Ah, yessss. A familiar reaction. To paraphrase - "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts."
Forests not disappearing
- Thread starter Walter
- Start date
Very good point. I've heard that most tropical deforestation occurring at this time is due to clearing for the production of bio-fuels. Massive ecological damage done in the name of saving the environment and planet.
However, tropical forests have a habit of reforesting cleared areas when left alone. In the 1990's when there was lots of environmentalist concern over the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest, it was revealed that most of the "deforestation" and burning was due to farmers re-clearing forests that were encroaching onto their fields, not new clearing.
Got a fish story you want to share? I don't know where you live but Nova Scotia has been virtually stripped of timber.:smile:
Some do some don't I believe I read a report on Sri Lanka and that the erosion on foothills had made this an impossibility.
If you'd check my profile, you'd find that I live in Prince George, BC, where the trees are dying faster than we can cut them.
And whether it's Haiti or Nova Scotia, one small area doesn't necessarily represent the whole world. In both Canada and the US, there are more trees now than there were 100 years ago. At least there were till the pine beetle epidemic.
Yep Them pine beetles don't seem to want to stop, maybe the boreal forest is done maybe we'll get the deep cold and maybe the forests are still intact in more of the world than I thought I just have not been able to figure how that could be with the massive population increase in that same 100 years, we will use them all sooner or later is my guess and that is just a guess.
Well the pines were overdue for a die-off, as happens to them. We had 4 times as many mature pines as 100 years ago and every year they got older and more vulnerable to beetle attack. We've been fighting them off for 30 years and there were always more and more outbreaks to attack. When they appeared in Manning Provincial Park in 1980 the Parks Dept. wanted to let nature take its course, but when it went from 12 trees to 350 acres in two years they decided to take action and logged them all, stopping the infestation. When they appeared in Tweedsmuir Park, the NDP were in power and the environmentalists had a lot of influence with them, and no matter how much we begged, pleaded, warned of what could happen if left unchecked, they wouldn't let us take action, with the result we're now dealing with.
As for forests in general, we replant what we log, to the tune of 4 seedlings for every tree cut, plus natural re-seeding. In BC, only 28% of the forest is available for commercial harvest so the rest looks after itself.
In addition, with the advent of modern high production agriculture methods, many marginal areas in North America have been abandoned to reforest themselves, and in the northern prairies, the massive herds of bison that kept trees trampled are gone and a lot of trees now cover area that they'd kept grassy.
The BC government itself says that only 10% of BC forests are strictly protected.
http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/sof/2006/02.htm
I wonder why a benchmark of 100 year ago is used. A hundred years ago was about the height of the clear cutting rape. How many ships masks do you think Ontario could supply to the British Navy today? At one time the estimate was 100’s of years. Of course, Ontario was clear cut in about 50 years. Any idea of the supply of veneer quality logs in Ontario is today or why veneer mills shut down?
I wonder how replanting ever became confused with reforestation. You log a forest and you get back a toilet paper farm or a 2x4 plantation at best. I wonder how replanting ever became confused with Siviculture for that matter. A typical replanting is defoliating a selective cut with herbicide and then bringing in summer students to stick seedlings in what ever soil is left, and that’s it. The seedlings are left to fend for themselves. Japan and Germany have practiced Sivilculture since the 1600’s. It is very labor intensive because the seedlings are tended like a garden. Replanting in N.A. is an apology by the industry.
Basically, you log a forest and you don’t get a forest back. You open the canopy and you get understory that’s so think few animals live there. The sun warms the ground and you get wildfires galore--a few of which I’ve fought. Catastrophic fires such as those in BC or NW Ontario are mostly due to logging practices. Wild fires in real forests are mostly self-limiting. The plantations that survive bugs, fires etc, become 2nd 3rd or more generation forests. The mature trees in each generation are smaller than the preceding generation, and the soil becomes lost or depleted unless managed by credible certified methods. At best you get a well-run farm, not a forest.
And how well-run are our tree farms managed? The government in BC offers this page.
http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/het/certification
One thing to note about certification systems is that the Forest Stewardship Council definition of sustainable is the generally accepted international standard. ISO14001 in itself is not a definition of sustainable but is a system for achieving organization environmental goals. CSA standards have been improved but remain industry friendly. I don’t know if CSA certified lumber qualifies as green to qualify for construction projects that require certified lumber.
