The tree huggers have it all wrong.If you do not clean out the forests by logging,our forests will burn up.There are more trees now in the forests then when I was young (68 now)do to cleaning out the old growth.Also I do not believe we have globel warming,good way to spent taxpayers money.Thanks Betty

Betty,

Thank you for taking the time to post your comment and for taking an interst in the subject. I agree that the forests should be managed in a manner that helps to reduce the fuel load in order to decrease the intensity and severity of wildfires. Please be aware, though, that some tree species, such as Yellowstone's Bristle-cone pines, have evolved with fire and have developed a dependence on fire to complete their life cycle and successfully reproduce.

I also agree that logging, when practiced in a responsible manner (i. e. : NO CLEAR-CUTTING!! and please leave at least some of the mature old-growth trees as habitat for cavity nesting bird species), can be used as an effective management tool.

However, even if you don't believe that global warming is occurring, don't you agree that each of us should do our own small part to help to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, not only to reduce carbon emissions, but to reduce pollution of the air that we all breath with other pollutants, such as oxides of nitrogen and sulfur.

Again, thank you for your comments,
Debbie

I happened to agree to an extent and dislike the editor note that was added and it's connotations.

I read treehugger regularly because I believe in sustainable development and that we could improve things from a viewpoint of the way we conduct ourselves day-to-day (I like to think in terms of reducing energy consumption).

That said, logging is a good thing and the typical "treehugger" does have it all wrong (in my opinion).

I live in an area of northern Canada covered in forests. We have forest fires all of the time.. EXCEPT in areas where there is continual logging.

Guess what, they plant tree's after they take em down! The fire-gods do not replace the tree's they burn down.

Forests where logging occurs are healthy, gorgeous, and very pleasent. Forests where logging does not occur are dying a slow and painful natural death.

To me, "treehugger" is a generic label and shouldn't really mean "save a tree" - because the entire idea of protesting logging is completley silly.

I've read articles from well-known ecologists that share this sentiment. Most protesting-type treehugger's are really just giving enviromentalists a bad name amung the greater scientific community as they usually haven't educated themselves before they stand up and declare their beliefs.

Further, the founder of Greenpeace (Patrick Moore), who has since left the organization because he was disgusted with the reputation it had and the beliefs of its members. When interviewed, he usually talks about the idea of "save a tree" minded people as most people can relate to it. His opinion? The very idea that logging is a bad thing is completley insane.

I dd not watch Oprah.. this response was drawn out of me as a result of the editors note "wow". Perhaps the editor should open their mind somewhat and realize there is another side to the story.

And before I am accused of it - I have NO relation in any way to anyone involved in the logging industry.

Tree's are nice - there's PLENTY of them, and they are a renewable resource. As humans, we'd be crazy to not take advantage of that and the forests are better off for it.

You should watch this episode of P&T BS (it features some interview footage with Patrick Moore as well) at this link:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4480559399263937213

P&T have their own agenda as well.. and certainly they too are guilty of preying on human emotion with their TV show, but I think the one point someone can pull from this episode is this:
There is more to it than meets the eye. Take the time to rea articles from ecologists who have made some of these issues their life study.

Some do believe that tearing down tree's does negativley affecting our environement or our wildlife. But as is stated in the video "THERE IS ALWAYS DEBATE" (i.e. two sides to a story).

When governments put in programs to impress the irrational type of "treehuggers", it is a POLITICAL move to gain confidence and votes, do not mistake it as confirmation that you are right. :)

I love our environment and enjoy this site. But take any and all information you receive in life with a grain of salt (including anything I said in this comment)!

well i'd have to say it's a free country & everyone is entitled to disbelieve facts at their own discresion.

Yeah, Wow.
Thank goodness everyone is entitled to express their opinion - so we don't have to work hard to figure out who is clueless.

I bought a huge gift bag for each member of my family about five years ago. I put a ribbon or tissue paper around each individual item and put it in the bag. After Christmas, I store the bags for next year. Some of the tissue paper can also be reused. Not much on my trash pile after Christmas!

Simran:

You were absolutely wonderful on the OPRAH Show! Congratulations. . . Brava. . . Kudos. . and more!

Our audio interview with you will be posted very soon on The Keeper, Inc.'s website (www.keeper.com). We feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to interview you. I feel confident in saying that you know more about the environment -- and about how each person can add something meaningful to the planet -- than just about anyone else I know.

Again, our congratulations to Simran -- and to Treehugger.com!

Julia Schopick
http://www.keeper.com/

If you don't believe in global warming, come to Chicago. It' mid-December, so you would expect temperatures at freezing with snow. Nope. It's raining with predictions for highs in the 40s and 50s all week.

Kim, while it is true that global warming means that the seasons are changing, we must be careful not to confuse the weather and the climate.

