Artist: Malcolm Watson
This t-shirt design features a bear silhouetted with a landscape of pine trees and birds rising from the blue sky.
The caption reads "Save the Forests" with a back print that has the thoughtful message:
"Defend Forests
Wild Forests harbor wildlife, gather
and absorb water, hold the soil, cool the air,
capture CO2 and turn it into fruits,
nuts, shade, oxygen - and joy!
Avoid wood products from wild forests,
and avoid beef, soy, and palm oil from clearcut rainforests."
Old growth forests protect an interdependent web of life: wildlife, plants, rare species, birds, toads, frogs, streams, and wildness. Older, larger trees capture much more carbon dioxide than smaller, younger trees. The large trees also nurture biodiversity. Trees turn CO2, light, and water into oxygen and carbohydrates. Trees take CO2 out of the air and store it as new layers of bark, new branches, more roots, more fungi, more microbes, and new leaves and needles. They trade and share their carbohydrates with neighboring plants, and with fungi and microbes on their roots. The fungi and microbes gather water, nitrogen, and other minerals for the trees. The fungi also help trees warn each other about insects and droughts. These fungi also protect the roots from diseases.
Whole trees from parks and protected areas in Europe are cut down and sent to fuel power plants and to make wood pellets for stoves.
Currently, wood is considered as "renewable energy"!! But "burning wood actually releases more greenhouse gas emissions than burning gas, oil, or even coal"! '“greenhouse gas emissions from logging in U.S. forests are now comparable to the annual” carbon dioxide “emissions from U.S. coal burning.”
"Protecting US federal forest lands from logging, on the other hand, would remove 84 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year."
Governments subsidize logging companies. Governments use wood to meet renewable energy goals.
Tropical rainforests are cut down and turned into cattle ranches, palm oil plantations, and soy oil plantations. Temperate forests are logged in the US and Europe to make wood pellets, and to fuel power plants.
Years ago Earth First activists did road sit-ins and road blockades to protect forests. One time I walked into the area where Vail was expanding its ski area into elk and lynx habitat (called Blue Sky basin). A journalist friend told me I could hike on a public forest trail and see the devastation. There was a feller buncher/harvester machine that cut down trees, grabbed the trees, cut off the branches and limbs, cut them into logs, and stacked them into a pile. A subcontractor helicopter then picked up the logs from a pile and flew them over to a road. I took photographs of the industrial logging. All the landscaping employees disappeared, and it felt sort of ominous and eerie. I lay on my back as I photographed the helicopter above me. Then the helicopter started to go over me as it dropped the logs. It felt like I was being dive bombed. I skedaddled out of there.
On another campaign, activists won protection of the old growth forests in Bowen Gulch, next to Rocky Mountain National Park. We went door to door in the local community, gave talks, and some activists locked themselves to the gate to block the logging road. We stopped Louisiana Pacific from logging the forest.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/opinion/carole-king-logging-biden.html?searchResultPosition=2
Design #1704T 1704P 1704W
Sweatshirt Heavyweight
Women's Tank Top Soft Slim Fit
Youth Tee