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you are regurgitating corporate nonsense, Brian. whole Wall Street manure.

we HAVE no more forests, or rainforests. they are 95 percent gone, less than five percent left.

our job is to return them, WITH all the layers of undergrowth which ARE the forests ...

the forests are not trees, they are a thousand-times greater biozones of all varieties of flora and fauna ... which do NOT exist in corporate ag-forests.

and, of course, the forests NEED to burn ... that is part of their lifetime cycle, and essential to much of their life, their biodiversity.

we are not here to validate the historical rape of the planet by corporate-civilization. we are here to recognize our violent past, our murder of Mother Earth ...

and in so doing, to reach wisdom and respect, and be creators, along with all our deity ancestors in creation, and bring back sacred nature, and our health and sanity, enlightenment, as part of that chorus of harmony.

all our relations ...

What Brian Cox doesn't know about trees could fill volumes -- and does.

The most important of these volumes is a book called "The Dying of the Trees," by Charles E. Little.

http://www.ecobooks.com/books/dying.htm

Little's brilliant book tells the tale of how disease and insect infestation came to trees that grew up in the wake of centuries of American logging.

What we today call "forests" in no way compare to the true forests that lived strong and majestic on this continent before Europeans invaded with death in their eyes.

What we today call "forests" are, in comparison to forests of old, simply small clumps of short trees growing in soils that for the most part do not suit them, leaving them ripe for insect and other devastation.

The beginning of the problem was human-made saws and greed for lumber. Although greed has wiped out much of secondary "forests," leaving little for greedy men to feed on, Brian Cox wishes to keep the saws sawing.

Nature has something else in mind: to start afresh, from ashes.

Brian Cox will almost certainly delete the comment section of this article (along with these present comments :) -- as he did with the comment section on his pro-war music video, a video showing his total ignorance of current-day politics and his full indoctrination into the notion of the honor of war.

But I suppose that, when you don't have research on your side, the delete button comes in handy.

Sincerely,
Jock Doubleday

I would invite others who read the comments made by these two idiots to please consider the source.

I invite everyone to consider the source of this post (as if you haven't already : ) Once again Brian has proven to be blinded by the right. On a side note Brian. Why are you hogging so much space with this 'idiotic' post? You have consistently have show a lack of consideration for others and your greed for space once again demonstrates the elephant in your living room that all can see but you.

The reductionist calling of names doesn't really help anyone make a case for their point of view. I just wish Brian would learn how to use a spell check.

Thank you Brian for raising this topic. I love talking about environmental issues and the main reason I am an environmentalist is because of rainforests destruction in the 1980s.

As you have pointed out, it is not a black/white problem. It is complicated. We depend upon the forests for many things such as furniture, fuel, paper, carbon sequester, soil erosion and flooding prevention (just to mention a few). We need forests both to cut down and to remaining standing. However, it is interesting to note that "the largest demand on trees - the need for fuel - accounts for just over half of all wood removed from forests." (Plan B 3.0, pg. 153).

Despite the complaints from the logging industry, there are about 4 billion hectares of forests on the planet but only 290 million hectares are legally protected from logging - and much of those protected are for flood control.

Sustainable forestry is possible. Canada is a leader in meeting the most rigorous international program in forest management by the group Forest Stewardship Council.

According to Lester Brown, the shrinking forests in tropical regions were releasing 2.2 billion tons of carbon per year. Meanwhile, expanding forests in temperate regions were absorbing 0.7 billion tons of carbon annually. On balance, a net of some 1.5 billion tons of carbon were being released into the atmosphere each year, contributing to global warming. The driving forces for this deforestation is demand for timber, grazing, and fuelwood.

Forest plantations may be part of a solution to provide fuel and also reduce pressures on the earth's remaining forests. "China, which has little original forest remaining, is by far the largest, with 54 million hectares of plantations. India and the United States follow, at 17 million hectares each." (Plan B 3.0, pg. 155)

Since over half of the forest needs are for fuel, we need to create more efficient and alternative methods for providing fuel. It would also help to ban the use of all throwaway paper products.

I apologize for my lengthy response, but there is so much to consider on this diverse topic. If you'd like to continue this discussion in person, the Ojai Valley Green Coalition is hosting a discussion on June 10th at the Ojai Library (7pm).

A little over a week ago a US district court overturned a similar argument offered by the Bush administration to justify a four-fold increase in logging the Sierra Nevada.

