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Seeing the trees for a forest

ALISTER DOYLE

Reuters

Latest comment posted at 8:36 PM EDT 15/05/08

World planting drive sets goal of seven billion by late next year ...Read the full article

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  1. Linda Price from Canada writes:
    What possible critique could Martha Stewart have of this?

    Trees are known to pollute and contribute to the greenhouse effect perhaps?

    So Reaganesque!
  2. martha stewart from Canada writes: Seven billion holes will be dug. The impacts on earthworms could be "catastrophic." Cute baby earthworms will be cut in half!!!

    Save the Worms!!!
  3. aging oldtool from Canada writes: Hey, here's a feel good and do good project all of us can get involved in.

    The one question I have, however, is why isn't Canada among those countries listed as having already taken up the cause, given that we continue to hack, slash and burn so many of our forests as a primary industry.

    Perhaps it's because provinces like BC have dramatically reduced the volume of tree planting in the past couple of years when it is needed even more to help balance the massive losses from the Pine beatle's destructive appetite.

    In short, we are part of the problem even though we have bragged for years of having such an abundance of wood.

    If that is the way we treat our natural resources I have great fear what will become of our fresh water supplies,which is both dependent on forests and on us to protect.

    So far our ability to conserve appears at best less than what we need.

    Scary, especially if you are among those younger set who'll live with the effects of our inaction.

  4. Joe Canada from Kingston, Canada writes: The chicken littles will hate this. Trees contribute to GHG and produce more then they sink.
  5. Paul Thompson from Canada writes: You know, Martha, I've read enough of your comments to know that you are no fool but sometimes you really do need to put a sock in it.
  6. Building an Ark from Eastern Slopes, Canada writes: Feel good story, where is the UN when hundreds of thousands of Hectacres are cleared in the Amazon??? Oh that's right - Western Nations you'll have to pay so that the lungs of the Earth disappear...Hello UN hello anyone home?
  7. martha stewart from Canada writes: Paul Thompson writes: "You know, Martha, I've read enough of your comments to know that you are no fool but sometimes you really do need to put a sock in it."

    I was just responding to my stalker Linda Price. I think she's in love with me. I'm not that kind but feel its only polite to respond to soothe her.

    Don't you care about worms?
  8. Paul Thompson from Canada writes: Ok Martha, I'll bite...doesn't digging up the soil, as in planting trees, help worms in the long run, you know, their leaves adding organic matter to the soil and all that? Is it not chemicals, especially herbicides and pesticides, that really do them in?
  9. martha stewart from Canada writes: Paul - Sometimes its not worth biting. My post was not supposed to make sense. It was just to placate my stalker Linda Price.

    Maybe you need to read her post to get it.

    BTW did you know that many species of earthworms are introduced "alien' species? According to some black-white thinkers, that should make them "bad"... same with honeybees.