Our farms aren’t exactly all that well run for the future. Basically, you lose your soil you lose your bio-mass eventually. In the meantime, an acre of bush is an acre of bush. Within a region an acre gets the same sun and moisture as any other acre. An acre produces about the same annual bio-mass increase irrespective of what’s growing there. I suppose you could call a toilet paper farm a forest or corn for fuel fields bio-mass. Just don’t call them forests. I live in a 3rd generation forest. Loggers, mill workers and forest company owners are my friends. I understand what is done and why. Just don’t tell me the results are pretty.
http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/sof/2006/02.htm
I wonder why a benchmark of 100 year ago is used. A hundred years ago was about the height of the clear cutting rape. How many ships masks do you think Ontario could supply to the British Navy today? At one time the estimate was 100’s of years. Of course, Ontario was clear cut in about 50 years. Any idea of the supply of veneer quality logs in Ontario is today or why veneer mills shut down?
I wonder how replanting ever became confused with reforestation. You log a forest and you get back a toilet paper farm or a 2x4 plantation at best. I wonder how replanting ever became confused with Siviculture for that matter. A typical replanting is defoliating a selective cut with herbicide and then bringing in summer students to stick seedlings in what ever soil is left, and that’s it. The seedlings are left to fend for themselves. Japan and Germany have practiced Sivilculture since the 1600’s. It is very labor intensive because the seedlings are tended like a garden. Replanting in N.A. is an apology by the industry.
Basically, you log a forest and you don’t get a forest back. You open the canopy and you get understory that’s so think few animals live there. The sun warms the ground and you get wildfires galore--a few of which I’ve fought. Catastrophic fires such as those in BC or NW Ontario are mostly due to logging practices. Wild fires in real forests are mostly self-limiting. The plantations that survive bugs, fires etc, become 2nd 3rd or more generation forests. The mature trees in each generation are smaller than the preceding generation, and the soil becomes lost or depleted unless managed by credible certified methods. At best you get a well-run farm, not a forest.
And how well-run are our tree farms managed? The government in BC offers this page.
http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/het/certification
One thing to note about certification systems is that the Forest Stewardship Council definition of sustainable is the generally accepted international standard. ISO14001 in itself is not a definition of sustainable but is a system for achieving organization environmental goals. CSA standards have been improved but remain industry friendly. I don’t know if CSA certified lumber qualifies as green to qualify for construction projects that require certified lumber.
Our farms aren’t exactly all that well run for the future. Basically, you lose your soil you lose your bio-mass eventually. In the meantime, an acre of bush is an acre of bush. Within a region an acre gets the same sun and moisture as any other acre. An acre produces about the same annual bio-mass increase irrespective of what’s growing there. I suppose you could call a toilet paper farm a forest or corn for fuel fields bio-mass. Just don’t call them forests. I live in a 3rd generation forest. Loggers, mill workers and forest company owners are my friends. I understand what is done and why. Just don’t tell me the results are pretty.
A hundred and twenty years ago ship building (wooden) was over in the maritimes for all intents and purpose, the good stuff had been logged and shipped to Europe after haveing built british fleets for the suceeding hundred years so that industry imposed benchmark is misleading to say the least. No bio-mass no natural reforestation. Like I said in a previous post when they get to the Seas Teeming With Fish thread and they will, I will just stop reading the crap.
You really don't appear to know very much about BC's forests. First of all, something like 13% of BC is now protected in parks, and of course, some of that isn't forest so 10% sounds about right. But the amount of BC that is available for logging is only 28%. That doesn't mean the rest is protected, it just means it won't be logged. There are a number of reasons for it, poor timber values, accessibility problems, stuff like that.
100 years is just a good point for comparison, it wasn't a benchmark. The lodgepole pine is considered mature at 80 years and considered overmature at 120 years. The older they get the more vulnerable they are to disease and insect attack, and the 120 yr. old trees we were protecting 30 years ago are now 150, and much weaker and harder to protect. 100 years ago is probably about as far back as we can go and have any kind of reliable knowledge of what the forest was like. It's also about the time we started protecting it from fires, which is one of the reasons we now have (had) so many overmature trees. The relatively small proportion of mature trees also indicates that there was likely some kind of major die-off in prior years.
