Carbon

Yale Forest Forum Bioenergy from Forests Webinar Series: Daniel Sanchez Next Tuesday on Carbon-beneficial Forest Management in California

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The Yale Forest Forum has been running a speaker series on bioenergy from forests.  Most of the presenters (despite my input) seem to be eastern, southern, international or urban, although this one by Steve Hamburg sounds interesting:

Determining Forest-derived Bioenergy’s Impacts on the Climate Why is it so Contentious? (Steve is a classmate of mine who works for EDF, so I might be biased, though I haven’t listened to it). Here’s a link to a video of the presentation. Any TSW reader who wants to watch and write a post is welcome.

There are two that deal with western-wildfire- fuel treatment kinds of concerns, one person from Oregon (Matt Donegan) on April 5. Titled “The Potential Role of Bioenergy in Mitigating Wildfire in the West”

And next Tuesday at 9:30 MT (they’re all on Tuesdays at the same time), there’s one with Daniel Sanchez at U of California that looks interesting.

Innovative wood products for carbon-beneficial forest management in California

Tuesday, March 29, 2022 – 11:30am

Innovative Wood Products for Carbon-Beneficial Forest Management in California

Natural carbon sinks can help mitigate climate change, but climate risks—like increased wildfire—threaten forests’ capacity to store carbon. California has recently set ambitious forest management goals to reduce these risks. However, management can incur carbon losses because wood residues are often burnt or left to decay. This study applies a systems approach to assess climate change mitigation potential and wildfire outcomes across forest management scenarios and several wood products. We find that innovative use of wood residues supports extensive wildfire hazard reduction and maximizes carbon benefits. Long-lived products that displace carbon-intensive alternatives have the greatest benefits, including wood building products. Our results suggest a low-cost pathway to reduce carbon emissions and support climate adaptation in temperate forests.

Daniel L. Sanchez – Assistant Professor of Cooperative Extension, University of California-Berkeley

Daniel L. Sanchez studies engineered biomass & bioenergy systems that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Trained as an engineer and energy systems analyst, Sanchez’s work and engagement spans the academic, nongovernmental, and governmental sectors. As an Assistant Professor of Cooperative Extension, he runs the Carbon Removal Lab, which aims to commercialize sustainable carbon dioxide removal technologies, and supports outreach to policymakers and technologists in California and across the United States

Framings of the Decarbonization Problem: Some Alternatives, Nordhaus, Yglesias and the Hartwell Paper

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Many of the “framings of the decarbonization argument” are implicit and not explicit.  So I thought I’d mention a few I ran across, one that Rebecca Watson put in a comment yesterday, and open it up to others.  As I tell people about spiritual things… you get to pick your own path.. same thing with framings, everyone gets to pick their own framing.   A test of success is whether your framing is more successful at leading to carbon reduction in the real world.  To do that, it could be argued that the best framing would lead to building coalitions that are successful at moving the decarbonizing ball down the field.  All ultimately political (at all governmental levels), and not particularly moral, judgments. To “work for” climate change can be posed as a moral question (by Pope Francis and many others), but deciding what proportion of what energy source to use, where, in the short and mid-term, is not as clear or easy to moralize about.  Especially, as many have pointed out,  when developing countries, who lack energy today, need energy in the short and mid-term.  Apologies for how long this post is, but I thought more examples would be better. Everyone is welcome to add their own favorite framing in the comments.  You can also mix and match framings and potential solutions.

(1) Here’s an interesting framing  by Ted Nordhaus, in Issues in Science and Technology,  in which he wonders why people who believe climate change is urgent and apocalyptic don’t go bigger.. in terms of choosing to socialize key infrastructure.

Missing from this frame is the notion that abundant, cheap, clean energy and the low carbon infrastructure and technology necessary to provide it is a public good. Historically, nations have provided these sorts of goods directly and governments have done just that for public goods as diverse as national defense, public health, scientific research, and clean and abundant water. In these cases, government agencies don’t incentivize or mandate that private firms build, say, modern water and sewage systems; rather, they either build them themselves or contract with firms to build them. But in either case, it is government that specs the system, procures its various elements, coordinates construction and operations, and finances construction directly from the public purse. The same has been broadly true, to a greater and lesser extent, of road, transit, and yes, electrical systems in most parts of the world.

The most successful clean energy initiatives in modern history followed this public-led model, not any of the three policy models that have dominated climate policy-making. France decarbonized 80% of its electrical system through the state-led deployment of nuclear energy. Sweden did the same through a combination of nuclear and hydroelectric dams. Brazil achieved similar levels primarily by building dams.

Nuclear advocates often highlight the cases of France and Sweden, while everyone else ignores them. But the prominent role that dams have played suggests that there are lessons for climate mitigation efforts that go well beyond the benefits of nuclear energy. What all three cases have in common is the direct public procurement of large, centralized infrastructure to provide clean energy to residential, commercial, and industrial users in large, modern economies.

