Clearcutting, Climate Change, and the Center for Biological Diversity

“A clearcut is about as beneficial to the climate as a new coal-fired power plant.”

– spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity

Spin consumes science

Such a sound bite is ‘spin;’ and we should not confuse such political posturing with fact. Perception trumps truth and the California Air Resources Board has caved to political pressure from CBD and its ilk, reversing its earlier decisions on carbon protocols. We should not be skipping and shouting yippee! The result runs counter to the goals and the scientific truths CBD professes to hold.

The Science of Carbon Sequestration

In the section on the Forest Sector the IPCC uses peer-reviewed science to back its priorities for using trees to reduce the affect of carbon-based fuels. These methods are:

1) carbon conservation,

2) carbon sequestration and storage,

3) carbon substitution.

Carbon conservation practices include preventing the conversion of forests to other land uses e.g., agricultural uses or subdivisions; and controlling major fires and pest outbreaks.

Carbon sequestration and storage practices include expanding forest area and/or biomass of natural and plantation forests.

Carbon substitution in general means substituting wood products for non-wood building materials, i.e., cement-based and metal-based products, rather than using fossil fuel-based energy and products.

Because forests are “renewable resources,” displacing fossil fuels for low energy-intensive wood products has, according to the IPCC, “the greatest mitigation potential in the long term.”

Clearcutting is not the bogyman

If the CBD and other green organizations cared about human-caused global warming they would embrace forest management, including even-aged. They would promote using California forests for the wood products that store carbon. They would demand that the national forests begin harvesting timber in greater quantities. Our California forests have the capacity to produce all the wood we need and export some as well, yet we import 75% of our wood. You can bet the wood we import wasn’t harvested under restrictions as comprehensive as those within California’s Forest Practices Act. Did any of the harvests have a Timber Harvesting Plan that took water and wildlife into consideration?

Logging in California does not equal deforestation. As a forester, I have seen the before-and-after of tree cutting and I have watched forests over decades. I support conserving trees. I also support harvesting trees responsibly. We need to grow more trees.

We must use the wood we grow as a substitute for metal, concrete, and plastics wherever possible. As Greenpeace co-founder and another environmental heretic, Patrick Moore, points out, “Wood is the most renewable and sustainable of the major building materials. On all measures comparing the environmental effects of common building materials, wood has the least impact on total energy use, greenhouse gases, air and water pollution, solid waste and ecological resource use.” Don’t believe him or me? Read this peer-reviewed paper “Carbon dioxide balance of wood substitution: comparing concrete- and wood-framed buildings,” by Leif Gustavsson, Kim Pingoud, and Roger Sathre. Their research indicates “wood-framed construction requires less energy, and emits less CO2 to the atmosphere, than concrete-framed construction.”

CBD and their ilk promote Kabuki environmentalism with the “zero-cut” illusion of preservation, getting wood from countries with lax environmental enforcement. It’s unadulterated NIMBYism.

Governor Schwarzenegger, AB 32, and Global Warming: Code Redd

“When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.“- Alston Chase, author of “Playing God in Yellowstone.”

‘Redd’ is another ort in the acronym soup of climate-speak from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); it stands for “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.” I’ll get into the particulars shortly on how Redd relates to Assembly Bill 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006; Governor Schwarzenegger’s Executive Order S-13-08 directing state agencies to plan for sea level rise and climate impacts; and the attempt by the California Air Resources Board (Carb) to implement both. But first, the historical underpinnings of the global warming debate and why the hang-up on carbon dioxide.

The Genesis of the Greenhouse Effect

In 1895, Swedish chemist Svante August Arrhenius presented a paper to the Stockholm Physical Society titled, “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground.” Building on previous experiments by Tyndall (certain gases absorb radiation) and others, he argued that thermal radiation from the sun warmed the earth’s surface during the day; and at night, as the surface radiated that energy back into the sky, certain gases and water vapor acted as a blanket to retard the escape of heat. Thus, carbonic acid (carbon dioxide) influenced Earth’s climate, so its abundance or scarcity explained warm periods and ice ages.

