climate change

Where Have All the Seedlings Gone? Gone to Crown Fires, Every One

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Check this out from the Summit County Citizens Voice here..

Perhaps we’re back to tree planting, just about 30 years after the last surge (the circle of life). We could start those nurseries running, get the tree-coolers back online.. and go for it…

I was looking for good tree quotes for a retirement party and found this today..

Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets. To plant a pine, one need only own a shovel.

Aldo Leopold. But I digress…

SUMMIT COUNTY — Wildfires that have burned across almost 750,000 acres in Arizona are doing more than turning forests into charred stumps.

Researchers with Northern Arizona University say the fires, burning in unnaturally dense stands of ponderosa pine, are turning the forests from carbon sinks into net carbon producers — and, the fires have burned so hot that they aren’t finding many signs of regeneration.

Mike Stoddard, a forest ecologist with NAU’s Ecological Restoration Institute, has been looking for a sign, any sign, of ponderosa pine seedlings 15 years after the 1996 Hochderffer Fire, a crown fire that burned hot through 16,000 acres west of the San Francisco Peaks, near Flagstaff.

“These large fires are devastating our forests,” Stoddard said. “We’re concerned that ponderosa pine is not regenerating after these wildfire events.”

Crown fires burn into the canopies and treetops or crowns of the trees — massive, intense crown fires, such as the Wallow Fire in eastern Arizona, are not natural in the ponderosa pine forest. Naturally occurring ponderosa pine fires burn along the ground, or base, of the trees.

Scientists also are concerned about the invisible impacts of crown fires. The fires are contributing to global warming by upsetting the carbon balance while they are burning, and for years afterward, according to the NAU researchers.

In a study conducted from 2001 to 2007, forest ecologist Matthew Hurteau with NAU’s School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability found that the nation’s wildfire emissions were the equivalent of 4 percent to 6 percent of all emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas. The percentage of lingering emissions is even greater.

“We’re looking to forests to take in carbon, thereby lowering the greenhouse gases. But at a site like the Hochderffer Fire, the grassy vegetation that’s growing in is not making up for the amount of carbon that’s being released from the dead trees,” he said.

Across Arizona Highway 180, the story is much the same. NAU forestry professor Tom Kolb is calculating the amount of carbon dioxide moving between the land and the air at the site of the Horseshoe Fire. This 8,000-acre crown fire also burned in 1996.

“The fire has had a long-term legacy effect on the capacity of this site to take in and store carbon dioxide,” Kolb said. “This site has gone from being a carbon sink, where carbon was being stored, to a carbon source, where carbon is being released.”

With carbon making up about half the dry weight of a tree, researchers say overstocked ponderosa pine thickets can store a lot of carbon, at least for a while.

“Storing carbon in lots of little trees in a dense forest is like investing your retirement funds in junk bonds. It’s risky,” Hurteau said. “Our research has shown that if we reduce the amount of trees per acre and return ground fire to the system to manage those surface fuels, the carbon left in the live trees is much more stable because it’s less vulnerable to crown fire.”

Carbon flux research south of Flagstaff where excess small diameter ponderosas have been removed shows the remaining trees have become more vigorous.

“They photosynthesize at a much greater rate than the trees in the un-thinned situation,” Kolb said. “The thinned forest has an equal to or slighter greater rate of carbon sequestration than an un-thinned forest.”

Wildness and Wilderness: A Few Quotes from David Oates

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The Economist piece here begins a series of posts on the topic of “what pieces of what we do are based on a pre-climate change/non-dynamic worldview, and what must we do to develop new approaches with climate change in mind?”

The comment from Les Joslin here pointing out that Thoreau’s quote was about wildness, not wilderness, reminded me of David Oates’ book Paradise Wild: Reimagining American Nature. Now, all who follow this blog know that I am not a wallower in deep thinking. I tend to be more interested in facts and actions than ideas. But I recognize that ideas (and words) are important, because they form a fundamental framing of the universe. If we are unaware of that framing we can talk past each other and never, ultimately, understand each other. And those misunderstandings can lead to attribution of bad intent, and rifts among us when, instead, there could be powerful surges of joint action for ourselves and the Earth.

Here are a couple of quotes from the book that seem relevant to our current discussion. You can find more excerpts, as well as his other work, on Oates’ website here.