Treating climate change as a public infrastructure challenge, not a private market failure, brings a range of advantages that pricing and regulation cannot provide. It enables long time horizons that private investors are unlikely to tolerate; planning and coordination across sectors of the economy to integrate technology, infrastructure, and institutions necessary to achieve deep decarbonization; and low-cost public finance that could make the price of the energy and climate transition far more manageable. And assuming a reasonably progressive tax system, it would arguably do so in a manner at least as straightforward and equitable as cap-and-trade or carbon taxes that aim at “correcting” market failures.

I’d add that giving money to projects may be more useful than to give money to a variety of workers disagreeing about accounting practices.  In a sense, white collar workers can’t solve a blue collar problem.

Sidenote: given the Ukraine invasion,the below excerpt sounds different. He imagines that Jay Inslee is elected President based on his climate policies, and takes a series of steps to fix climate change, including national carbon rationing.

A month after his inauguration, Inslee traveled to meet with European allies. There, he announced his plan to convert NATO to a global climate mitigation and relief force. NATO and its wealthy members would directly finance the construction of low carbon infrastructure across the globe. Like the Marshall plan that rebuilt Europe, NATO would provide long-term, low-interest loans for developing economies to purchase and deploy clean energy technology. NATO forces would also lead relief efforts to rebuild after natural disasters and resettle refugees in regions less vulnerable to climate change. “It doesn’t matter whether you are black, white, or brown, American, Indian, or Chinese,” Inslee thundered at the end of the NATO meetings. “We are all Earthlings now, with a common challenge and a common destiny.” As Inslee boarded Air Force One, en route to meet his Indian and Chinese counterparts, the battle to stop catastrophic climate change had finally been joined.

Coincidentally, today I read this article in The Intercept about invoking the Defense Production Act.

Several senators sent President Joe Biden a letter on Wednesday asking him to use authorities such as those contained in the Defense Production Act, which significantly expands the president’s authority to unilaterally alter domestic manufacturing policy in times of crisis, to “support and increase manufacturing capacity and supply chain security for technologies that reduce fossil fuel demand and fuel costs, such as electric heat pumps, efficient electric appliances, renewable energy generation and storage, and other clean technologies.”

It doesn’t mention mining, though, of interest to TSW readers, since mining is an issue on federal lands.  Seems like a potential problem, though, since you can’t manufacture without raw materials. And the letter is big on manufacturing heat pumps but not so big on paying people to swap them out.  Or the electric infrastructure to bear those new loads.  When marijuana was legalized in Colorado, electric substations needed to be beefed up..here is a story about some of that.   I think we need more engineers (a la concepts like “critical path”) at the broader scale (how are we to decarbonize short medium and long-term), and perhaps a Pragmatic Bipartisan Decarbonization political coalition.

(2) Here’s a Matthew Yglesias framing that Rebecca Watson sent in:

A recent article by Matthew Yglesias, founder of Vox, writer at Atlantic, Bloomberg, in his “SlowBoring” newsletter has an interesting perspective on this question. He suggests that the Sunrise Movement [like Jane Fonda] frames the climate argument in the wrong way “and that has generated strategic and tactical failures…” They start from three ill-founded premises: 1. there is a latent desire among the mass public for sweeping change to address climate concerns, 2) this desire for change is being held back by an elite cabal of special interests, mainly fossil fuel companies, who wield power through campaign contributions, 3. “Due to the corrupting influence of fossil fuel money, not only do Republicans take bad stances on climate-related issues but so do Democrats…” which leads to the conclusion that a “broad grassroots movement that can push the political system… is needed. Yglesias’ argument is that this is backwards and he points to some interesting polling data and the evidence of the bi-partisan climate provisions in the 2020-21 Omnibus. “But their contents reveal that the progressive theory of climate politics is fundamentally backward — bipartisan deal-making behind closed doors is not dominated by fossil fuel interests and does not feature moderate Democrats selling out to join with Republicans to promote dirty energy. On the contrary, Democrats consistently prioritize climate in these negotiations and some Republicans are sometimes willing to make concessions.” He adds, “[t]he reason the climate has a fighting chance is that people who care about this issue have disproportionate power in the system. But to fully take advantage of that dynamic, climate activists need a correct analysis of the situation.” Worth the read.

Here’s the link, and Yglesias has other interesting ones on energy.

**********************

(3) In 2009, a group of climate experts thought the framing was wrong, and published their views in the Hartwell Paper.

Without a fundamental re-framing of the issue, new mandates will not be granted for any fresh courses of action, even good ones. So, to rebuild climate policy and to restore trust in expert organisations, the framing must change and change radically.

…

Therefore,
the Paper advocates a radical reframing – an inverting – of approach: accepting that decarbonisation will only be achieved successfully as a benefit contingent upon other goals which are politically attractive and relentlessly pragmatic.

…

The aim of this paper has been to reframe the climate issue around matters of human dignity. Not just because that is noble or nice or necessary – although all of those reasons – but because it is likely to be more effective than the approach of framing around human sinfulness—which has just failed. Securing access to low-cost energy for all, including the very poor, is  truly and literally liberating. Building resilience to surprise and to extremes of weather is a practical expression of true global solidarity. Improving the quality of the air that people breathe is an undeniable public good. Such a reorientation requires a radical rethinking and then a reordering of the climate policy agenda

…..