About ten years later, he published “Worlds in the Making,” in which he described his “hot-house theory” in layman’s terms. The analogy of glass plates of a greenhouse allowing sunlight through and trapping heat inside was a convenient way to describe the process; hence the ‘greenhouse effect.’ Arrhenius felt that man’s contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere was beneficial because it warded off the return of an ice age.

The earth continued to warm and some thought Arrhenius might be on to something. Others continued to theorize on human-caused CO2’s affect on climate, most notably Guy Callendar and Gilbert Plass. In the 1950s, Plass calculated CO2 absorption of infrared radiation, predicting that doubling earth’s CO2 would produce a 3.6 degrees Celsius warming. Yet, scientific consensus discounted human’s contribution to the greenhouse effect, contending that natural forces exerted far greater influence. Until the 1980s, most scientists believed we were on the verge of another ice age.

The IPCC

Yet, temperatures began steadily rising in the late 1970s. In 1988, the United Nations created the IPCC to assess scientific information concerning human-induced climate change and the options for adaptation and mitigation. The IPCC has now published its fourth assessment (2007) showing that temperature has increased about one degree Celsius over the previous 100 years and a sea level rise of nearly 0.2 meters (0.56 feet). Though if the earth’s average temperature increases 3-5 degrees Celsius, as it has in previous epochs, then we might see a sea level rise of 16 feet.[i]

California Dreamin’: All the leaves are brown

Governor Schwarzenegger and California’s legislature apparently believe, along with much of the rest of the world, the appropriate response is to lower our CO2 emissions. So, about a century after Arrhenius penned his paper, Governor Schwarzenegger signed Executive Order S-13-08 directing all state agencies to develop CO2 strategies to deal with the human-caused portion of global warming. He told a crowd of dignitaries that due to ongoing climate change, “We have to adapt the way we work and plan [to] make sure the state is prepared when heavy rains cause flooding and the potential for sea level rise increases in future years.”

I am skeptical of lowering carbon is the best way to meet these potential threats, preferring direct methods such as effective flood control planning and diking to indirect methods. Nonetheless, due to the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), Governor Schwarzenegger made Carb responsible for overseeing reductions of greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, now less than 10 years off.

This is where Redd comes in (remember Redd? “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation”). Trees do a good job of soaking up CO2 (“sequestering carbon” in IPCC jargon). So, in 2007, Carb embraced the California Climate Action Registry protocols for determining the climate benefits of forest carbon sequestration as part of a Cap-and-Trade system. The only hitch being that those protocols allowed timber harvesting and worse (in the view of some), they seemed to not expressly prohibit—gasp—clearcutting. This upset a number of environmental groups, including the Tucson-based “Center for Biological Diversity” (CBD).

They and their friends dislike timber harvesting in general and clearcutting in particular. You might recall that CBD and others brought suits against Cal-Fire for allowing Sierra Products Industries to practice even-aged management on the SPI forests saying, “A clearcut is about as beneficial to the climate as a new coal-fired power plant.” It turns out CBD and its friends have now persuaded Carb to reverse its earlier decisions.

Politics is Power

Regardless of whether you buy the argument that reducing CO2 will make any difference[i], if you care about reducing our reliance on carbon-based fuels, Carb’s reversal on the accounting protocols is counter-productive.

Tomorrow: Why.

[i] Carbon Dioxide’s Role in Climate Change Calculations

While few dispute CO2 being a ‘greenhouse gas’ (GhG), it’s CO2’s role in climate change that is debated.

The “Warmers” frame the argument this way: since we have seen a increased CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels coupled with a warming trend in the earth’s mean temperature. QED, the cause must be CO2 and therefore lowering CO2 will begin reversing global warming.