The climate is the average of all the local weathers all over the planet. That means that even if you have record cold in Chicago next month, it doesn't mean that global warming isn't true. It's the average of the planet that matters, and that's going up unfortunately.

In response to hr's comment on 12/7:

Forest fires are GOOD for forests. Our forests in the West evolved with fire over millennia. The forests have ALWAYS regenerated themselves.

I have recently spent a great deal of time in the Biscuit burn of southern Oregon. Walking through mile upon mile of burn -- from light to severe -- the forest floor was BLANKETED with fresh young seedlings.

Scientific studies, such as the Donato report of 2006, have shown that forests regenerate exquisitely on their own following a fire, and logging afterwards actually SLOWS the recovery, as well as leaving fire-prone SLASH scattered about the forest floor.

Studies have also shown that the areas that were logged or "thinned" in the Biscuit area had 80-100% of trees killed in the fire, while areas that had been left to nature's processes only had 50% killed.

True: logging itself isn't a bad thing. Using trees makes sense, so long as no other product will do and it's not done in a wasteful manner.

But it matters WHERE we log and HOW we log. Selective eco-forestry on PRIVATE lands can make a whole lot of sense. But logging on our PUBLIC forests, that belong to the people and contain the greatest reservoirs left of intact ecosystems, SHOULD NEVER BE LOGGED!

The solution is and will always be ZEROCUT ON PUBLIC LANDS.

I see mix of good and bad information. Logging serves one purpose, to extract lumber for our use. To say that logging is intrinsically bad, is to say that we don't need wood. Most studies show that logging actually increases fire risk. Not all ecosystems are the same. Not all lend themselves to selective harvesting.

We can all do things to reduce our use of wood and lower the need for logging.

Congress has established that our National Forests are to be managed for multiple uses which includes timber extraction.

The best way to reduce the damages of timber harvesting is to work in the NEPA process. The planning for every timber sell must be open for public input. Get involved and make rational comments, instead of "I'm against logging".

Yellowstone is predominately fire dependent lodgepole, not bristle cone.

LT
A Forester since 1980 and a tree hugger.

Sorry about the misinformation re the identitiy of the predominant tree species in Yellowstone. I knew it was lodgepole, but, wrote bristle cone. A temporary bout of cranial flatulence!

Several years ago I was involved in a study of the use of controlled burning as a tool for forest management. We conducted a comparison of the burned vs the unburned areas of Carpenter Park, a predomently oak forest, near Springfield IL. It was obvious that the oak populations (white, black and red oaks) were not regenerating well in the unburned areas due to the over abundance of the faster growing shade tolerant soft wood species (paw-paw, several maple species, mulberry, etc). There was also a dense mass of exotic invasive bush honeysuckle that was taking over the the lowest layer of the understory, allowing very little, if any, light to reach the forest floor. Therefore, little to no regeneration of oaks and very little ground cover.

However, in the burned areas, there existed a more open canopy which allowed more light to reach the forest floor. It was much easier to walk through those areas, the trees found there, oaks and soft woods alike, appeared healthier and more robust, probably due to decreased competion for sunlight and more abundant nutrients that were released back into the soil from the ashes. There was also a greater diversity of plant life found in the burned sites. It seems that a layer of ash creates the perfect bed for seed germination.

I have always been a fan of controlled burning. The prairies of the west and midwest, and, as previously mentioned, many of our forests evolved under the influences of regular seasonal fires. I firmly believe that our history of fire suppression (In part thanks to Smokey and Disney's Bambi!) has greatly increased the severity of wildfires due to the build up of debri on the forset floors. I'm not sure that some of our forests could any longer be burned in a controlled manner unless some of the debri is first mechanically removed in order to control the flow of the fire. I would like to hear from others regarding this (And I'm sure that I will!).

Also, how much would the release of CO2 from controlled burns contribute to global warming (for those of us who believe in global warming, that is)? We've gotten ourselves in such a mess that no matter what we do it is going to have some negative effect somewhere.

Damned if we do and damned if we don't!

What do you think?

Wow! It's been 2 weeks and no responses. Has everyone lost interest in this subject?

Enough with the fire hysteria!

Removing understory "fuels" disrupts the function of a native forest ecosystem. There is little to no scientific proof that stripping the understory of forests reduces fire at all. Even if it did, it would be take 100 years to clear out all of the forests that are a "fire risk" and we'd have to keep clearing them out every 10 years as the understory grows back.

The truth is the only way to keep fires from burning up homes is to--newsflash!--protect 100 feet around the home. We can never stop backcountry wildfires, nor should we.

Anytime someone suggests "thinning" in a native forest, they are either uninformed, weak-willed, or complicit with the timber industry.