"The financial incentive of the forest service in implementing the forest plan is as operative, as tangible, and as troublesome as it would be if ... the agency was the paid accomplice of the loggers," [Federal judge] Noonan wrote.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/15/usa.forests?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

Kitz,
That is the Plumus County situation that I was speaking about. Unfortunately this will mean that more of our forests in California will be destroyed be unnatural devastating fires. These areas never come back from these type of fires because they burn so hot.

Kenley, I don't think that here in the U.S. that we use that much wood as fuel, poorer countries I'm sure do however. You sound like you understand the situation. We definitely do not want to change forests lands into grazing or crop growing land.

Thanks for the invite, don't know what I'm doing that day yet.

With the exception of the silly personal attacks, this is a good discussion. I believe that the correct figure is 95% of OLD GROWTH forests are gone in the northwest. I have very strong feelings about preserving what is left. As I see it, a large part of the problem is that we turn everything into a commodity. Business looks at and old growth tree and says "hmm, this tree is 18ft. diameter, we can get a such and such board ft. of lumber out of it by cutting this one tree rather than ten smaller ones so it has this dollar value. That's capitalism. That may be true, however it's also true that a 1,000+ year old tree has enormous intrinsic value as anyone who has spent time around them in an old growth stand can attest.
Perhaps that's the problem, we have this concept that because we own a piece of land, an odd idea in itself, if one really thinks about it, that we own everything on it, trees, grass, insects, wildlife, and soil, all of it.
There is simply something inherently wrong with killing something that has managed to survive for ten or twenty centuries. Can we really OWN something like that. We didn't plant it or nurture it, we just stumbled across it. Thinking one owns it is the equivalent of thinking one owns a river. The truth is that it owns itself, just like we own ourselves.
Hybrid trees developed by the lumber industry, mature to harvestable size in about 25 years. Do we really need to cut old growth?
I've had this discussion with my brother several times and we both thought that; wouldn't it be wonderful if we had places that are off limits. I don't mean just to logging or land use, I mean to everything. No scientific study, no resource assessment, no nature trails, nothing. Just areas that are completely off limits, where nobody is allowed to go, period. What would that inspire in us; curiosity, wonder, frustration? It would certainly be an interesting experiment.
The truth is that forests naturally have periodic fires. They generally occur at intervals that burn up undergrowth and fallen trees before they accumulate to such a degree that forest fires sterilize the soil, which is what is occurring presently across the west.. Redwood cones don't even open until after the heat of a fire when competing trees and brush that would have shaded them are burned. Their thick bark protects old trees from burning up. The ash acts as fertilizer for their growth.
A large part of the problem is the forestry management management practice of immediately suppressing fires that would naturally occur. This practice is partly due to commercial concerns, but a large part of it is due to so many homes being built in the forests. Protecting homes and lives becomes the priority. This is my situation if I'm honest.
The other side of that coin is that we need wood, it's simply a fact. A few years ago I was teaching a Cob building course with Ianto Evans at the North American School of Natural Building in Coquille, Oregon. We had this great course going with several families and about twenty five or thirty people. We all felt good about what we were doing; learning a building technique that makes minimal use of resources, clay, sand, and straw, with very little or no use of milled number. it took place in a beautiful spot that had been cut over many years before. Anyway the skyline at the top of the mountain had these great firs growing and I loved just sitting quietly and staring at their silhouettes against the sky. One day while we were eating lunch, I noticed the trees falling. They were being harvested. Everyone became silent for awhile and we just watched as one after another came down. People became angry and wanted to go up there and protest and try to stop it. I really felt enormous pain in my gut watching them fall but then it came over me, the truth that I occasionally buy lumber, a couple of 2x4s or whatever, so how could I really, in good conscience, object to something that I was a part of. I might even purchase the lumber from those very trees. I stated that fact and everyone became quiet again and we watched for a couple more hours until they were all gone. I was terrifically saddened and really felt physical pain.
When we again returned to the program, the depth of what we were teaching and learning took on much greater meaning. I like to think that those trees gave up their lives to bring the true importance of the program to another level. I'm sure everyone present remembers that event vividly.
It's a conundrum. I wish I had an easy answer, but I don't.
Thanks Brian, for broaching this subject and being willing to take the flak. Also, congratulations for finding a way to make a living in a way that supports life. Without bees we would have no flowers no fruit, and little food. Quite righteous!......B

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