The “Skeptics” say that the argument misapplies cause-and-effect. They ask ‘what accounts for the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval Warm periods and the facts that the earth has plunged into ice ages when CO2 has been ten times greater than today? Something else forces major climate changes.’

Environmental Story Trends to Watch: Climate Change

“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.”

– Danish physicist, Neils Bohr

A few posts ago I attempted to list the top environmental stories of the last decade: the Doha development agenda stall, the 2008 economic downturn, Al Gore’s Nobel prize, and others, ending with the Credit Card Reform Act of 2009. This month we’ll consider the future environmental topics in this column even though forecasting is iffy.

Climate Change

Say Og, I'm just thinking out loud here, but you know what my be good? Fire. Global warming be hanged, you hear what I'm saying? We could use fire.

Look for responses to curb global warming to fall short of targets. After all, some folks like Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute call for cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 80% by 2020. Park your car now. Walk everywhere. No open fires.

As the shortfall looms larger, we should see more discussions revolving around geo-engineering, mammoth engineering projects to counteract changes in our atmosphere’s chemistry such as afforestation of the Sahara; and adapting to changes brought about by warmer climate, such as diking against higher sea levels. Current plans center on limiting GHG emissions through carbon taxes, a tax assessed on how much carbon a fuel contains; or cap and trade systems, or a payment system for forestation or forest retention, or other carbon-limiting schemes.

Our earth’s climate has been significantly higher (medieval warm period) and significantly lower (little ice age) than present within just the past 1000 years. Prior to man’s influence on the planet, climate has been much warmer and much cooler and CO2 levels increased and decreased accordingly. “Past climate changes, sea-level changes and catastrophes are written in stone,” writes geologist, Ian Plimer. Plimer, who has some 60 academic papers to his name, continues, “The [United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] process is related to environmental activism, politics and opportunism.” In his estimation, we are “currently in an ice age.”

The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) would be good to remember the words of philosophy professor Alston Chase,

“When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.”

Update (5 Apr 2010): Greenpeace seems to be getting frustrated and some want to kick some energy-wastrel butt.

If you’re one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:

We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

Come, let us reason together…Now where did I put my tire iron?

Michael Crichton’s techno-fable, State of Fear, is looking pretty prophetic.

IPCC 4th Assessment Report doesn’t agree with the Center for Biological Diversity

Apparently, the Center for Biological Diversity doesn’t agree with the Mitigation Working Group Report [PDF] in IPCC’s 4th Assessment as to the best strategy for mitigating CO2.


Photo from south island on New Zealand.

“Biomass clearing and site preparation prior to afforestation [i.e. planting] may lead to short-term carbon losses on that site… Accumulation of carbon in biomass after [planting ] varies greatly by tree species and site, and ranges globally between 1 and 35 t CO2/ha.yr (Richards and Stokes, 2004).” — Forestry. In Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (page 550)

IPCC 4th Assessment Report doesn't agree with the Center for Biological Diversity

Apparently, the Center for Biological Diversity doesn’t agree with the Mitigation Working Group Report [PDF] in IPCC’s 4th Assessment as to the best strategy for mitigating CO2.


Photo from south island on New Zealand.

“Biomass clearing and site preparation prior to afforestation [i.e. planting] may lead to short-term carbon losses on that site… Accumulation of carbon in biomass after [planting ] varies greatly by tree species and site, and ranges globally between 1 and 35 t CO2/ha.yr (Richards and Stokes, 2004).” — Forestry. In Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (page 550)

Forests and Climate Change, Not Clearcut

“If you don’t have the law, you argue the facts; if you don’t have the facts, you argue the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, then you argue the Constitution” – John Adams

Poster from The Green Chain used by permission

It’s not clearcut

At Issue: Clearcutting and Climate Change

On January 27, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), a Tucson-based environmental advocacy group, filed suit against my former employer.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) regulates harvesting on California’s non-federal forests. Oddly, CBD isn’t claiming clearcutting 5,000 acres (none of harvest areas are greater than 40 acres[1]) disrupts habitat and thus endangers plants and animals. No, they’ve filed suit because clearcutting, ostensibly, increases global warming. “A clearcut is about as beneficial to the climate as a new coal-fired power plant,” says Brian Nowicki, CBD’s California climate policy director. At issue is whether Cal Fire “failed to carry out any project-specific analysis of the (greenhouse gas) emissions that would come from clearcutting projects it approved.”

