are polluting our earth with more coal burning plants, and more miners will die and more forests will go up in smoke, increasing global warming.
Comment #5 Posted by: Brian | August 29, 2007 11:09 AM
i would submit that calling names and insulting peoples' intelligence is not a great way to win anyone over to your way of thinking. (i type this with the full realization that many - probably including myself - on this Post have engaged in such a tactic at one time or another).
i saw this quote yesterday in SB:
"Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it."
Andre Gide
we're all just searching for the most peaceful resolutions, and claiming to have absolute truth simply turns a lot of people off.
Comment #6 Posted by: evan | August 29, 2007 11:28 AM
Give me a f-ing break on your name calling crap, you just admitted you are a hypocrite ! Do you get so bent out of shape when someone uses a discriptive adjective that you lose your mind !! Just deal with it. You guys do it all the time. Are you trying to find solutions? No, all you do is whine.
Comment #7 Posted by: Brian | August 29, 2007 11:55 AM
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Concerned_Scientists
Capitalism and free market-advocacy groups have criticized the UCS for its stance on environmental and other regulatory issues. The UCS has been called an "unlabeled left-wing activist group",[18] and of having "policy positions that are predictably those of a far-left pressure group".[19].
Fred Singer, a University of Virginia professor, founder of the Science & Environmental Policy Project,[20] has said that the group has "zero credibility as a scientific organization."[21] Singer has been labeled a "climate contrarian" by the UCS.
The head of the Media Research Center Brent Bozell claimed that the UCS is "a left-wing activist organization with a left-wing activist political agenda...trying to position itself as being some kind of objective, centrist, moderate, apolitical entity when it is nothing of the sort."[22]
Comment #8 Posted by: Brian | August 29, 2007 12:02 PM
Brain Cox his gun, not having any fun, he'll shoot you in the eye, but he doesn't know why, and he don't know what it means, don't know what it means, don't know what it means...
Comment #9 Posted by: Kurt | August 29, 2007 12:45 PM
Brian, calm down please. just because i've done something doesnt mean i can't also recognize that it's not effective...in fact that's exactly how i DO know that it's not effective.
i'm saying that calling people brainwashed isn't likely to resonate with anyone, because that's not a label that anyone takes upon themselves (just like "terrorist"). "brainwashed" is not a descriptive adjective...it's a judgmental label, an analysis of another person's capabilities. so, who were to trying to "get through to" originally?
Comment #10 Posted by: evan | August 29, 2007 01:13 PM
truly the top of the news, and hollywood billboards,
each day should be --
1) plant forests and rainforests
(95 to 98 percent gone/eliminated as of this writing)
2) bring back the oceans and rivers, fish, whales, dolphins
(95 to 99 percent gone/eliminated as of this writing)
3) bring back the living atmosphere
(90 to 95 percent polluted as of this writing)
4) end Earth's desertification, plant forests/rainforests
(approx. 35 percent worldwide today. anyone got good figures on this?)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=global+desertification
Comment #11 Posted by: Millennium | August 29, 2007 01:13 PM
Returning to the topic...The Conservation Fund, a much-respected environmental non-profit, has a tree-planting carbon-concentrating "Go Zero" program that for not a whole lot of money can offset your carbon emissions, mostly by planting trees in the lower Mississippi and other Gulf Coast states.
For more, see:
http://www.conservationfund.org/gozero
Comment #12 Posted by: Kit Stolz | August 29, 2007 01:32 PM
Oh, I guess I should have said "person who has been taught false information".
Carbon offsets, how about using lumber from our forests insead of letting them burn up and cause more global warming. Like in the cork tree article, this is another perfect example of a forest region that has development pressure on it because winemakers are going to plastic corks. The demand for cork is what motivates the cork producers to plant more trees - duh. Trees are the ultimate solar energy. It's the same story with lumber in the Pacific Northwest. Our forests have GROWN in size not declined in the past 100 years.
Comment #13 Posted by: Brian | August 29, 2007 02:38 PM
Congratulations Brian, you are learning in leaps and bounds. We'll soon be allowing you to briefly visit public settings - if you keep it up.
Comment #14 Posted by: Miss Manners | August 29, 2007 02:56 PM
So yeah, we've already totally discredited Dr. Patrick Moore in an earlier thread.
Comment #15 Posted by: spk | August 29, 2007 03:11 PM
Isn't this all about balance? I believe that forests from time to time need to burn for many reasons that I mentioned before. Also, we do use lumber, and we should continue to do so-duh. Brian, your(or Dr. so and so's) point about carbon banking is widely accepted. But to run on the bank, before fire draws the account down, to ignore the health of the forests, to destroy the last of Old Growth stands to make way for tree accounts that bank more carbon more efficiently, in the end, will lead to foreclosure on a sustainable life permantly as we know it now.
BTW. Isn't more carbon stored in rocks than all the trees?
Comment #16 Posted by: Anonymous | August 29, 2007 05:07 PM
That is my post above. I wich I had time to expoun on the subject but must get on to other things.
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It's great to be back in Ojai. What a beautiful day.
kg6 amv at ya hoo dot com
Comment #17 Posted by: Dana and Alyeska | August 29, 2007 05:20 PM
BTW. Isn't more carbon stored in rocks than all the trees?
You mean like the rocks in your head?
I would try to explain it to you but you would not be capable of understanding.
Comment #18 Posted by: Brian | August 29, 2007 07:44 PM
I always fold my hands and listen a more receptively to the other person's point of view when they have a tantrum and insinuate that I'm stupid. Yes indeed, I do.
Comment #19 Posted by: phalarope | August 29, 2007 08:00 PM
Brian, check yourself.
Comment #20 Posted by: Capable of Understanding | August 30, 2007 07:38 AM