Green, Inc.

Fear motivates. Fear was the reason I got into forestry. When I was in college (I grew up in the 1960s and graduated high school in 1969), Martin Litton’s iconinc picture of a boy looking out over a large clearcut of redwoods caused a number of us to take action. The Photos Were a SnapshotContinue reading “Green, Inc.”

Paper or Plastic, why ereaders are not the right choice

I have seen in posts, comments, and letters to the editor statements that ebook readers will save trees. On a APM Marketplace segment, Kevin Pereira of cable TV’s G4 network, called the Amazon Kindle, “the savior to many, many forests in the future.” What an Ebook Reader is These handy electronic devices can display textContinue reading “Paper or Plastic, why ereaders are not the right choice”

The Anthropocene Epoch

Stop Trying to Save the Planet is an interesting op-ed by Erle Ellis Ph.D., the director of the Laboratory for Anthropogenic Landscape Ecology. “[Nature] was gone before you were born, before your parents were born, before the pilgrims arrived, before the pyramids were built. You are living on a used planet…We now live in theContinue reading “The Anthropocene Epoch”

Wildfires and CO2

I have read a number of articles, blog posts, op-eds, etc., declaring that timber harvesting is not the answer to the problem–timber harvesting is the problem. Well the old axiom about a picture holds,  a picture is worth a thousand words. With that in mind, check out Tom Knudson’s article, Fire, climate and thinning overContinue reading “Wildfires and CO2”

Timber’s Term of the Week: Forest

Forest noun Definition: Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares (just over an acre – ed.) with trees higher than 5 meters (just over 16 feet – ed.) and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does not include land that is predominantly under agriculturalContinue reading “Timber’s Term of the Week: Forest”

Timber's Term of the Week: Forest

Forest noun Definition: Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares (just over an acre – ed.) with trees higher than 5 meters (just over 16 feet – ed.) and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does not include land that is predominantly under agriculturalContinue reading “Timber's Term of the Week: Forest”

Green Giant Politics

My wife and I are members of the Sierra Club. She, because she supported their agenda. Me, because I want to know what the arguments are going to be about. The other day, we found a mailer from the Sierra Club imploring us to write the President, the Speaker of the House, and the SenateContinue reading “Green Giant Politics”

The Copenhagen Consensus

On one of my post the other day, Anne asked in a comment, “What, other than cost, is the downside of reducing our carbon footprint [to prevent global warming]?” There are steps that we can take to reduce a footprint, carbon or otherwise: Move to a metropolitan area. Urban areas, due to their compactness, areContinue reading “The Copenhagen Consensus”

Happy Earth Day

On April 22, 1970, I, along with 20 million others that day, attended one of the first Earth Day celebrations (Read the history of Earth Day here, written by the founder, Senator Gaylord Nelson). The one I went to was held at Santa Monica City College (yes, Dustin Hoffman’s and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s alma mater). InContinue reading “Happy Earth Day”

The trouble with Hemp

… there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong. Any time there is a discussion about forests, someone brings up the possibility of substituting hemp for paper and for petroleum products. I read on one discussion forum, “[Industrial hemp] can be harvested every four months while traditional varieties of trees are allowed toContinue reading “The trouble with Hemp”