“A clearcut is about as beneficial to the climate as a new coal-fired power plant “– Brian” Nowicki, CBD’s California climate policy director

Forests do a good job of soaking up carbon dioxide (CO2), a “greenhouse gas.” When harvesting removes the trees, some of the carbon in the soil, branches, litter, and leaves, escapes back into the atmosphere. It may be more than normal but it’s normal. Forests constantly exchange carbon, pulling CO2 from the air and putting it back through respiration. One textbook I consulted said of a normal forest, “Measurements have shown as much as 20 pounds [of CO2] per acre per hour being liberated from soil.”

The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) estimates 80% of the terrestrially exchanged carbon is done by forests. California’s forests pull more than 14 million metric tons (MMT) of CO2 annually from the atmosphere. “Most foresters I talk to feel the 14 million metric tons gross sequestration [the incorporation of carbon into the tree] rate is an underestimate,” said Gary Nakamura, Forestry Specialist for University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Forestry and a member of the California Board of Forestry.

Fires, harvesting, insect kill, disease, and the decomposition of forest products in landfills and composting facilities, return about 10 MMT back to the atmosphere. The numbers squish when squeezed. “The uncertainty in this estimate is roughly ± 38%,” Nakamura said in an email.

While the numbers aren’t certain, CBD is. They’ve defeated others before on this issue. They may win again, despite the science, the facts, or the law; never mind the constitution. “It’s part of an ongoing philosophical struggle between the forces of preservation and the forces of conservation,” Bill Keye, Government Affairs Specialist for the California Licensed Foresters Association (CLFA) told me. “They’ve shut down national forests, now they’ve branched out to private ownerships. They don’t like even-aged management [i.e. clearcutting] and they don’t like us [the forest industry].”

“It’s part of an ongoing philosophical struggle between the forces of preservation and the forces of conservation. They’ve shut down national forests, now they’ve branched out to private ownerships. They don’t like even-aged management and they don’t like us.” – Bill Keye, Government Affairs Specialist for the California Licensed Foresters Association

“Clear-cutting is an abysmal practice that should have been banned long ago due to its impacts on wildlife and water quality,” CBD’s Senior Counsel, Brendan Cummings said in a statement. “Now, in an era where all land-management decisions need to be fully carbon-conscious, there is simply no excuse to continue to allow clear-cutting in California.”

“Now, in an era where all land-management decisions need to be fully carbon-conscious, there is simply no excuse to continue to allow clear-cutting in California.” – CBD Senior Counsel, Brendan Cummings

Different Trees, Different Needs

Yet if we want to keep a healthy mix of trees, there’s not only an excuse to allow clearcutting, there’s a place for clearcutting. Every gardener knows some plants work best in shade and some thrive in full sunlight. The same holds for trees. Some trees, such as ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir, do best in full sunlight. Other trees grow in shaded conditions.

Foresters prescribe clearcutting in order to be able to plant trees that are intolerant to shade. Selection cutting shifts the species mix toward shade-tolerant trees because the ones needing full sunlight won’t be able to compete and will get crowded out. Without major stand disturbance such as fire, logging, or extensive windthrow to create those openings, trees such as ponderosa and Douglas-fir won’t have the conditions they need to survive and will be shaded out.

So, if the desired future is to have ponderosa pines or Douglas-firs in our forests, clearcuts beat selection harvests. The only argument should be over the size of the openings allowed, and after the biological needs of a species are met, it’s a matter of policy. California’s regulations restrict clearcut size to 20-40 acres, the smallest openings allowed in the western United States.

