Tucked into a sprawling, 1,200-page climate change bill before Congress today is a tiny paragraph that touches the federal forests covering a quarter of Oregon.
It says these lands, that already give us trails to hike and clean water to drink, can provide renewable power for our toasters while helping to replace long gone lumbering jobs. .
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When we evaluate replacement technologies, we need to weigh the total impact, in this case, It is going to be extremely complicated because the decision tree begins with multiple start points and multi decisions at each level.
Article in Portland Oregonian about harvesting biomass from National Forests as a jobs program to keep mills running after they have run out of cheap trees to cut. Promoted by Oregon Forest Industries Council which is an apologist for logging public lands in any guise. Mostly industry folks and politicians are quoted but one environmentalist is quoted. Sounds like a logging program to me. Some of the posted comments are interesting.
I'm not so sure that national forests should be utilized. We need some forests that are simply left alone. We kid ourselves if we think we know enough to manage a wild forest. Planted or managed forests are a different story. Instead of thinning them, how about pruning them as we do in New Zealand. Virtually all our forests are planted and the farmers put 'lifts' on them. That is to say, they prune the branches off the lower third of the tree and they do this three times as ... More »
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