[MCN] Logging as a self-endangering industry

[Lance Olsen]

Excerpt : In 2007, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published an article by Andrei P. Kirilenko and Roger A. Sedjo. These authors focused solely on climate change impact on commercial forestry <http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/104/50/19697.full.pdf>. In a review of 75 studies of industry’s own risk, they concluded that “even without fires or insect damage, the change in frequency of extreme events, such as strong winds, winter storms, droughts, etc. can bring massive loss to commercial forestry.”

Logging as a self-endangering industry

In an ironic twist, the logging industry may share guilt for creating an emissions problem that comes right back around to endangering the industry itself. There’s evidence already available for testing this simultaneously ecological and economic risk.

By 2008, Forest Ecology and Management could publish findings that “… a 'no timber harvest' scenario eliminating harvests on public lands would result in an annual increase of 17-29 million metric tonnes of carbon (MMTC) per year between 2010 and 2050,” referring to how much carbon would be kept in the forest.

In 2012, Global Change Biology-Bioenergy could confirm that trend with findings that, “When the most realistic assumptions are used and a carbon-cycle model is applied, an increased harvest level in forests leads to a permanent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcbb.12015>.” 

A 2017 study determined that “…CO2 emissions from land-use change have been substantially underestimated because processes such as tree harvesting and land clearing from shifting cultivation have not been considered.”  In 2018, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published an analysis of Oregon’s logging industry. The gist of the study is that the logging industry is the leading source of CO2 emissions in that state <https://sustainable-economy.org/osu-research-confirms-big-timber-leading-source-greenhouse-gas-emissions-oregon>. 

The logging industry might prefer that the fossil fuel industry shoulder all the blame for forests’ exposure to climate risk. That won’t wash.

<<http://mountainjournal.org/climate-change-has-caught-humanity-in-a-trap <http://mountainjournal.org/climate-change-has-caught-humanity-in-a-trap>>>


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PNAS first published November 7, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1917051116 <https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1917051116>

Lasting coastal hazards from past greenhouse gas emissions <https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/11/06/1917051116>
Tony E. Wong

The emission of greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere is a by-product of modern marvels such as the production of vast amounts of energy, heating and cooling inhospitable environments to be amenable to human existence, and traveling great distances faster than our saddle-sore ancestors ever dreamed possible. However, these luxuries come at a price: climate changes in the form of severe droughts, extreme precipitation and temperatures, increased frequency of flooding in coastal cities, global warming, and sea-level rise (1, 2). 

This is the price we pay for the luxury of about 200 y of relatively unchecked greenhouse gas emissions.

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From Energy Transition to Energy Reduction <https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-20/from-energy-transition-to-energy-reduction/>
By Chris Smaje
My request to those working in the renewable energy industry is to ask themselves before undertaking any new project: “Will this help people to live a lower energy lifestyle than they previously did?” – which, regrettably, is not something we can say of the low carbon energy installed globally to date. If they can’t answer yes to the question, I’d request they dump the project and seek another one. It’s urgent.

<<https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-20/from-energy-transition-to-energy-reduction/ <https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-20/from-energy-transition-to-energy-reduction/>>>

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It's too easy to blame the corporations for the climate crisis, when we subsidize them every time we buy what they’re selling. Corporate policy does matter. At the same time, they are totally dependent on their customers. The blame game has become ridiculous.This buck stops everywhere.
<<https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/25/caught-in-a-trap-of-our-own-making-climate-change-blame-and-denial/ <https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/25/caught-in-a-trap-of-our-own-making-climate-change-blame-and-denial/>>>

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