Reframing the climate issue in this manner also means giving up the idea that all manner of other policy goals can be attained by grinding them onto a sparkling, myriad-faceted gem of global carbon policy which then dazzles so mesmerically that it carries all before it. It does not and it did not. Instead, the all-inclusive “Kyoto” type of climate policy as it had become by late 2009, needs to be broken up into separate issues again, each addressed on its merits and each in its own ways. Adaptation, forests, biodiversity, air quality, equity and the many other disparate agendas that have been attached to the climate issue must again stand on their own. We believe that this will, in many cases, make the possibility of political action more likely than has been the circumstance in recent years when carbon policy was asked to pull the whole load of our aspirations for a better future

I think that this is important (unbundling)- to give stakeholders, practitioners and non-climate academics back their former domain that they know and work in, but this idea doesn’t seem to have gone very far.

I also thought at the time that many are attracted to the framing of “human sinfulness” and that remains powerful in some quarters today.  But it’s a choice of some to frame it that way.  Many other framings, as we have seen, are currently on the table.

 

Competing Narratives About Oil and Gas Production and the Role of Federal Lands: I. What Do the Data Tell Us?

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If you’ve been following the coverage of energy needs and why gas prices are high, as the war in the Ukraine has caused concerns about disruptions to energy in Europe, the U.S. and other places, it seems like both the coastal media, ENGO’s and oil and gas producers are, naturally, telling different stories.  Can we parse these out and see some of what the facts tell us,  and what the federal lands have to do with it?  I’m hoping that people more knowledgeable than I on these topics can contribute.  Fortunately both the BLM and EIA have easily accessible data, so we should be able to draw our own conclusions. I’d also like to go back to an old post featuring Michael Webber, a mechanical engineering professor:

Take climate change: When scientists and environmental activists take stock of the mess we are in, the oil and gas sector is a handy villain. For people tapping into their instinct for retribution, the petroleum industry ought to be punished for the damage it has caused and cut out from any opportunity to participate in the upcoming transition to a clean energy economy.

Later in the article, he says:

But blaming the industry leaves out our own culpability for our consumptive, impactful lifestyles. Oil consumption is as much about demand as supply.

I received an email from the Sierra Club “URGENT: Fossil fuel leasing on public lands is destroying the planet.”  So let’s look at their claim from the demand side.

The WaPo has an article from March 8 describing where countries can go to replace oil  from Russia. It’s got some interested charts. According to them,

This is a daunting task, especially since global demand for oil is expected to climb 3.2 million barrels a day in 2022 to a total of 100.6 million a day, according to the International Energy Agency’s most recent monthly report.

I think these discussions are confusing, for one reason, because people don’t necessarily separate oil from natural gas when people talk about “fossil fuels.”  And the second thing is that production, workforce, investments, facilities and so on (plus markets) are extremely complicated.  It’s dubious as to whether most of the people talking about stopping fossil fuels understand the mechanics of all that.  So there is a gap between the talkers and writers, on the one hand, and the doers, on the other hand.

So if we’re to examine the Sierra Club’s claim, first we would look at how much oil and natural gas is actually produced on federal lands?

Here’s what BLM says:

For fiscal year (FY) 2018, sales of oil, gas, and natural gas liquids produced from the Federal and Tribal mineral estate accounted for approximately 8 percent of all oil, 9 percent of all natural gas, and 6 percent of all natural gas liquids produced in the United States.

Another problem with our understanding, besides the oil/natural gas difference, is the onshore versus offshore difference. Clearly they are different in both environmental impacts, and affected and concerned states. And people who round up the numbers don’t use the same years. But we can still see a general outline of the picture.

Conveniently, our friends at the Congressional Research Service published a study in 2018 with a handy table.

Now, I’m definitely not an expert on this, but it’s interesting to me how little the onshore produced compared to private and offshore federal. It’s 5% of domestic oil production. Using the same numbers, for 2017, I came up with 10% for onshore natural gas. (Total of domestic production for all federal was 13% for gas).

But what did the US consume in oil and natural gas? According to the EIA,

In 2021, the United States consumed an average of about 19.78 million barrels of petroleum per day, or a total of about 7.22 billion barrels of petroleum.

and

The United States used about 30.5 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas in 2020, the equivalent of about 31.5 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) and 34% of U.S. total energy consumption.

I’d have to say that I can’t agree with the Sierra Club that federal land fossil fuel extraction is “destroying the planet.” It seems like a relatively small piece of the national (no to speak of the planetary) puzzle.  It’s also helping out poorer states with bids and royalties, which seems like social justice.

You can check out revenues to states and counties, as well as Native Americans, on this handy DOI website.

I’d like to give a big shoutout to BLM, the Natural Resources Revenue Data folks, and EIA for making my work on this topic relatively easy.

