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Not trying to criticize the Forest Service, but is it politically feasible to cut down large amounts of trees in the right areas to prevent this?
by JTbane 5y ago
Not trying to criticize the Forest Service, but is it politically feasible to cut down large amounts of trees in the right areas to prevent this?
- triceratops 5y agoWhere would you put the wood? And cutting down trees at enough scale to make a difference would likely exacerbate the drought that makes such fires more likely.
- soperj 5y agoleave it where it is. Great for soil health and forest rejuvenation.
- jimmyjazz14 5y agoI actually think leaving the wood where it falls is partially part of the problem in some cases. That said the wood could be used for all the things we use wood for (building house, mulch, etc).
- soperj 5y agoDeadwood soaks up a lot of water during the wet seasons, which results in less flooding, and allows other plants to access it during the dry seasons. Tons of trees start in dead wood. Honestly, try to use decomposing wood in a fire sometime. It's not flammable.
- gdubs 5y agoAt that point you’re just seasoning firewood. And whatever does decompose — unless you bury it our turn it into biochar, is going to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
- soperj 5y agoYou're really not if it's in a forest. It decomposes, and lots of other plants start growing from it, including other trees. CO2 from a forest isn't really something we need to worry about. A 25 year old maple will sequester 400 pounds of co2 in it's lifetime. It can't emit more than that over the years that it decomposes. An average commuter car will emit that in 2 weeks. That's what we need to worry about.
- whichdan 5y agohttps://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/controlled-burning/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/controlled-b... Check out "controlled burning" - it effectively achieves the same thing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- beej71 5y agoEven if you did, most of what's burning isn't trees.