News — global warming

Americans Who Tell the Truth

Alexandra Heal in the Financial Times 9-10-22. "The Ancient subarctic forests at risk from climate change and war".  she says these forests are going fast due to global warming and fires.  They store lots of carbon-more than humans have released since 1870!    

Although much of the boreal is undeveloped, logging is rampant in parts of Canada and Siberia. More than 4,000 sq km of Canada’s ancient trees are cut down every year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. This destroys wildlife habitat and can also release carbon from the soil. An environmental research paper found last year that fires in Siberia were more frequent near felling sites.

link  They save money and reduce global warming.

NYT -'“greenhouse gas emissions from logging in U.S. forests are now comparable to the annual” carbon dioxide “emissions from U.S. coal burning.” Protecting federal forest lands from logging, on the other hand, would remove 84 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year, they wrote.'

Trees store carbon, and older trees store much more carbon than smaller, younger trees.  Older trees take carbon out of the air and add it as new layers of bark, new branches, more roots, and new leaves.

Forests harbor water, intact ecosystems, wildlife, rare species, and wildness-  Biden and Congress are considering cutting more of them down for the usual PR reasons : thinning to prevent fires; to provide jobs; to allow timber companies to cut massive old growth trees that are resistant to fires, so the companies can make extra money, so the companies will cut some of the little trees that are not worth much to the timber companies; because the timber companies pay off politicians  and get paid to cut and to build more logging roads; for institutional habits of giving major contracts to road builders and timber companies and sawmills.

Insect book