100 years ago there was clear cutting on the coast of BC, but not the interior where the lodgepole pine are. At that time the pine was not considered to be fit for lumber, as it is a fairly small tree and they were into cutting only large trees. (Incidentally, if you're ever in Vancouver, go see Pacific Spirit Park, 763 hectares that was clear-cut about 100 years ago and never replanted, it was just left to itself. Photos at the time show a moonscape, now it's all come back on its own, and it's a "park".)
I have little idea of what transpired in Ontario forests, but here there was no massive cutting for the Brit navy.
How does planting become a forest? Quite easily. You replant the trees you desire for logging in the future, trees suitable for the particular site. You then ensure that the trees survive and thrive. If they don't, you have to replant. After 15 to 25 years it achieves "free to grow" status and the corporation is relieved of any more responsibility for that particular block. As you said, however, trees do not a forest make on their own. But what happens is the rest of the flora and fauna come back on their own, just as they did in Pacific Spirit Park. Your description of a typical replanting has no similarity to practices in BC.
Catastrophic fires are due to extreme conditions. The monstrous fires in BC in 1967 and 2003 were not due to logging, but extreme drought conditions. The vast majority of the areas burned was unlogged. Older forests have far more dry fuel than planted areas and burn much easier and hotter. All wild fires are self limiting. They'll burn till they run out of fuel or till conditions are uncondusive to burning, such as rain. Forest soils are not depleted by logging. They are sometimes sterilized by wildfires if conditions are dry enough and the fire burns hot enough. I've been in burns that barely scorched the surface of the forest floor, and in other burns where no organic material remained, everything burned down to mineral soil. Logging practices in BC are done in such a way as to minimize soil disturbance. And in cases where it is disturbed, it can re-establish itself in remarkably short time frames. Second growth trees grow just as big as their predecessors. When we replant, we do indeed get a forest, not the exactly the same as what was there before, but a healthy thriving forest, nonetheless. And the results are very pretty. Again, check out Pacific Spirit Park.
I speak from a position of 40 years of experience with the BC forests, from being part of the forest industry and as a former Assistant Ranger.
The subject is ‘the forests are not disappearing.’ The industry says no and counts tree farms as forests and suggests large percentages of lands are protected by counting alpine and wet lands as ‘not available to commercial logging—neither is Vancouver for that matter. There aren’t many commercial logs in those places. I didn’t play BC forest expert, I posted BC government links. It seems fair to generalize a bit from my experience living in the bush..
My subject is forests not agricultural lands managed as economic assets. I accept that the industry will exist and don’t mind the economics all that much since forestry provides the only employment here. I do resent industry propaganda that insists on calling plantations forests. They are not natural wild forests, and they share the same sorts of problems all cash crop lands share. They aren’t very healthy or self-sustaining. I do think that I and every member of the public deserve convenient access to genuine wild areas. I think the management of crown lands is far too industry friendly. And, that the high-value added activities are mostly exported along with the lumber to create stick-built homes on wheels that may not last as long as it took the trees to grow here.
Ummm, I don’t expect I’ll ever have the expertise to walk through a 50 or 100 old cut and confuse it with a first growth forest. I don’t suppose I’ll ever look at endless tracks of pure species stands and think they got that way all by themselves. I don’t think I’ll ever look at modern selective cuts on public lands and not think ‘park.’
Really, don’t you think that wild forests didn’t experience extreme conditions like droughts before logging and fire suppression; and the whole country didn’t burn down.
Don’t you think that logs contain organic and mineral nutrients, and that taking logs out of a forest can deplete the soil, or the eroded networks of skidder trails and improperly build forest access roads exports soil through erosion? Almost all nutrients in many tropical rain forests are stored in the trees, and logging removes the logs from the land.
Don’t you think that fire hazards to older logged cuts are high because they are unhealthy forests compared to unlogged forest land? I mean really, where did all the dead fall come from except for an abundance of sick trees. Anyway, I don’t need to be told about wildfires since I fought them on our volunteer crew until I retired last summer.