And circling back to the WaPo article, an Admin that favors equity and social justice, it seems logical to me, would prefer production and the associated benefits to accrue to say, Louisiana, rather than to Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Venezuela.

Science Friday: “There may never be a single, widely accepted definition of old growth”—Tom Spies

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Old growth longleaf pine forest

Some of us feel like we are revisiting the past.  Like I said, the mid-90’s there was a whole lot of defining going on.

I picked out this Science Finding  from the Pacific Northwest Station ( nice work PNW!) because I think the authors did a good job of summarizing the definition quandary . It’s from 2003, twenty years ago, now. I thought “uh-oh” when I read the first sentence.

Not all forests with old trees are scientifically defined as old growth. Among those that are, the variations are so striking that multiple definitions of old-growth forests are needed, even when the discussion is restricted to Pacific coast old-growth forests from southwestern Oregon to southwestern British Columbia.

What is an old-growth forest?
The question is not as simple as it may seem. The term “old growth” came from foresters in the early days of logging. In the 1970s research ecologists began using the term to describe forests at least 150 years old that developed a complex structure characterized by large, live and dead trees; distinctive habitats; and a diverse group of plants, fungi, and animals.

Environmental groups use the term “old growth” to describe forests with large, old trees and no clearly visible human influences. Many forest scientists do not see the absence of human activity as a necessary criterion for old-growth, but there is no consensus on this in the scientific community. This publication focuses on a scientific perspective of old-growth forests; however, this viewpoint is not the only possible one.

Recently, researchers and managers from Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia held a workshop on the development of old-growth forests in the region from southwestern Oregon to southwestern British Columbia. The group looked at what scientists have learned since the first major publication on ecological characteristics of old-growth forests in 1981. They focused on coastal Douglas-fir forests, but also included closely associated types such as western hemlock and Sitka spruce forests. “Coastal” included the area from the Pacific Ocean to the crest of the Cascade Range.

By using new technologies such as canopy cranes and laser scanning, scientists are learning much about canopy complexity and development in old-growth forests.
Of many challenging topics on the 3-day agenda, the question of definitions was the first one the group discussed. Many forestry textbooks lump all old-growth forests into one stage of forest development. Most scientists now agree, though, that the term “old-growth forests” actually includes forests in many stages of development, and forests that differ widely in character with age, geographic location, and disturbance history. Even within the specified geographic area, no one definition represents the full diversity of old-growth ecosystems.

Probably no single definition of old-growth forests and their values will ever exist.
“There may never be a single, widely accepted definition of old growth—there are just too many strong opinions from different perspectives including forest ecology, wildlife ecology, recreation, spirituality, economics, sociology,” says Tom Spies, research forest ecologist for PNW Research Station.

Spies and Jerry Franklin, University of Washington professor, developed a generic definition of old-growth forests in 1989 for the Forest Service. The definition reads, in part: “Old growth forests are ecosystems distinguished by old trees and related structural attributes…that may include tree size, accumulations of large dead woody material, number of canopy layers, species composition, and ecosystem function.” Most scientists would now include vertical and horizontal diversity in tree canopy as an important attribute.

This definition of old growth is widely accepted but too general for forest inventory or planning. Most scientists at the workshop thought that multiple definitions of old growth are needed for the diversity of forest types within the region.  Also, they thought, old-growth definitions should be finetuned to the inherent patterns and dynamics of the forest landscape mosaic of an area. “At best, we thought it may be possible to converge on a small set of definitions for inventory or mapping purposes,” Spies says.

Even so, when these definitions are applied, some old forests might be just one large tree per acre below the required minimum or have too few large, down logs, and thus might not meet a rigid definition. “The boundaries of what defines old-growth forests are a lot fuzzier than we’d like,” Spies explains. “Some young forests have elements of old growth, and old growth often has patches of young forest. Where fire was common in the past, the dominant trees have a wide range of ages.” In the end, he comments, “Because we deal with complex ecosystems, we have to be comfortable with flexible terms and some ambiguity.”

My bold.

With regard to “accumulations of large dead woody material, number of canopy layers, species composition, and ecosystem function. Most scientists would now include vertical and horizontal diversity in tree canopy as an important attribute.” But fire-adapted forests often don’t have accumulations of dead woody material, number of canopy layers, horizontal diversity, as in the longleaf photo above.
Seems like a national definition would be a heavy, and perhaps unnecessary and unhelpful lift.

I’ll going to write the Sierra Club folks and ask (1) if they have a definition and (2) what projects they know of with this problem.  I’ll report back. Meanwhile thanks to Susan Jane for listing a project where old growth has been called out as an issue.  I’ve got another one to discuss next week, and please put any others in the comments.

Additional note: reading the Campaign it actually says “We are calling on the Biden Administration to enact a strong, lasting rule that protects mature trees and forest stands from logging across federal lands as a cornerstone of US climate policy. ” That would seem to place them at odds with the “cutting big to protect bigger” we’ve been discussing.