A CBD Win Won’t Help the Environment

However well-intentioned lawsuits such as CBD’s latest against Cal Fire are, they have the power to cause unintended consequences. If Bill Keye is right and CBD’s goal is to end all harvesting, the result is far more pollution, not simply more CO2; results CBD contends they are trying to prevent.

““When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.”“- Alston Chase, author of “Playing God in Yellowstone.”

Such lawsuits hold the power to shift people away from California’s renewable second-growth forests, and the wood they provide, to non-renewable resources and their more energy-intensive requirements; or perhaps worse, shifting to sources where environmental policies carry little regard. “When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy,” said Alston Chase, author and former philosophy professor, “the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.”

Never mind the metaphorical coal-fired power plant, real coal-fired power plants will be running harder to create products from substitutes, such as concrete, steel and aluminum. These substitutes require more energy to explore, excavate, smelt, and manufacture.

Our California forests have the capacity to produce all the wood we need and export some as well, yet we import 75% of our wood. And, when we do buy wood, it may not be from places that carefully scrutinize harvests. It’s Kabuki environmentalism and the “zero-cut,” illusion of preservation, getting wood from countries with lax environmental enforcement.

The lawsuit seems to be classic NIMBYism: “think locally, pollute globally.”

—————————————————

[1] 40 acres is the maximum clearcut size allowed by the Forest Practice Rules

If it’s not grown, it has to be mined

Recently, Barnes and Noble launched its own e-book reader, the “Nook,” to compete with the Amazon Kindle.[i] E-readers are handy electronic devices, they can hold hundreds of books, and use an ‘electronic paper.’ They have been heralded as alternatives to ‘dead-tree publishing.’

Without doubt, digital technology improves lives. Consider mobile phones: once isolated African fishermen now connect and locate the best markets for their catch. As a result, spoilage has decreased, fishermen make more money, and consumers pay less.[ii] “Mobile phones have been described as ‘the single most effective tool to promote development,’” says Tom Standage of The Economist magazine.[iii] In the same way, e-readers might save America’s forests to absorb CO2.[iv] [v]

Substituting plastic for paper reminds me of a movie where a character complains of a headache. His friend, a tough-as-nails soldier, smiles. “Let me show you a trick,” he says. The soldier breaks his friend’s finger. The pain of a broken finger trumps a headache. Problem solved.

Nothing comes without cost. Manufacturing and disposing of electronics can harm the environment more than the harvest of a thousand trees. There’s another carbon footprint to consider besides CO2: CN—cyanide.

Raw materials for electronics don’t spring from the ground in the same way trees do for books. “If it’s not grown, it has to be mined,” says resource geologist Sarah Andrews and author of the “Em Hansen” mysteries.[vi]

“These are not your grandfather’s mines,” says Robert Moran, PhD., an expert in geochemistry.[vii] Moran’s company, Michael-Moran Associates, has commented extensively on the environmental impacts of mining projects around the world for both the mining industry and for environmental activists. Mines are “constructed on a huge scale unheard of less than thirty years ago.”[viii]

And the reason there are open-pit mines, “2,000 feet deep, and one to two miles across,” is our appetite for stuff. Each year, the average American consumes 23 tons of mineral products.[ix] By supplanting paper with technology, we stop growing, harvesting, and planting trees and start digging and drilling for metals, toxic chemicals, and petroleum products. “Welcome to my world,” Andrews said.

It’s a dangerous world filled with explosives, Bunyanesque machines, and hazrdous materials. Industrial extraction uses cyanide compounds to separate metals from the ore.[x] And, though U.S. mines pollute less than others around the world, hard-rock mining produces more toxic waste than any other industry in the country.[xi] For example, one ounce of refined gold generates nearly 80 tons of toxic waste. The leftovers are akin to nuclear waste for the mining industry: around for a long time, hazardous, and no one really knows what to do with it. The waste contains “every element in the periodic table,” said Dr. Moran.