It’s funny how the subject of FSC certification never comes up in industry expert discussions. It’s an internationally recognized management standard for the sustainable management of forests. It provides no guidance for how to roll back to a wild forest. It does provide measurable standards for how to keep tree farms the same quality as they are now. The standard talks a lot about soil quality, allowable cuts, bio-diversity etc. The main thing about FSC certification is that it tracks product all the way from standing trees to final consumer products and requires periodic independent audits of certified lands. If everything in the public forests were wonderful, then there’d be no problem with certifying all public lands. If everything was fine the spotted owl likely wouldn’t be endangered. It is a BC bird that hunts beneath the canopy. Canopies have disappeared and many that remain are too low for the birds to hunt under. But, second growth trees are just as big.
There are many reasons why second growth yields are lower. For example, high value species are planted where they wouldn’t naturally grow. There are quota systems that guarantee minimum allocations of timber to mills. In Ontario the quotas are based on yields from first old growth forests, and the quotas haven’t been changed. The job of forest management plan administrators is to deliver the quotas, not necessarily to enforce sustainable management plans, which is perhaps why public agencies avoid FSC certification. Perhaps there’s been a bit of drift in the definition of a mature tree. The book Trees in Canada says lodge poles may live for 200 years. I wouldn’t know if they start being disease prone at 120 years if they are growing in natural stands. I think BC has a quota system similar to Ontario’s.
But I rant, I don’t mind economic realities, but I do think the public should be getting a much better deal for the public lands that are turned into farms of profit for the few. The loggers, logging companies and the public aren’t the ones getting rich. I am just tired of industry apologists trying to turn pigs ears into silk purses rather than just calling a farm a farm. Lord we have a county forester whose expert public pronouncements run to; ‘My grandfather logged in the park (Algonquin). It’s been cut every 50 years since then and there’s no reason why it can’t be cut more often. People who canoe there and know better think of it as our local wilderness theme park. Hundreds of thousands of utility poles as cubic meters of timber are taken from the park annually. Not many ships masks are still standing. No veneer grade stands remain, and the experimental biodiversity stands blew down. A story around here is that decades ago large tracts of Crown lands were aerial sprayed with 2-4-5 T because the seedlings weren’t competing with the understory well enough, and officials didn’t wish to provide local employment. 2-5-4-T is Agent Orange. Vietnam veterans exposed to it might get compensation. Experts Economics! Lord, a consultant’s report to the county says that 25% of our forested land contains underutilized stands of marginal commercial value trees that could be utilized. The report doesn’t say that some of the lands got that was because they were cut too frequently. Heck, why worry about 25 year cuts when we could cut three times a year and turn crown forests into hay fields. Haying probably would be better for the local economy too, and haying isn’t as dangerous as logging. Experts?
My subject is forests not agricultural lands managed as economic assets. I accept that the industry will exist and don’t mind the economics all that much since forestry provides the only employment here. I do resent industry propaganda that insists on calling plantations forests. They are not natural wild forests, and they share the same sorts of problems all cash crop lands share. They aren’t very healthy or self-sustaining. I do think that I and every member of the public deserve convenient access to genuine wild areas. I think the management of crown lands is far too industry friendly. And, that the high-value added activities are mostly exported along with the lumber to create stick-built homes on wheels that may not last as long as it took the trees to grow here.
Ummm, I don’t expect I’ll ever have the expertise to walk through a 50 or 100 old cut and confuse it with a first growth forest. I don’t suppose I’ll ever look at endless tracks of pure species stands and think they got that way all by themselves. I don’t think I’ll ever look at modern selective cuts on public lands and not think ‘park.’
Really, don’t you think that wild forests didn’t experience extreme conditions like droughts before logging and fire suppression; and the whole country didn’t burn down.
Don’t you think that logs contain organic and mineral nutrients, and that taking logs out of a forest can deplete the soil, or the eroded networks of skidder trails and improperly build forest access roads exports soil through erosion? Almost all nutrients in many tropical rain forests are stored in the trees, and logging removes the logs from the land.
Don’t you think that fire hazards to older logged cuts are high because they are unhealthy forests compared to unlogged forest land? I mean really, where did all the dead fall come from except for an abundance of sick trees. Anyway, I don’t need to be told about wildfires since I fought them on our volunteer crew until I retired last summer.