Protect “Old Growth Trees” in National Forests Groups Tell Biden: Washington Post Story

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Old Growth Stand on Fremont Winema National Forest-  Ponderosa Pine

Here are some excerpts from the story.

While many policymakers look to shiny new technologies to solve the climate crisis, advocates say that safeguarding trees has long been a simple way to store carbon dioxide, preventing the potent greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere and warming the planet.

“We often call it the climate solution you don’t have to invent,” Ellen Montgomery, public lands campaign director for Environment America, told The Climate 202. “Trees are literally standing right there in front of us.”

If “safeguarding” trees seems easy, perhaps they haven’t been talking about wildfire management/suppression (think WFDSS) nor APHIS import regulations. While it can’t hurt to not log them., there are difficulties with considering them a climate solution on the same level as technological fixes.  That’s the argument people make about offsets, anyway.

Their specific demand is for the U.S. Forest Service to begin crafting a rule to protect all old-growth trees on federal lands from logging.

But what is “old growth”? Maybe some of you remember in the 90’s there was an effort to define old growth with TNC and R&D folks.  There’s quite a bit of literature from that time including this one that looked at different definitions for different types. This might be a good time for those of you who were involved to give a historical perspective.

In addition to Environment America, the groups launching the campaign include the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council and Wild Heritage. Their specific demand is for the U.S. Forest Service to begin crafting a rule to protect all old-growth trees on federal lands from logging.

  • In 2001, under President Bill Clinton, the Forest Service enacted a “roadless rule,” which prohibited road construction and timber harvesting on nearly 50 million acres in national forests.
  • However, most trees on federal lands are located elsewhere, according to the groups.

“Right now, there isn’t anything that protects older parts of our nation’s forests,” Kirin Kennedy, director of people and nature policy at the Sierra Club, told The Climate 202. “So we’re looking to put those protections in place.” (my bold)

I guess I thought old growth was discussed in forest plans.  It should certainly be considered as part of NRV.  But maybe old trees are “old growth” and there’s another definitional gap. Or maybe forest plans aren’t “permanent” enough?

Since the Admin signaled from the beginning that it would go back to the 2001 Rule in Alaska (in gesture that seemed what we would call “pre-decisional” if a district ranger were to do it), is this a recognition that Roadless is won and it’s already time to push for more?

“We’re really in favor of protecting the Tongass because of what it holds as a natural resource — and because of the benefits it provides not only to Alaska, but to the United States as a whole,” Kennedy said.

I wonder how much “old-growth logging” takes place on the Tongass and in the rest of the country.

Here’s a link..to the press release.

So gather your favorite old growth papers, memories or stories and we’ll explore this topic further.

Oregon legislation to define “climate-smart” forestry?

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I’ve been keeping my eyes open for how anyone is defining the management practices or outcomes that should qualify as contributions to carbon sequestration.  They usually seem to stop short of that level of detail.  This does, too.  However, it sounds like they are going to try to get there.  This is a 1/11/22 draft of LC 240, to be addressed at the legislative session beginning now. We would have an answer “no later than April 30, 2023.”

(2) The Institute for Natural Resources, in coordination with the Oregon Global Warming Commission, shall jointly with the State Forestry Department, the State Department of Agriculture, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, the Department of State Lands and the Department of Land Conservation and Development, and in consultation with federal land management partners, develop:

(b) Recommendations for activity-based impact metrics …

(3) Activity-based metrics must be designed to evaluate progress toward increasing carbon sequestration in natural and working lands and waters, as measured against the 2010 to 2019 carbon sequestration baseline. Activity-based metrics may include, but need not be limited to, acres of lands or waters for which certain management practices have been adopted or acres of lands or waters that represent an increase in natural and working lands and waters.

SECTION 8. (1) As used in this section: (a) “Climate-smart agriculture, forestry and conservation practices” means practices that protect and restore resilient carbon stocks in native ecosystems and increase resilient carbon stocks in vegetation and soils in natural and working lands and waters.

Science Friday: Law et al. Paper on Prioritizing Forest Areas for Protection in 30 x 30

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We’ve looked at two scientific papers in the last week,  last Friday Siirila-Woodburn et al.   “low to no snow future and water resources” as we discussed here.  Then yesterday we took a look at Ager et al. 2021. as part of a discussion about the Forest Service 10 year wildfire risk reduction plan.  Today I’d like to look at a recent paper by Law et al. that Steve brought up in a comment yesterday. It’s interesting for many reasons, not the least of which is that the journal, Communications Earth and Environment publishes the review comments and responses, and is open access. Apologies for the length of this post, but there’s lots of interesting stuff around this paper.

The first question is “what is the point of the paper?”  In the discussion, the authors say

“We developed and applied a geospatial framework to explicitly identify forestlands that could be strategically preserved to help meet these targets. We propose that Strategic Forest Reserves could be established on federal and state public lands where much of the high priority forests occur, while private entities and tribal nations could be incentivized to preserve other high priority forests. We further find that preserving high priority forests would help protect (1) ecosystem carbon stocks and accumulation for climate mitigation, (2) animal and tree species’ habitat to stem further biodiversity loss, and (3) surface drinking water for water security. Progress has been made, but much work needs to be done to reach the 30 × 30 or 50 × 50 targets in the western US.”