    In any case, planting 7 billion trees seems like a great idea. Of course if the UN is directly involved each tree will cost a fortune to plant, they will choose the inappropriate species and fly them in from half way around the world, and half of them will be planted on rock... all of which will be later discussed by a huge lavish conference in Bali, and then a new bureaucracy will be formed to research and monitor this issue... etc. More than 7 billion trees will need to be cut down for the paperwork and glossy brochures.
  10. J S from Toronto, Canada writes: martha stewart from Canada - I got it and thought your post was hillarious!! Thanks for the laugh today.
  11. Steve Church from Canada writes: Aging Old Tool:- It's a bit hard to track down, but the effort in Canada, with Daryl Hannah as the poster-patron, is aiming for 50 million trees within a decade. The illusion is thinking the plantings are carbon offsets to slow climate change. The real value of reforestation is to offset the ravages of deforestation that were the symbols of the last half century. The current rate of reforestation success is only about 30% from the saplings, but the growth of expertise and laying the foundation for bigger steps later. The real benny would be getting some player-partners and meshing tree harvesting with reforestation.
  12. michael maser from gibsons, Canada writes: This could be a good news story if ... countries worldwide also pledged to protect existing old growth forests which sequester far more carbon than newly-growing trees (which do not a forest make). OG forests, and especially the soils and duff that supports them, as opposed to just the trees, serve as huge carbon banks, as recent science has amply demonstrated. This news is being discredited and/or ignored by many countries and jurisdictions, including Canada Canadian bureaucracies that are sanctioning the rush to clearcut as much remaining old growth as possible. It takes many, many years for newly planted trees to create a carbon-sequestering forest of any real value. - Michael Maser, Gibsons
  13. Nassar Ben Houdja from Canada writes: Thankyou, someone actually doing something instead of preaching. Where are the deciples of the profits?
  14. Bill Hopkins from London, Canada writes: michael maser from gibsons, Canada writes: This could be a good news story if ... countries worldwide also pledged to protect existing old growth forests which sequester far more carbon than newly-growing trees ........ OG forests, and especially the soils and duff that supports them, as opposed to just the trees, serve as huge carbon banks, as recent science has amply demonstrated. .............It takes many, many years for newly planted trees to create a carbon-sequestering forest of any real value. - ................................................ Yes and no. It is true that an old growth forest represents a large carbon "bank", but deposits are pretty well balanced by withdrawals. An old growth forest is by definition a stable ecosystem in which sequestration of carbon by the trees is roughly balance by carbon emissions from the breakdown of litter on the floor. There is relatively little, if any, net sequestration in an old growth stand. In Amazonian rain forests, for example, virtually all of the nutrition for tree growth is derived from breakdown of the litter rather than from the soil. A young forest, on the other hand, increases net sequestration as it grows but, you're right, it takes a while. Carbon sequestration probably doesn't maximize until the canopy approaches closure. BTW, there are a very large number (I would guess in the hundreds now) of reports from FACE experiments confirming that most individual species as well as ecosystems respond positively to CO2 fertilization with increased growth and net productivity.
  15. Bill Hopkins from London, Canada writes: michael maser from gibsons, Canada writes: This could be a good news story if ... countries worldwide also pledged to protect existing old growth forests which sequester far more carbon than newly-growing trees ........ OG forests, and especially the soils and duff that supports them, as opposed to just the trees, serve as huge carbon banks, as recent science has amply demonstrated. .............It takes many, many years for newly planted trees to create a carbon-sequestering forest of any real value. - ................................................ Yes and no. It is true that an old growth forest represents a large carbon "bank", but deposits are pretty well balanced by withdrawals. An old growth forest is by definition a stable ecosystem in which sequestration of carbon by the trees is roughly balance by carbon emissions from the breakdown of litter on the floor. There is relatively little, if any, net sequestration in an old growth stand. In Amazonian rain forests, for example, virtually all of the nutrition for tree growth is derived from breakdown of the litter rather than from the soil. A young forest, on the other hand, increases net sequestration as it grows but, you're right, it takes a while. Carbon sequestration probably doesn't maximize until the canopy approaches closure. BTW, there are a very large number (I would guess in the hundreds now) of reports from FACE experiments confirming that most individual species as well as ecosystems respond positively to CO2 fertilization with increased growth and net productivity.
  16. William J Gillies from Canada writes: Bill Hopkins from London, Canada writes: "BTW, there are a very large number (I would guess in the hundreds now) of reports from FACE experiments confirming that most individual species as well as ecosystems respond positively to CO2 fertilization with increased growth and net productivity."

    ... which of course is unrelated to the CO2 accumulations at higher atmospheric altitudes which are causing the greenhouse effect.
  17. Steve Church from Canada writes: Bill Hopkins:- The so-called CO2 Greening promise you point to, is untrue. Historically, there is meagre, at best, empirical evidence for the effect (Lobell & Field, 2007). Chambered experiments from a generation ago hinted at big returns (Idso, 1992), but FACE CO2-doubled experiments have reduced this to a potential of about 10%. Furthermore, a matching increase in other factors (nitrogen, water,) is a prereq. Furthermore, the effect is arbitrary (weeds, desert wildlife), and the primary effect is in the fine root system below ground. Trees only show a temporary growth 1st-year boost (Oak Ridges, 2004). Above all, these monitored experiments have big disclaimers about controlled CO2 enrichment versus pollution and warming contexts. This global tree initiative isn't getting an easier ride.
  18. Bill Hopkins from London, Canada writes: Steve Church:- I do not subscribe to the old discredited view that high atmospheric CO2 will turn our boreal forests into lush jungles. On the other hand, a 10 percent increase is sgnificant. And it goes without saying that no growth stimulus, even increased carbon uptake, can be effective unless water and nutrients are not limiting. It is probably unrealistic to expect much more because CO2-doubling tends to create other problems. Most stomata, for example, start shutting down somewhere around 1% ambient CO2, which of course shuts down carbon uptake.