It’s funny how the subject of FSC certification never comes up in industry expert discussions. It’s an internationally recognized management standard for the sustainable management of forests. It provides no guidance for how to roll back to a wild forest. It does provide measurable standards for how to keep tree farms the same quality as they are now. The standard talks a lot about soil quality, allowable cuts, bio-diversity etc. The main thing about FSC certification is that it tracks product all the way from standing trees to final consumer products and requires periodic independent audits of certified lands. If everything in the public forests were wonderful, then there’d be no problem with certifying all public lands. If everything was fine the spotted owl likely wouldn’t be endangered. It is a BC bird that hunts beneath the canopy. Canopies have disappeared and many that remain are too low for the birds to hunt under. But, second growth trees are just as big.
There are many reasons why second growth yields are lower. For example, high value species are planted where they wouldn’t naturally grow. There are quota systems that guarantee minimum allocations of timber to mills. In Ontario the quotas are based on yields from first old growth forests, and the quotas haven’t been changed. The job of forest management plan administrators is to deliver the quotas, not necessarily to enforce sustainable management plans, which is perhaps why public agencies avoid FSC certification. Perhaps there’s been a bit of drift in the definition of a mature tree. The book Trees in Canada says lodge poles may live for 200 years. I wouldn’t know if they start being disease prone at 120 years if they are growing in natural stands. I think BC has a quota system similar to Ontario’s.
But I rant, I don’t mind economic realities, but I do think the public should be getting a much better deal for the public lands that are turned into farms of profit for the few. The loggers, logging companies and the public aren’t the ones getting rich. I am just tired of industry apologists trying to turn pigs ears into silk purses rather than just calling a farm a farm. Lord we have a county forester whose expert public pronouncements run to; ‘My grandfather logged in the park (Algonquin). It’s been cut every 50 years since then and there’s no reason why it can’t be cut more often. People who canoe there and know better think of it as our local wilderness theme park. Hundreds of thousands of utility poles as cubic meters of timber are taken from the park annually. Not many ships masks are still standing. No veneer grade stands remain, and the experimental biodiversity stands blew down. A story around here is that decades ago large tracts of Crown lands were aerial sprayed with 2-4-5 T because the seedlings weren’t competing with the understory well enough, and officials didn’t wish to provide local employment. 2-5-4-T is Agent Orange. Vietnam veterans exposed to it might get compensation. Experts Economics! Lord, a consultant’s report to the county says that 25% of our forested land contains underutilized stands of marginal commercial value trees that could be utilized. The report doesn’t say that some of the lands got that was because they were cut too frequently. Heck, why worry about 25 year cuts when we could cut three times a year and turn crown forests into hay fields. Haying probably would be better for the local economy too, and haying isn’t as dangerous as logging. Experts?
Tree farms that are managed as agricultural plantations are non-existent around here. I've seen some in the US on private land owned by the lumber companies, but not here. What is called a "tree farm license" in BC isn't that kind of tenure. It's a large area that the licensee has exclusive timber rights to, and the responsibilities as well. The entire area will be logged over a long period (150 years). Sylviculture requirements are the same as on any crown land. They are indeed forests.
What starts as a plantation here evolves into a forest as local flora and fauna re-establish themselves after planting. Although the areas are planted to trees, they are not managed as farms or agricultural endeavors, and they are left alone to stay wild. The public has access to them. It amazes me how often some conservation minded public persons want the logging stopped but insist that the lumber companies maintain the logging roads so they can have access whenever they want. For those who truly want virgin, untouched, wild forests there are no roads. The way to access them is by foot, canoe or horseback (if the horse can manage, which sometimes it can't). Strangely, they don't seem to want access bad enough to put in that kind of effort.
Well maybe you won't, but I have known people who confused second growth on an old logged area with old growth. I don't know about where you are, but here there are no "endless tracts of pure species" stands. There are re-planted blocks that start out as single species, but other species always seed themselves in with them. I have seen and logged stands of pure lodgepole pine. Not planted, natural. Pine will do that in the right conditions. And whether you think "park" or not, when it's left to itself, it is wild.
No, the whole country didn't burn down. But there have indeed been huge fires. Just east of here, about 150 years ago, 10,000 square miles burned off in one summer.