Basically, to put words in their mouths, they used geospatial data from various sources to help figure out how to meet 30×30 and 50×50 goals. It seems to me that they equate “preervation” to “conditions that are good for carbon stocks, biodiversity, and drinking water.”  This is perhaps fine in a non-fire environment (and we can all make assumptions about future fires on the West Side, but if we were perfectly honest we’d admit that “fires may well occur on the west side as well and possibly increase” but “no one knows for sure.”

Now if we were to raise our sights from the details of the geospatial framework, we might see that 30 x 30 is a current policy discussion about how much conservation versus protection and what practices count.  So they might have taken the same tack as Siirila-Woodburn and Ager’s coauthors.. “let’s ask the people who know about these practices and are working in the area what they would like to know that would help them. Keeping in mind that these systems are so complex, we can’t really predict and need to be open about uncertainties.” There’s also a substantial literature about these national or international priority setting analyses, and their tendencies to disempower local people. No reviewers of this paper that I could tell were social scientists.

Nevertheless, it seems like they ran some numbers, and then had a long discussion in a mode of an op-ed with citations.

Differences in fire regimes among ecoregions are important parts of the decision-making process. For example, forests in parts of Montana and Idaho are projected to be highly vulnerable to future wildfire but not drought, thus fire-adapted forests climatically buffered from drought may be good candidates for preservation. Moist carbon rich forests in the Pacific Coast Range and West Cascades ecoregions are projected to be the least vulnerable to either drought or fire in the future25, though extreme hot, dry, and windy conditions led to fires in the West Cascades in 2020. It is important to recognize that forest thinning to reduce fire risk has a low probability of success in the western US73, results in greater carbon losses than fire itself, and is generally not needed in moist forests79,80,81,82.

Biodiversity- wise, though, you don’t need a PhD in wildife ecology to think.. protecting more west-side Doug-fir isn’t as good for biodiversity as protecting some of that and some of Montana or New Mexico.. so really carbon and biodiversity don’t always lead us to the same places.  It’s interesting that the reviewers didn’t catch the claim that “forest thinning has a low probability of success” What is paper 73, you might ask?  It’s a perspective piece in PNAS (so another op-ed with citations) by our geography friends at University of Colorado.  And “results in greater losses than fire itself?”  See our California versus Oregon wildfire carbon post here.

Forests help ensure surface drinking water quality63,64 and thus meeting the preservation targets would provide co-benefits for water security in an era of growing need.

This was an interesting claim for “protected” forests, as our hydrology colleagues (who perhaps are more expert in this area?) wrote in their review..

Changes in wildfire frequency, severity and timing are particularly catastrophic consequences of a low- to- no snow future. Indeed, alongside continued warming, a shift towards a no- snow future is anticipated to exacerbate wildfire activity, as observed169,170. However, in the longer term, drier conditions can also slow post- fire vegetation regrowth, even reducing fire size and severity by reducing fuels. The hydrologic (and broader) impacts of fire are substantial, and include: shifts in snowpack accumulation, snowpack ablation and snowmelt timing171; increased probability of flash flooding and debris flows172,173; enhanced overland flow; deleterious impacts on water quality 174,175; and increased sediment fluxes176,177. Notably, even small increases in turbidity can directly impact water supply infrastructure178,179. Vegetation recovery within the first few years following fire rapidly diminishes these effects, but some longer term effects do occur, as evidenced with stream chemistry180 and above and below ground water partitioning both within and outside of burn scars181.

There’s even a drive-by (so to speak) on our OHV friends..

Recreation can be compatible with permanent protection so long as it does not include use of off-highway vehicles that have done considerable damage to ecosystems, fragmented habitat, and severely impacted animals including threatened and endangered species37

Here’s a link to the review comments. The authors did not include fragmentation in their analysis as one reviewer pointed out, so they added

Nevertheless, our current analysis did not incorporate metrics of forest connectivity39 or fragmentation48, thus isolated forest “patches” (i.e., one or several gird cells) were not ranked lower for preservation priority than forests that were part of large continuous corridors.

To circle back to handling uncertainty and where the discussion of these uncertainties takes place (with practitioners and inhabitants or not), another review comment on uncertainty and the reply:

The underlying datasets that we used in this analysis did not include uncertainty estimates and thus it is not readily possible for us to characterize cumulative uncertainty by propagating uncertainty and error through our analysis. We recognize the importance of characterizing uncertainty in geospatial analyses and acknowledge this is an inherent limitation in our current study. To better acknowledge this limitation and the need for future refinements, we added the following text to the end of the Discussion (lines 445-447): Next steps are to apply this framework across countries, include non-forest ecosystems, and account for how preservation prioritization is affected by uncertainty in underlying geospatial datasets.

It makes me hanker for old timey economists, who put uncertainties front and center. Remember sensitivity analysis?