    I suspect that tropical and subtropical species would also respond with higher productivity than temperate species because they are subject to the higher light levels and are less likely to become light limited.

    I fully agree that, if the CO2 and global warming senerio is anything close to what is predicted, trees and other vegetation alone are not going to solve the problem
  19. Deas, She Wrote from New York, United States writes: Glad to see this campaign - it seems to be especially needed in the Sahel (sp?), the southern edge of the Sahara where the desert is spreading.

    A birthday girl requested trees to be planted in her name - anyone know of any good organizations doing that in Africa?

    PS - I'm crying for the poor little cut-up worms.... ;-)
  20. Joel Harrison from Waterloo, Canada writes: Joe Canada from Kingston, Canada writes: The chicken littles will hate this. Trees contribute to GHG and produce more then they sink.

    While the above comment is obviously scientifically impossible, all of the CO2 fixed by a plant is of course returned to the atmosphere when the plant decomposes, is burned, etc. (hence the term 'carbon CYCLE'). Mass tree planting will only buy us time, not provide a permanent solution to the climate crisis.
  21. Hugh Draper from Canada writes:
    Why can't trees propagate themselves?
  22. Red-necked and loving it from Canada writes: Idiots! Don't they realize it'll take decades for any of these trees to actually start taking in significant amounts of carbon dioxide to make any difference at all? Our forest industry is in the toilet anyway. Let's simply let the rest of the world pay us NOT to chop down our trees. Forestry workers could retire today and it wouldn't cost Canadian taxpayers nickel one for EI.
  23. Building an Ark from Eastern Slopes, Canada writes: Red-necked and loving it from Canada writes: ... Let's simply let the rest of the world pay us NOT to chop down our trees. Forestry workers could retire today and it wouldn't cost Canadian taxpayers nickel one for EI.

    We tried that, and our best negotiators couldn't get past the EU-Kyoto crowd that our vast forests should count in the Kyoto numbers. Numbers again that the Euros would love to penalize...sounds like a rigged hockey game in Oslo...
  24. Steve Church from Canada writes: Canada's record in structuring Kyoto gets poor marks. The carbon-sequestering with reforestration was a Canadian insistence and took about 3% of the real reduction goal off the table (part of the Kyoto-doesn't-do-much setup). Canada was unsuccessful in the even more cynical attempt to have natural gas exports to the US counted as a CO2-avoiding credit. As stated above, the tree-planting effort has value, but it's not an effective CO2 response.
  25. larry price from Port Loring ON, Canada writes: Cutting a 60-foot spruce, then planting a one foot twig does not replace the tree. A late oldtimer, born here in 1905, said, "All the trees you see, including that three-foot diameter Yellow Birch, are just stubble compared to what used to be here." Now we are cutting the stubble
    I live in an area where the logging has increased since Mike Harris (Ontario) gave control over the forest tracts to the lumber companies. Tree planting now, is too late. We have to stop exporting trees!
  26. gale gardner from Victoria B.C., Canada writes: MARTHA STEWART -from Canada writes(post 2:09 p.m.) "seven billion holes will be dug etc. etc." MARTHA at first I thought you were kidding,but such stupidity! Cutting an earthworm in half does not kill it. It is one of the few species that continues to grow!
  27. martha stewart from Canada writes: GALE GARDNER - LOL! I was kidding. As I already explained above twice, the whole thing - or should I say the hole thing - was just a response to my stalker Linda Price. (See the first post.) Since she never has anything intelligent to say, I just respond with silliness. Best to humour such people at least.

    But congratulations, you are the first to catch the doubling of the worms part... You realize, of course, that this means that there is hope for the worms after all!!! Thank goodness.

    Still, donations are welcome at my newly formed WWF (World Worm Foundation). The threats are ever present.

    Even as we speak, anglers are sticking them on hooks - alive!!!

    And robins are viciously yanking them from their homes and feeding them to their young - alive!!!

    The horror... the horror.

    Please, use a soft shovel when you are a gardner.

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