deforestation

Gathering data in the U.S.’ largest temperate rainforest a heroic and necessary task

Hiking part of the Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska a few summers ago, I was utterly wowed, but knowing that it accounts for nearly one-third of the old-growth temperate rain forest left in the world seemed incredibly incongruent with the fact that my government was working so hard to wreck it (thanks to some truly absurd subsidies).

An excellent story in the new National Geographic retells the tale and shines light on new efforts aimed at allowing the Tongass to continue its majestic reign, including a heroic grassroots effort of the Sitka Conservation Society to "ground-truth" those parts of the nearly impenetrable Tongass scheduled for the saw. Without SCS and others, this jewel would look mightily different, and they deserve our support and our thanks.

Dirt cheap carbon

Great interview over on Mongabay with Daniel Nepstad, head of the Woods Hole Research Center's Amazon program. When it comes to immediate carbon emissions reductions, the biggest bang for the buck is to stop deforestation of the tropics. This revelation would have much less relevance if there were not also a mechanism envisioned to achieve it called the RED initiative (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation).

As with anything, the concept has its critics. In my unqualified opinion, one of the biggest potential flies in the ointment is fire. How do you keep a carbon sink from going up in smoke? Once the land becomes more valuable for soy, sugarcane or palm oil, how can you stop the local profiteers from setting the forests on fire, nullifying them as carbon sinks?

Hopefully, the authors of this scheme will do a better job than the bozos (again, no offense to you clowns out there) who put the agrofuel consumption mandates in place that are currently consuming carbon sinks, food, and biodiversity all around the world while simultaneously increasing CO2 emissions.

Reece on MTR mining

Erik Reese has an op-ed in the NYT about mountaintop-removal mining and a new program that shows promise in helping landscapes recover from it. Here’s the nut: Appalachia’s land is dying. Its fractured communities show the typical symptoms of hopelessness, including OxyContin abuse rates higher than anywhere in the country. Meanwhile, 22 states power houses […]

Not as simple as it seems

Before any Grist readers write off this article in the Economist, read it through and get to the conclusions at the bottom. They might surprise you.

They also contain another lesson not mentioned in the article: we need to value comprehensive ecosystem services from forests, not just any single dimension.

Fun video

This is a pretty clever stunt by Greenpeace activists. They infiltrated the filming of a Kleenex commercial to get the word out about the fact that Kimberly-Clark (maker of Kleenex) uses 100% virgin wood pulp in their products — as a result, the Canadian Boreal Forest, one of the biggest carbon sinks in the world, […]

More, please

This is a much more significant story than it might appear at first glance: Brazil’s government said it will provide free Internet access to native Indian tribes in the Amazon in an effort to help protect the world’s biggest rain forest. The environment and communications ministers signed an agreement Thursday with the Forest People’s Network […]

Canada needs help saving it

I don’t usually pass these things along, but this email caught my eye: —– With last week’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report concluding that humans are significantly increasing global warming, we’re all looking for some global warming news with a glimmer of hope and potential. To our North, Canada is on the brink of […]

Wow, that’s a truly terrible pun.

Sick and tired of hearing from me about lead-up to the Olympics in London and Beijing? (I know Patrick is.) Well, exciting news, sports fans — we can look ahead to environmental devastation in preparation for Olympics 2014! Leading environmental groups said on Friday Russia’s bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics would involve tearing […]

A look at the impacts of biofuels production, in the U.S. and the world

Nothing but blue skies from now on? Photo: house.gov Great news! We can finally scratch “driving less” off our list of ways to curb global warming and reduce our dependence on foreign oil! Biofuels will soon not only replace much of our petroleum, but improve soil fertility and save the American farmer as well! Sound […]