Eden is a myth that has ended up telling its tellers, speaking through them without their ability to see it or to imagine any other words, or worlds. But we cannot afford to let this storyline use us any more. It is time to bring it into consciousness, recognize it as a historical artifact, and move to other ground. For the immediate political gains we make in using the Eden-and-Apocalypse language are paid for with long-term defeat. Like Muir, we find we cannot live in Eden, and that however “saved” it is, it is somewhere else. We trudge in a flat and dusty world, separated and alienated (as all the nature writers declare) from a vital connection with the world. Eden can’t be saved unless we are, too. Our fates are intertwined. We must re-imagine what Eden means.

“But they have too often veered into the dead-end language of Paradise Lost. When the rhetoric of Lost Eden shows up,as it does in classics like Muir and Abbey and lots of recent environmental writing and politicking, it pretty much squelches the possibility for grounded choices, for practical spirituality. For knowing when to keep the tree and when to make it into something else. That’s the real work (in Gary Snyder’s phrase):smutting along in the world. Glorying along in it, growing roses from our dungheaps and dungheaps from our roses. This work takes passion, energy, humility and perhaps humor. Willingness to try, to get soiled; to compromise, learn, improve. (note from Sharon: sounds like collaborative adaptive management?)

But these traits we cannot find when we are loaded down with post-Edenic guilt and pessimism. These leave us in a state of environmental denial, too exhausted from crisis-overload to pay attention; or whipped up into Puritan absolutism, searching for purity in the form of fantasy wildernesses and defeatist politics. “Apathy and dogmatism” in the words of James D. Proctor’s searching analysis of the forest debate. Neither response works very well in the world we actually live in, which generally isn’t about purity but is ready to reward attentiveness bountifully.”

Note I think Oates may be referring to this book edited by Proctor.

Australian Bushfire Damage and Climate Change

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Here on Roger Pielke’ Jr.’s climate blog is a peer-reviewed point counterpoint about climate and vulnerability with regard to bushfires in Australia. It makes me wonder.. we’ve had a number of posts about wildland fires and the need to rethink our approaches to managing fires. The recent discussion here on the use of retardant is one of those. Question: do the Aussies have any better ideas that might be worth importing? Is the debate different or framed in such a way that different solutions emerge?

What this story says to me is that people’s vulnerability to fires is actually, at least at the current time, fairly separate from climate and yet worthy of attention.

Climate Shift – Nisbet’s Report

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Certainly public land managers need to be climate aware; and that also means being climate-debate aware. Here is a recent report- “Climate Shift A Clear Vision for the Next Decade of Public Debate.” Many of the findings may be of interest to NCFP readers.

This is from the summary..

Just as public opinion needs to be considered in the context of the economy and the message strategy of prominent political figures, belief in the reality and risks of climate change are also linked to the proposed policy solutions. Polling experts assert it is wrong to assume that questions asking about the causes and impacts of climate change are in fact measuring knowledge. Instead, answers to these questions are much more likely to be indirect opinions about cap and trade policy and an international agreement, explaining why even highly educated Republicans appear in polling to doubt human caused climate change. Academic studies reach a similar conclusion. In these studies, perceptions of scientific consensus vary by an individual’s underlying ideological values and in relation to the inferred course of policy action.

Research is less clear about the wider impact on public opinion of conservative outlets such as Fox News or for Climategate. These studies show that conservative-leaning individuals who already hold stronger doubts about climate change are more likely to view Fox News, and this viewing reinforces these doubts. Research shows that the same factors related to selective attention and interpretation apply to understanding the impact of Climategate on public opinion.

Just as ideology shapes the public’s judgments about climate change, ideology also guides the political interpretations of scientists and environmentalists. To understand this process, I analyzed a recent survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). To be clear, the survey of AAAS members is by no means representative of scientists who are actively engaged in climate change research. On the reality and causes of climate change, there is no debate among specialists. Respondents to the AAAS survey are instead representative of the organization’s interdisciplinary and professional composition, with 44 percent of members working in the biological, medical or agricultural sciences

As the data show, AAAS members are strongly ideological, partisan and like-minded in outlook. With “moderate” and “independent” the mid-points in a continuum of political identity, more than a majority of AAAS members declare themselves to the left of these outlooks. To add context to this finding, I compared the political composition of AAAS members with 10 other politically-active groups and commonly-referenced media audiences. AAAS members are as ideologically like-minded as evangelical church members and substantially more partisan. Only black church members exhibit a stronger partisan lean than AAAS members and only Fox News viewers, Mormon Church members and Tea Party members exhibit a stronger ideological lean.

Among AAAS members, given that very few specialize in earth science, perceptions of climate change also vary considerably by ideology, just as they do among the public. Less than a majority of conservative AAAS members think the Earth is warming and that humans are a cause, compared with more than 80 percent of moderates and more than 95 percent of liberals. There are even stronger differences in the perceived seriousness of the issue.