Most of the nutrient in a coniferous tree is in the foliage. In Europe, they even make a commercial fertilizer out of it. But consider; after the last ice age what was there? Rock, gravel, sand, mud, clay. That's about it. No nutrient. Yet the forests re-established themselves. The only thing a coniferous tree requires is mineral soil, water and air. They do better with nutrients, but they aren't required. Nutrients are produced on the forest floor. Needles, leaves, twigs, grasses etc. accumulate on the ground and decay, producing the nutrients that contribute to the growth of the trees. It's called "duff" and it remains after the trees are logged, providing nutrient for the seedlings which don't require nearly as much as the mature trees did. I've seen the duff re-establish in short order on ground that had the mineral soil exposed. If all the nutrient of the old forest was needed for the new, we wouldn't have forests, it would still be as bare as when the glaciers left.
Skid trails aren't used much here anymore, and when they were, proper erosion prevention was required. And maybe they build roads improperly where you are, but here there are strict regulations on the construction and maintenance of them. As well, once they're not used any more, they're de-activated to prevent erosion.
All the older logged areas that I've ever seen are very healthy with little, if any, dead material that serves as fuel, unlike unlogged areas. As trees get older, they get weaker and vulnerable to insect and disease, and that's where all the deadfall comes from. In replanted areas, there aren't any trees that old yet.
All species go extinct eventually. By themselves. Without any help from us. Oh, sure, we've helped a few along, like the passenger pigeon, but the spotted owl isn't one of them. It's actually on it's way out because of competition from the barred owl. And it isn't really much of a BC bird. A small portion of the southern end of BC happens to be the northern limit of its range. They're mostly in the pacific northwest states. And when they learned how (accidentally) to call them and were able to do an accurate count of mating pairs, they found just as many in second growth as in old growth. However, those ones weren't officially included in the count because "they weren't supposed to be there". Listen to George Carlin talk about endangered species.
Never happens here. Only native species suitable for the area are planted.
In Denmark they have some areas that are on their 5th rotation, they've been clear cut 4 times already, and they report that there appears to be a slight increase in volume in each successive stand. They suspect this might have something to do with modern pollution acting as fertilizer for the trees.
In BC there is a province wide timber cruise under which tree growth is measured every 10 years so the government can keep an accurate record of the volume of timber available, and the rate of growth. Timber quotas are determined by that.
The job of forest management is to deliver the quota and replant/renew/replenish the area. The whole idea of quota is based on sustainable volumes of logging that can be replaced by new growth in a recurring cycle over millennia.
Mature means grown up. Like a person is physically mature by age 20. Yet he/she can live much longer, but the older, the more prone to disease. Same with pine. If memory serves, the oldest known lodgepole pine is around 320, but that's extremely rare. I have seen them in excess of 200 years in the Chilcotin area of BC, but that's a very tough environment for them. They're rather stunted, 8 inches in diameter, about 30 feet tall. I've also seen a few around 200 years old that were in good shape, magnificent health for pine. I don't know why they were in such good shape, but they were tall for pine with no limbs except for at the very top and totally sound white wood, about 24 inches in diameter, which is also very rare for them.
I don't know anything about your forests but I do know that the situation here has no resemblance to what you describe. I know a guy who moved here from Toronto about 12 years ago and he said his attitude toward BC forest practices took a 180 degree turn once he got here and actually saw what was going on. The reality isn't so bad, and the stories that reach the ears of urban environmentalists are just that; stories. Fiction, to be precise.
Deforestation, global warming, pollution... yadda yadda yadda...
It fundamentally doesn't matter in the long term. The planet is fine. It's been here for over 4 billion years, it'll be here for at least that long again, until the sun bloats up into a red giant, and it's endured far worse than anything we can do to it. There have been at least 5 massive extinctions in the history of life on the planet, in which over 50% of species disappeared, and at least 9 more lesser but still significant extinction events that we know of, and we appear to be causing another one. The most recent one, apart from what we're doing now, 65 million years ago, was due to an asteroid impact, the others, according to the best evidence we have, seem to be due to natural cycles on the planet itself. They mark the divisions between the major units of the geological time scale, and they're due to continental drift, changes in ocean circulation patterns, stuff like that. The worst one we know of was the extinction event that ended the Permian about 250 million years ago. Something like 90% of species snuffed it in that one.