Printed texts from the eighth century still exist[xii] while electronics break, wear out, or, more often, become obsolete. When reusing isn’t possible, the choice becomes disposing or recycling.

Discarded electronics account for 70% of the overall toxic waste currently found in landfills, by some accounts. Americans pitch a computer and three mobile phones every second.[xiii] California’s waste stream sees 480-thousand tons of junked electronic goods each year.[xiv]

Electronics recycling is not wholly benign. American recyclers continue to dump our unwanted electronics on developing countries. Often, the metal recovery poses health and safety risks for workers and pollutes our environment:[xv] burning plastics and using toxic chemicals—sodium cyanide; nitric, hydrochloric, and sulfuric acids—to extract the metals.

Obviously, technology is not going away. Nor should it. But changes need to happen. Perhaps there should be a haz-mat disposal charge assessment for all products. Europe and Japan have passed laws that require electronic manufacturers to take back their products for recycling. [xvi] The law has caused manufacturers to rethink design with an eye toward ease of disassembly and reuse.

Bottom line: Forests return [xvii] . Plastics and cyanide dumps don’t go away. Instead of saving trees for our descendants, we’re leaving tons of toxic wastes and despoiled landscapes where trees may not grow for millennia.

If you still think sustainable forestry is a bad idea, give me your finger; let me show you a trick.

[i] Kellogg, Carolyn. “The Nook: Barnes & Noble announces its own e-reader,” Los Angeles Times Website, October 20, 2009, http://bit.ly/4vGWYT (accessed December 4, 2009)

[ii] Standage, Tom. “Telecoms in emerging markets,” The Economist website, September, 2009, http://bit.ly/8NCAYd (accessed December 4, 2009)

[iii] Standage, Tom. “Telecoms in emerging markets,” The Economist website, September, 2009, http://bit.ly/8NCAYd (accessed December 4, 2009)

[iv] Yardley, William. “Protecting the Forests, and Hoping for Payback,” New York Times Website, November 28, 2009, http://bit.ly/6N5t46 (accessed December 4, 2009)

[v] Sibley, Lisa. August 19, 2009. “Cleantech Group report: E-readers a win for carbon emissions.” http://cleantech.com/news/4867/cleantech-group-finds-positive-envi

[vi] Personal conversation

[vii] Moran, Robert E. 2007. “Pebble Mine: Hydrogeology and Geochemistry Issues.”

[viii] Personal conversation

[ix] Mostly as rock used for roads and other construction according to the Mineral Information Institute.

[x] Moran, Robert E. “Cyanide In Mining: Some Observations On The Chemistry, Toxicity And Analysis Of Mining-Related Waters.” http://earthworksaction.org/pubs/Cyanide_Leach_Packet.pdf

[xi] According to the Environmental Protection Agency

[xii] Rocca, Mo. “The Future of Paper.” The Tomorrow Show, CBS (http://bit.ly/4xxzIZ) accessed December 5, 2009

[xiii] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/06/60minutes/main4579229.shtml “”Well, we throw out about 130,000 computers every day in the United States.” And he said over 100 million cell phones are thrown out annually.

[xiv] Cascadia Consulting Group, Inc. 2004“Executive Summary [to CIWMB] – Statewide Waste Characterization Study (http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Publications/default.asp?pubid=1097)

[xv] The Economist Jun 7th 2007, “The truth about recycling”

[xvi] The Economist Jun 7th 2007, “The truth about recycling”

[xvii]The functional forest, especially a quick-growing, well-managed one compensates for the pollution through sequestering carbon and protecting watersheds. And all along, gainful employment is made available in forests for people making tough decisions; it’s not easy to be green.

If it's not grown, it has to be mined

Recently, Barnes and Noble launched its own e-book reader, the “Nook,” to compete with the Amazon Kindle.[i] E-readers are handy electronic devices, they can hold hundreds of books, and use an ‘electronic paper.’ They have been heralded as alternatives to ‘dead-tree publishing.’