Ideology also strongly influences the political events that AAAS members follow and their interpretation. Among strong liberals, 74 percent reported hearing a lot about claims the Bush administration had interfered with the work of government scientists, compared with 27 percent of conservative AAAS members. In comparison, just 10 percent of the public had heard a lot about the debate. Ideology additionally shaped how the claims were interpreted. On this matter, of those hearing about the debate, 57 percent of conservative AAAS members said the claims were true, compared with 87 percent of moderates and 97 percent of liberals.

To the extent that AAAS membership is consistent with the political identity of the environmental movement and scientific community at large, the findings suggest several important themes to consider. First, given their political identity and outlook, it is likely very difficult for many scientists and environmentalists to understand why so many Americans have reservations about complex policies such as cap and trade that impose costs on consumers without offering clearly defined benefits.

Second, as a natural human tendency, the political preferences of scientists and environmentalists likely lead them to seek out congenial sources in the media and to overlook the polarizing qualities of admired leaders such as Gore. These same factors also likely shape a view of the world that is inherently hostile even when objective indicators of financial resources, media coverage and public opinion suggest otherwise.

As a result, in discussion of communication initiatives and political strategy, scientists and environmentalists tend to overlook how economic trends and their own actions might diminish public concern, and instead focus on presumed flaws in media coverage or the activities of conservatives. Moreover, as organizations such as the AAAS train and encourage their members to engage in public outreach, most participants are likely to view politics very differently from the audiences with which they are trying to engage, a challenge that merits greater focus as part of these trainings.

These observations will probably raise most heat..

Designs to Win: Engineering Social Change
In Chapter 2, I examine the conventional belief that conservative philanthropists like the Koch brothers are more effective than their centrist counterparts because they funnel their funding into a coordinated set of causes, think tanks and groups aimed at achieving specific policy ends. Yet as I review, far from being passive supporters, over the past decade, foundations supporting action on climate change have strongly shaped—if not defined—the environmental movement’s agenda, engaging in many of the same policy-focused strategies as conservatives.

In 2006, several of the country’s wealthiest foundations hired a consulting firm to comprehensively survey the available scientific literature and to consult more than 150 leading climate change and energy experts. The result of this intensive undertaking was the 2007 report Design to Win: Philanthropy’s Role in the Fight Against Global Warming.

Leading the report was the recommendation that “tempering climate change” required a strong cap and trade policy in the United States and the European Union, and a binding international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions. The report predicted that passage of cap and trade legislation would “prompt a sea change that washes over the entire global economy.” The report included little to no discussion of the role of government in directly sponsoring the creation of new energy technologies. The report is additionally notable for the absence of any meaningful discussion of social, political or cultural dimensions of the challenge.

To understand how this planning document shaped the investment strategies of major foundations, I analyzed available records as of January 2011 for 1,246 climate change and energy-related grants distributed by nine aligned foundations between 2008 and 2010. These aligned foundations are among the wealthiest in the country, include several of the top funders of environment-related programs, and were either sponsors of the Design to Win report or describe themselves as following its recommendations. The foundations analyzed were the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (#1 in environmental funding for 2009), the Sea Change Foundation (#4), the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (#5), the Kresge Foundation (#13), the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (#24), the McKnight Foundation (#39), the Oak Foundation (#41), the Energy Foundation and ClimateWorks.

Approximately $368 million was distributed across the 1,246 individual grants. However, given that not all foundation records are publicly available for this period, the total of $368 million likely underestimates the actual amount distributed between 2008 and 2010. If an average based on a foundation’s previous year giving is used as a stand-in for missing years, these nine foundations would have distributed more than $560 million between 2008 and 2010.

Much like their conservative counterparts, the funding provided by these nine foundations reflects a pattern of support focused on achieving a clear set of policy objectives. Funding included $39 million associated with activities in support of cap and trade policies; $32 million associated with efforts at reaching an international agreement or influencing the policies of a specific country; and $18.7 million associated with efforts at limiting or opposing coal-fired power plants.

Funding patterns also reflect the Design to Win report’s framing of climate change as a physical threat that requires primarily scientific and economic expertise to solve. More than $48 million in grants were associated with policy analysis or economic impact analysis; $17 million with environmental impact analysis; and $13 million given directly to support university-based programs.

In addition, funding was concentrated on just a few national organizations. Though 1,246 grants were allocated, 25 organizations combined to receive $182 million, nearly half the $368 million total distributed. Of the 25 organizations, 14 were leaders in the push for cap and trade legislation. Recipients included the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters and the Alliance for Climate Protection.