Imagine standing on the ocean shore 250 million years ago. This is what the geological evidence suggests you'd see: The waves are slow, the water moves like gelatin, and it's purple. There's a dense, 100 meter deep layer of anerobic bacteria at the surface, belching out huge bubbles of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. The atmosphere is poisonous, the ocean is rotting, and the shoreline is littered with decaying, stinking organic matter. The sky is green. Over in what eventually became Siberia there are massive volcanic eruptions happening, belching more greenhouse gases into the sky and forming the huge (almost a million square miles) lava flows we now know as the Siberian Traps.
Over 90% of all the species that have ever existed are gone. That's the way it works, and some day we'll be among the extinct too. Nature is not nice, or kind, or gentle, and one of these days, as George Carlin puts it, the planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas.
The planet doesn't need saving, it can take care of itself just fine. We are a plague upon it, and nature has ways of dealing with plagues. We're the ones who need saving. From ourselves.
It fundamentally doesn't matter in the long term. The planet is fine. It's been here for over 4 billion years, it'll be here for at least that long again, until the sun bloats up into a red giant, and it's endured far worse than anything we can do to it. There have been at least 5 massive extinctions in the history of life on the planet, in which over 50% of species disappeared, and at least 9 more lesser but still significant extinction events that we know of, and we appear to be causing another one. The most recent one, apart from what we're doing now, 65 million years ago, was due to an asteroid impact, the others, according to the best evidence we have, seem to be due to natural cycles on the planet itself. They mark the divisions between the major units of the geological time scale, and they're due to continental drift, changes in ocean circulation patterns, stuff like that. The worst one we know of was the extinction event that ended the Permian about 250 million years ago. Something like 90% of species snuffed it in that one.
Imagine standing on the ocean shore 250 million years ago. This is what the geological evidence suggests you'd see: The waves are slow, the water moves like gelatin, and it's purple. There's a dense, 100 meter deep layer of anerobic bacteria at the surface, belching out huge bubbles of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. The atmosphere is poisonous, the ocean is rotting, and the shoreline is littered with decaying, stinking organic matter. The sky is green. Over in what eventually became Siberia there are massive volcanic eruptions happening, belching more greenhouse gases into the sky and forming the huge (almost a million square miles) lava flows we now know as the Siberian Traps.
Over 90% of all the species that have ever existed are gone. That's the way it works, and some day we'll be among the extinct too. Nature is not nice, or kind, or gentle, and one of these days, as George Carlin puts it, the planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas.
The planet doesn't need saving, it can take care of itself just fine. We are a plague upon it, and nature has ways of dealing with plagues. We're the ones who need saving. From ourselves.
Perhaps we should, as Canadians, urge our representatives at the Senate of Canada and the House of Commons to legislate such that exports of raw resources are unlawful—in exemplia, resources must be refined within Canada, and the finished product out of the refining process may then be exported.
It seems reasonable that as human populations continue to migrate to urban centers forests would benefit.
It is also quite likely that humanity is facing extinction as it resides at the top of the food chain. Any species that is too successful runs the risk of extinguishing itself.
It is also quite likely that humanity is facing extinction as it resides at the top of the food chain. Any species that is too successful runs the risk of extinguishing itself.
More cut and paste. Walter, can you define NASA's agenda? source
NASA Satellite Measures Deforestation
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For decades, the Brazilian government has been basing estimates of Amazon deforestation on high-resolution Landsat satellite data. Having satellite data that show plenty of detail of the surface is critical for mapping the total deforested area because some of the deforestation in the region comes from small-scale clearing or logging projects. The high level of detail has some drawbacks. Image file sizes are large and they require large amounts of computer resources to process and store. In addition, the higher the level of detail a satellite sensor provides the less total area it can observe at one time, which makes mapping large areas time-consuming.
NASA Satellite Measures Deforestation
[SIZE=-1]Click here to view full image (6779 kb)[/SIZE] For decades, the Brazilian government has been basing estimates of Amazon deforestation on high-resolution Landsat satellite data. Having satellite data that show plenty of detail of the surface is critical for mapping the total deforested area because some of the deforestation in the region comes from small-scale clearing or logging projects. The high level of detail has some drawbacks. Image file sizes are large and they require large amounts of computer resources to process and store. In addition, the higher the level of detail a satellite sensor provides the less total area it can observe at one time, which makes mapping large areas time-consuming.