But the reviewers never addressed the gaps that I perceive between what the authors claim in their discussion and what the data show. I suspect that’s because “generating studies using geospatial data” is a subfield, and the reviewers are experts in that, but the points in the discussion (what’s an IRA, what’s the state of the art on fuel treatments) not so much. I think that that’s an inevitable part of peer review being hard unpaid work- at some point reviewers will use the “sounds plausible from here” criterion. And so it goes..

California and Oregon: Wildfires and Carbon Counting

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It’s always interesting to observe differences between Oregon and California. It’s fun because they are both D states so it’s difficult (but not impossible, I’m sure) to partisanize issues.  They both grapple with approaches to climate change.  My hypothesis is that because OSU and UO have been the major universities for so long, and the state capitol is in the Williamette Valley, Oregon has more of a “mesic centric” bias than California.  There’s also a greater history (on the West side and the SW) of timber industry. Meanwhile, at UC Berkeley in the 1950’s, Harold Biswell was arguing for more prescribed fire.

It’s interesting to see how this plays out in the “who’s dishing out most carbon” controversy.  According to the Center for Sustainable Economy here:

A new study by researchers based at Oregon State University and the University of Idaho corroborates Center for Sustainable Economy’s 2015 and 2017 research demonstrating that logging is by far the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon and that changes in greenhouse gas accounting rules are urgently needed to ensure that the climate impacts of logging are accurately reported. Both the new OSU study and CSE’s 2017 research estimate annual logging-related emissions to have averaged over 33 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent per year (Mmt CO2-e/yr) since 2000. This makes logging by far the largest source of emissions in the state, far larger than the 23 Mmt CO2-e/yr attributed to transportation – the leading source presently accounted for by the Oregon Global Warming Commission (OGWC) and the State’s Department of Energy.

And in this High Country News piece about the same study..

And Law’s research could have regional implications. She is working on a larger scale study looking at how land use affects carbon emissions across the West. Stanford forest carbon researcher Christa Anderson says studies like these are important to understand the impact of land use and forests in the carbon balance of the atmosphere.

Except, well, lots of other people watch carbon in California, for example, in this SacBee story that shows how it’s really difficult to decarbonize, even with a plethora of policies in place, in a State that really wants to. The whole article is interesting from that perspective.

The single-biggest contributor to the state’s emissions was the transportation sector, accounting for 40.7% of all emissions in the state, according to the report.

However, California may see a drop in transportation sector-related emissions for 2020 and 2021. The COVID-19-related shift to work from home resulted in a nationwide emissions dip of 15% for 2020.

“California could expect to see a similar level of decline in transportation emissions through 2020 and into 2021,” the report says, though it adds that that data is not yet available.

The second-greatest contributor to California’s greenhouse gas emissions were wildfires.

“Wildfires have always been a feature of the California environment, but they have been producing more (greenhouse gas) emissions than ever, fueled by the impacts of climate change,” according to the report.

In 2020, emissions from wildfires were greater than emissions from any other sector except transportation, with the August Complex Fire alone producing more emissions than the entire commercial sector.

The commercial and residential sectors also continued to increase the amount of emissions produced. From 2014 to 2019, commercial greenhouse gas emissions rose from 4.8% to 5.8%, while residential emissions rose from 6.1% to 7.9%.

Here’s a link to the study. For carbon counters, this group counted 106 MMTCO2e emitted by wildfires in 2020. Of course, it doesn’t look like other states divide up sectors quite the same way the OSU folks did. Seems like in California, at least, managing fire to reduce carbon emissions might be useful.

Of course, “where the best places, best sectors, and best technology to decrease overall emissions with least impacts to disadvantaged folks, and ideally, least negative impacts to anyone and to the environment” are larger questions than the forest community and our researchers alone can answer. Seems like in California, managing fire to reduce carbon emissions might be useful.

Science is clear: Catastrophic wildfire requires forest management

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“Science is clear: Catastrophic wildfire requires forest management” was written by Steve Ellis, Chair of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees (NAFSR), who is a former U.S. Forest Service Forest Supervisor and retired Bureau of Land Management Deputy Director for Operations—the senior career position in that agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

I have extracted a few snippets (Emphasis added) from the above article published by the NAFSR:

1) Last year was a historically destructive wildfire season. While we haven’t yet seen the end of 2021, nationally 64 large fires have burned over 3 million acres. The economic damage caused by wildfire in 2020 is estimated at $150 billion. The loss of communities, loss of life, impacts on health, and untold environmental damage to our watersheds—not to mention the pumping of climate-changing carbon into the atmosphere—are devastating. This continuing disaster needs to be addressed like the catastrophe it is.

2) We are the National Association of Forest Service Retirees (NAFSR), an organization of dedicated natural resource professionals—field practitioners, firefighters, and scientists—with thousands of years of on the ground experience. Our membership lives in every state of the nation. We are dedicated to sustaining healthy National Forests and National Grasslands, the lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service, to provide clean water, quality outdoor recreation, wildlife and fish habitat, and carbon sequestration, and to be more resilient to catastrophic wildfire as our climate changes.

