A Thought On Environmentalism: Aren’t Trees A Renewable Natural Resource?

The Whistler • April 1, 2008

Environmentalists have been telling us for years that we need to move away from things like oil toward “renewable natural resources” like biofuels. But these same environmentalists also routinely attack loggers for cutting down trees to make houses, paper, etc. But here’s the thing: Aren’t trees a renewable resource? Does wood, and wood products like paper, not biodegrade?
This makes me wonder about biofuels. The environmentalists hate the logging industry which grows trees to cut them down for lumber, etc., but they love the biofuel industry…which grows crops to harvest them for fuel.
Why is it terrible to cut down trees for lumber and paper, but not terrible to try and force the country to switch to a fuel the production of which would require vast swaths of our existing farm land plus, undoubtedly, a significant amount of new land?
Anyone else seeing a disconnect here?

Tags: Domestic Issues, Politics

http://sonofasillyperson.blogspot.com/ sonofasillyperson

Using trees as the structural basis of houses and other buildings is also a great way to trap carbon, but you’ll never get the enviro-nuts to admit to that. It’s amusing to see the disconnect between the left’s beliefs and their policy stances, including this one, nuclear energy, and raising taxes on oil companies to cut prices at the pump.
http://www.unclesamscabin.blogspot.com/ Samantha

Yes trees are a renewable resource and it is totally senseless to get upset about logging companies cutting down trees that they fully intend to replant (because they want to stay in business for a while) but to be all for taking a food source for humans and the domesticated animals we eat to use as an energy source. The average logger knows much more about forest ecology and water shed management, and hence the environment, than the average global ~~warming~~ climate change advocate.
nash

Disney has never done a cartoon about corn fields. It takes years or decades for the trees to grow big and majestic. Corn never grows to such grandeur. Trees are seen as integral to a forest. You kill the trees, and all the flora and fauna associated with the forest goes with it.
kbiel

Anyone else seeing a disconnect here?

No not at all. You see, biofuel technologies are inefficient, uneconomical alternatives to well established, efficient, economical technologies (i.e. oil, natural gas, coal and nukes). Logging on the other hand, is an efficient and economical industry that provides many, many products that our economy needs to thrive.

Or to put this in simpler terms, promoting biofuels over existing fuels damages our economy and opposing logging does the same.
Pomerdorgrad

From the American Enterprise.

Ethanol supporters also relentlessly argue that it’s in our national interest to cultivate alternative, preferably domestic, fuel sources. Fair enough. But it emphatically is not in our national interest to promote a fuel technology that shows no signs of becoming economically or environmentally viable, especially one that has had decades to prove its worth.

This might help explain why researchers at both the Cato Institute and the Sierra Club, two places that rarely agree on anything, have condemned ethanol.
http://dougeefargo.blogspot.com/ dougee

It makes no sense for environmentalists to oppose cutting down the dead trees and brush in the forest. That is why the boundary waters fire burned so much land. You can replant the trees and it is in the best interest of the logging companies to do so. These liberals show no logic.
Greg

Was trying to explain this to my kids a few months back. They were wondering why vegetarians weren’t concerned about the lettuce plants.
No joke.
http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/ Chief RZ

Of course they are. We had a typical tree hugger at our Air Base who blocked taking down trees close to the runway. It seems he cared more about trees than human beings, and Airmen going into combat at that!
http://www.valleydeals.com/cgi-bin/board2/YaBB.pl Kevin

Oil is “renewable”, as well.

Could it be that many of the world’s oil fields are refilling themselves at nearly the same rate they are being drained by an energy-hungry world?

A geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts says she believes that hitherto undetected gas and oil reservoirs lying at very great depths within the earth’s crust could stave off the inevitable oil depletion much longer than many experts have estimated.

The scientist, Dr. Jean K. Whelan, whose research is part of a $2 million Department of Energy exploration program in the Gulf of Mexico south of New Orleans, has found evidence of differences in the composition of oil over periods of time as it flows from greater to shallower depths. By gauging degradative chemical changes in the oil resulting from action by oil-eating bacteria, she infers that oil is moving in quite rapid spurts from great depths to reservoirs closer to the surface.

http://tinyurl.com/26tpgh
http://oregonguythinks.blogspot.com/ OregonGuy

The woods used to be a place where a feller could earn a living.

Look at some of the members of the Oregon Board of Forestry.

Barbara Craig is a natural resources attorney with the law firm of Stoel Rives LLP

Peter Hayes, of Portland, brings a diverse background – natural resource educator active in conservation projects

Bill Hutchison is an attorney with the law firm of Foster Pepper Tooze LLP in Portland

Calvin Mukumoto, a member of the Forest Stewardship Council’s U. S. board of directors, brings a national perspective on the sustainable management of forests

We’re screwed, Toto. We’re not in Kansas anymore.
Robohobo

To quote David Byrne of the ‘Talking Heads’, “Stop Making Sense!”

Silly neocon, twicks are for wabbits.
http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/ Chief RZ

dougee, I had almost forgotten about the two or three fires that killed people, burned down homes and caused pollution !! All caused because the tree huggers did not want to let anyone cut trees. Then there was the time they actually started the fire themselves!!!
http://dougeefargo.blogspot.com/ dougee

dougee, I had almost forgotten about the two or three fires that killed people, burned down homes and caused pollution !!

Exactly Chief RZ, I completely agree with you. Environmentalists don’t take into account how much worse fires are when logging companies aren’t allowed into the forests to harvest dead trees. I have even heard reports that there are actually more trees now then there were 100 years ago.

Are these environmentalists just stupid or ignorant? I think it is quite a bit of both. They care more about trees than people do. In Ann Coulter’s last book she quoted some of the environmental leaders’ statements and they were outrageous!
jimmy

Environmentalists who oppose logging are mostly opposed to the style of logging that cause long-term environmental damage: clear-cutting irreplaceable old-growth forests and rainforests, and the permanent loss of biodiversity that results, i.e., the extinction of species.

On the other hand, environmentally friendly and sustainable logging practices are to be encouraged.
docdave

Come on, Rob, you expect lefties to think logically. Never happen. To them, the cause is the thing which must be followed religiously without thought, without reason.
WOOFX

If the loggers had their way Oregon would look like Kansas

We’re screwed, Toto. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

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A Thought On Environmentalism: Aren’t Trees A Renewable Natural Resource?

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