Without doubt, digital technology improves lives. Consider mobile phones: once isolated African fishermen now connect and locate the best markets for their catch. As a result, spoilage has decreased, fishermen make more money, and consumers pay less.[ii] “Mobile phones have been described as ‘the single most effective tool to promote development,’” says Tom Standage of The Economist magazine.[iii] In the same way, e-readers might save America’s forests to absorb CO2.[iv] [v]

Substituting plastic for paper reminds me of a movie where a character complains of a headache. His friend, a tough-as-nails soldier, smiles. “Let me show you a trick,” he says. The soldier breaks his friend’s finger. The pain of a broken finger trumps a headache. Problem solved.

Nothing comes without cost. Manufacturing and disposing of electronics can harm the environment more than the harvest of a thousand trees. There’s another carbon footprint to consider besides CO2: CN—cyanide.

Raw materials for electronics don’t spring from the ground in the same way trees do for books. “If it’s not grown, it has to be mined,” says resource geologist Sarah Andrews and author of the “Em Hansen” mysteries.[vi]

“These are not your grandfather’s mines,” says Robert Moran, PhD., an expert in geochemistry.[vii] Moran’s company, Michael-Moran Associates, has commented extensively on the environmental impacts of mining projects around the world for both the mining industry and for environmental activists. Mines are “constructed on a huge scale unheard of less than thirty years ago.”[viii]

And the reason there are open-pit mines, “2,000 feet deep, and one to two miles across,” is our appetite for stuff. Each year, the average American consumes 23 tons of mineral products.[ix] By supplanting paper with technology, we stop growing, harvesting, and planting trees and start digging and drilling for metals, toxic chemicals, and petroleum products. “Welcome to my world,” Andrews said.

It’s a dangerous world filled with explosives, Bunyanesque machines, and hazrdous materials. Industrial extraction uses cyanide compounds to separate metals from the ore.[x] And, though U.S. mines pollute less than others around the world, hard-rock mining produces more toxic waste than any other industry in the country.[xi] For example, one ounce of refined gold generates nearly 80 tons of toxic waste. The leftovers are akin to nuclear waste for the mining industry: around for a long time, hazardous, and no one really knows what to do with it. The waste contains “every element in the periodic table,” said Dr. Moran.

Printed texts from the eighth century still exist[xii] while electronics break, wear out, or, more often, become obsolete. When reusing isn’t possible, the choice becomes disposing or recycling.

Discarded electronics account for 70% of the overall toxic waste currently found in landfills, by some accounts. Americans pitch a computer and three mobile phones every second.[xiii] California’s waste stream sees 480-thousand tons of junked electronic goods each year.[xiv]

Electronics recycling is not wholly benign. American recyclers continue to dump our unwanted electronics on developing countries. Often, the metal recovery poses health and safety risks for workers and pollutes our environment:[xv] burning plastics and using toxic chemicals—sodium cyanide; nitric, hydrochloric, and sulfuric acids—to extract the metals.

Obviously, technology is not going away. Nor should it. But changes need to happen. Perhaps there should be a haz-mat disposal charge assessment for all products. Europe and Japan have passed laws that require electronic manufacturers to take back their products for recycling. [xvi] The law has caused manufacturers to rethink design with an eye toward ease of disassembly and reuse.

Bottom line: Forests return [xvii] . Plastics and cyanide dumps don’t go away. Instead of saving trees for our descendants, we’re leaving tons of toxic wastes and despoiled landscapes where trees may not grow for millennia.

If you still think sustainable forestry is a bad idea, give me your finger; let me show you a trick.

