This looks interesting. The Forest Service’s Center for Urban Forest Research (CUFR) has developed the California Tree Carbon Calculator (CTCC). The calculator is programmed in an Excel spreadsheet and is the only tool approved by the California Climate Action Registry’s Urban Forest Project Reporting Protocol for quantifying carbon dioxide sequestration from green house gasses (GHG)Continue reading “California Tree Carbon Calculator”
Author Archives: Norm Benson
Short Logger
This is logging on Boggs Mountain State Forest around 1975. The forest manager a that time say this is probably called a short log log truck pulling a short log trailer. There were not too many of these around (nowadays log forks are added onto a flatbed trailer). The operator liked it since it gaveContinue reading “Short Logger”
A Regulated Forest – Part 2
Alston Chase’s 1995 book, In A Dark Wood, chronicles the clash over the last century between forest productionists and forest preservationists. He wrote about the strategy of removing decadent timber from timberlands, owned by timber companies or the government (though not from parks), to make way for young trees: [Private companies] sought to convert old,Continue reading “A Regulated Forest – Part 2”
A Regulated Forest
This circa 1967 picture* is of Cliff Fago scaling (measuring logs to determine their net volume) old growth Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) logs. Cliff became the first permanent forest manager of Boggs Mountain State Forest (BMSF) in 1965. In 1967, he conducted the BMSF’s first timber sale to begin removal of the remaining old growth. ThreeContinue reading “A Regulated Forest”
Take the 1908 Civil Service Exam for Forest Ranger
Think You Have What It Takes To Be a Forester? Here’s the a log scaling question: Name a log scale in common use in your locality and give the contents of logs of the following sizes by this scale: 16 feet long and 26 inches in diameter small end 18 feet long and 30 inchesContinue reading “Take the 1908 Civil Service Exam for Forest Ranger”
Writing an E-Mail Query Letter to a Literary Agent
Many magazine, literary agents, publishers, etc., are accepting e-mail query letters. E-queries use a different format than the standard query letter sent through the postal mail. And, if you’re like me (unpublished but taken steps to rectify that deficiency) you don’t know what a query should look like. I found an article at Associated ContentContinue reading “Writing an E-Mail Query Letter to a Literary Agent”
Writing an E-Mail Query Letter
Many magazine, literary agents, publishers, etc., are accepting e-mail query letters. E-queries use a different format than the standard query letter sent through the postal mail. And, if you’re like me (unpublished but taken steps to rectify that deficiency) you don’t know what a query should look like. I found an article at Associated ContentContinue reading “Writing an E-Mail Query Letter”
Remember Molly
My goodness, has Molly Ivins really been gone for two years? She knew stuff: “I realize this is not breaking news, but we are looking at something exceptional in political history with this race. . . . The Internet is breaking open old power structures and set ways of doing things. Most campaign consultants haveContinue reading “Remember Molly”
Bjorn Lomborg
I find Bjorn Lomborg to be one of the most persuasive voices on the planet. Money quote: An African safari trip once confronted America’s new president with a question he could not answer: why the rich world prized elephants over African children. Today’s version of that question is: why will richer nations spend obscene amountsContinue reading “Bjorn Lomborg”
The Medea Hypothesis
So much for James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis–the idea that life sustains habitable conditions on earth. Enter The Medea Hypothesis. Peter Ward argues that most of Earth’s mass extinctions were caused life itself, and we have the hydrogen sulfide markers to prove it. There’s an interesting TED Talk here (about 20 minutes).
Nullius in Verba 