3) As some of us here on the Smokey Wire have been explaining for years, the NAFSR very clearly and succinctly states:
“Small treatment areas, scattered “random acts of restoration” across the landscape, are not large enough to make a meaningful difference. Decades of field observations and peer reviewed research both document the effectiveness of strategic landscape fuel treatments and support the pressing need to do more. The cost of necessary treatments is a fraction of the wildfire damage such treatments can prevent. Today’s wildfires in overstocked forests burn so hot and on such vast acreages that reforestation becomes difficult or next to impossible in some areas. Soil damage and erosion become extreme. Watersheds which supply vital domestic, industrial, and agricultural water are damaged or destroyed.”

4) This summer, America watched with great apprehension as the Caldor Fire approached South Lake Tahoe. In a community briefing, wildfire incident commander Rocky Oplinger described how active management of forestlands assisted firefighters. “When the fire spotted above Meyers, it reached a fuels treatment that helped reduce flame lengths from 150 feet to 15 feet, enabling firefighters to mount a direct attack and protect homes,” The Los Angeles Times quoted him.

5) And in a Sacramento Bee interview in which fire researcher Scott Stephens was asked how much consensus there is among fire scientists that fuels treatments do help, he answered “I’d say at least 99%. I’ll be honest with you, it’s that strong; it’s that strong. There’s at least 99% certainty that treated areas do moderate fire behavior. You will always have the ignition potential, but the fires will be much easier to manage.” I (Steve Ellis) don’t know if it’s 99% or not, but a wildfire commander with decades of experience recently told me this figure would be at least 90%. What is important here is that there is broad agreement among professionals that properly treated landscapes do moderate fire behavior.

6) During my career (Steve Ellis), I have personally witnessed fire dropping from tree crowns to the ground when it hit a thinned forest. So have many NAFSR members. This is an issue where scientist and practitioners agree. More strategic landscape treatments are necessary to help avoid increasingly disastrous wildfires. So, the next time you read or hear someone say that thinning and prescribed fire in the forest does not work, remember that nothing can be further from the truth.

Reducing Carbon Demand From Federal Lands: A Modest Proposal

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There seems to be a full-court press by NGOs with the concept that President Biden should show his support for climate action (related to COP26) by shutting down oil and gas leasing on federal lands (without regard to its legality, apparently).  As we’ve seen with forest products, though, that actually doesn’t stop demand and use, and simply moves the environmental costs and social benefits of production to other countries.  What I’d like is to open up the question of ways we could instead reduce consumption, preferably while not affecting poor/working class/people of color disparately, using federal land policies, that is legally viable.

To start the discussion, I’ll start with a likely to be highly unpopular idea.. but hopefully this will trigger other, more likely to be popular, ideas.

Discouraging High Carbon Tourism

Having recently returned from visiting three National Parks in Alaska, with thousands of other folks who flew in, used boats, cars and RVs. I propose analyzing the carbon footprints of visitors and workers in heavily used National Parks and closing, or greatly restricting, visitation to the ones with the highest footprints (tourists from farthest away; air travel, non-resident seasonal employees).  Here are my arguments.

1. Heating, transportation of necessities, combines and snowplows, travel to work are necessities; “airplane level” tourism not so much. One view might be that If we as a country want to keep our footprint small, we should prioritize necessities, not luxuries. Many folks like this recent piece in the WaPo, recommend tourism close to home to reduce carbon footprints.

The farther from home you go, the more fuel you need to get there (unless you’re going by bike, on foot or via renewable energy, of course), says Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist, professor, director of the Climate Center at Texas Tech University and author of the forthcoming book “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World.” Her advice for travelers is to explore your own backyard and opt for more domestic trips.

2. At Denali, I asked why their Visitor Center was closed (I assumed it was due to Covid). The Park employee told me that it was because the Park was not funded or staffed well enough to keep it open. By closing or reducing access, perhaps Parks could better match their finances with their services.

3.  Concessionaire employees are interacting with tourists (although Park employees, thankfully, are not).  There are mask mandates but, if employees would not be safe with these same restrictions, then concessionaire employees would equally not be safe. For example, at Denali, the visitor center was closed, and the store was open. Fewer or no visitors would mean less chances for Covid transmission.

4. People say that National Parks are the “highest level of protection”. Seems like they would be even more “protected” without thousands of visitors, or with many fewer.

5. Tourism is seasonal and often workers are not permanent residents of the state. Even more travel could be reduced by having no concessionaires’ employees, and those workers especially now, would be likely to find similar (relatively low-paying) jobs in their own communities.

6. For gateway communities, less traffic would also mean less congestion in their communities, saving even more fuel.

In this Wall Street Journal article, they talk about local businesses pushing back to efforts to restrict/manage entry. On the other hand, there may be local people who would support the idea fewer tourists.

Awhile back during both the government shutdown, and because of Covid, many folks were arguing that Parks should be shut down to protect the resource Maybe this would be a win/win for the Park environment and reducing carbon impacts.

Other ideas?