[i] Kellogg, Carolyn. “The Nook: Barnes & Noble announces its own e-reader,” Los Angeles Times Website, October 20, 2009, http://bit.ly/4vGWYT (accessed December 4, 2009)

[ii] Standage, Tom. “Telecoms in emerging markets,” The Economist website, September, 2009, http://bit.ly/8NCAYd (accessed December 4, 2009)

[iii] Standage, Tom. “Telecoms in emerging markets,” The Economist website, September, 2009, http://bit.ly/8NCAYd (accessed December 4, 2009)

[iv] Yardley, William. “Protecting the Forests, and Hoping for Payback,” New York Times Website, November 28, 2009, http://bit.ly/6N5t46 (accessed December 4, 2009)

[v] Sibley, Lisa. August 19, 2009. “Cleantech Group report: E-readers a win for carbon emissions.” http://cleantech.com/news/4867/cleantech-group-finds-positive-envi

[vi] Personal conversation

[vii] Moran, Robert E. 2007. “Pebble Mine: Hydrogeology and Geochemistry Issues.”

[viii] Personal conversation

[ix] Mostly as rock used for roads and other construction according to the Mineral Information Institute.

[x] Moran, Robert E. “Cyanide In Mining: Some Observations On The Chemistry, Toxicity And Analysis Of Mining-Related Waters.” http://earthworksaction.org/pubs/Cyanide_Leach_Packet.pdf

[xi] According to the Environmental Protection Agency

[xii] Rocca, Mo. “The Future of Paper.” The Tomorrow Show, CBS (http://bit.ly/4xxzIZ) accessed December 5, 2009

[xiii] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/06/60minutes/main4579229.shtml “”Well, we throw out about 130,000 computers every day in the United States.” And he said over 100 million cell phones are thrown out annually.

[xiv] Cascadia Consulting Group, Inc. 2004“Executive Summary [to CIWMB] – Statewide Waste Characterization Study (http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Publications/default.asp?pubid=1097)

[xv] The Economist Jun 7th 2007, “The truth about recycling”

[xvi] The Economist Jun 7th 2007, “The truth about recycling”

[xvii]The functional forest, especially a quick-growing, well-managed one compensates for the pollution through sequestering carbon and protecting watersheds. And all along, gainful employment is made available in forests for people making tough decisions; it’s not easy to be green.

The Optimistic Environmentalist

As a child of the 1960’s On April 22, 1970, I, along with 20 million others that day, attended one of the first Earth Day celebrations. We had heard the predictions and we were duly frightened. In those days, most of us in the environmental movement worried about air pollution causing another ice age through global cooling. Many doomsayers proclaimed Malthus—an eighteenth century economist who argued that human population which grew exponentially would quickly outstrip crop yields which grew arithmetically—was a Pollyanna. We stood on the brink of drought and mass starvation; no oil, forests reduced to stumps, foul air, frozen and polluted water. None of that has happened in the past 40 years, perhaps because we made the necessary changes.

It’s because of this looking back that I’m an optimistic environmentalist. The lake is half-full. Though problems do exist, we have hope. We mustn’t squander resources. Yet, I side with Julian Simon. “First, humanity’s condition will improve in just about every material way,” the late economist said. “Second, humans will continue to sit around complaining about everything getting worse.” Such thinking that everything is worsening elicits a siege mentality where we either shut down because we want no more bad news or we feel imperiled.

Those who feel imperiled bang pans, beseeching us to repent and turn away from our profligate ways; Lester Brown—the rightly-renown environmentalist and founder of Worldwatch Institute and Earth Policy Institute—is one. He writes of climate change, “Researchers…believe that global warming is accelerating and may be approaching a tipping point…” Brothers and sisters the end is near and we stand upon banana peels between vipers and the abyss. We stand on the brink of droughts and mass starvation; forests reduced to stumps, no oil, foul air, frozen and polluted water.

Let’s recap for those keeping score at home, it’s “The Pollyannas”-7, “Malthus and the Prophets of Doom”-0.

Well Malthus and the prophets of doom will continue to say as Bullwinkle J. Moose used to say, “This time for sure.”