As the top recipient of funding, nearly one out of every 10 dollars ($34.6 million) went to the Bipartisan Policy Center, exceeding the $31.3 million distributed by Koch-affiliated foundations to all conservative organizations between 2005 and 2009.

The analysis of the Design to Win alliance shows that contrary to conventional wisdom, these nine foundations have been as strategic in targeting specific policy outcomes as even the Koch brothers, applying more than 10 times the amount of money in pursuit of their goals. Yet focus and strategy are only as effective as the premises upon which they are based. As described in the chapter, the Design to Win report appeared to define climate change in conventional terms, as an environmental problem that required only the mobilization of market incentives and public will. With this definition, comparatively limited funding focused on the role of government in promoting new technology and innovation. Nor was there equivalent investment in important human dimensions of the issue, such as adaptation, health, equity, justice or economic development.

I italicized the last sentence because within our own world of climate and public lands we are certainly free to, and I believe, should frame climate change from a more holistic perspective.

Toddi Steelman on Science and Politics

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At a recent TED lecture at North Carolina State University, Professor Toddi Steeman talked about three science myths: “Science Determines Policy,” “Science is Objective,” and “More Science Leads to Consensus.” Steelman titled the talk, “My Jihad Against Scientific Fundamentalism.” Beginning about 7:50 into the presentation Steelman talks about so-called “Climategate,” as one of two case studies where misplaced emphasis on science frustrates policy development and problem solving. Here is a “snip,” [hastily transcribed from audio, beginning at 12:57]:

More, better, new science cannot provide objective answers to value-based questions. Science is actually pretty good at helping us understand problems, but is really not so good at helping us understand solutions to those problems. … Politics is the realm where we shape and share our collective values as a society. And politics requires different forms of knowledge, including local knowledge and public preferences. …

Knowledge like “public preferences” and “local knowledge” are often dismissed outright when we talk about environmental issues because they are seen as flawed in some fundamental way. They are seen as biased or not objective or not neutral. In that type of framing science is actually seen to be a more perfect form of knowledge … seen as … less biased or more objective or more neutral. … And under that type of framing [science] is a preferred or privileged form of knowledge in environmental decision-making. … The question is, Should it be that way?

Under that type of framing politics is really vilified. It is seen as a dirty, spin-filled, nasty practice full of compromise and collaboration in the absolute worst sense of those words. And because it is portrayed that way or framed that way it is easy to dismiss these other forms of knowledge….We are sort of left with having science to fill this gap. … But the question is, Should it be that way? …

Science can’t tell us what to do as individuals or as a collective society in the face of a changing climate. We have to make those hard decisions and engage in that debate collectively. And yet we continuously look to science to provide those answers for us. So the question again is, Why? Why do we do that? …

We continue to place these expectations on science—that science really cannot meet. And in doing so we really do an enormous disservice to science. …What we really need to do is to elevate the political dialogue in our society and to take the expectations on science down a little bit. …

We could continue to perpetuate the [three science myths above]. … And in doing so we do an enormous disservice to science … Or, the alternative vision is to acknowledge what those myths are and to embrace politics and the really constructive role it can potentially play for us. And in doing so what we could do is accept what science can do and what its strengths are, as well as what local knowledge can do for us, as well as what public preferences can do for us. And in leveraging all three of those knowledge types perhaps get better purchase on some of these contested claims in the environmental arena. Because the challenges we face in our environmental arena are so wide and so challenging we need all the help that we possibly can get.

NY Times on Gas vs. Coal

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Kevin Maloney for the NYT

Just when we were discussing the same topic…

here’s a link to a NY Times story

But the cleanliness of natural gas is largely based on its lower carbon dioxide emissions when burned. It emits roughly half the amount of carbon dioxide as coal and about 30 percent that of oil.

Less clear, largely because no one has bothered to look, are the emissions over its entire production life cycle — that is, from the moment a well is plumbed to the point at which the gas is used.

Methane leaks have long been a concern because while methane dissipates in the atmosphere more quickly than carbon dioxide, it is far more efficient at trapping heat. Recent evidence has suggested that the amount of leakage has been underestimated. A report in January by the nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica, for example, noted that the Environmental Protection Agency had recently doubled its estimates for the amount of methane that is vented or lost from natural gas distribution lines.

Note that the SAF scientist letter mentioned in this post did mention methane associated with natural gas and coal.

Forest Biomass Carbon- Letter vs. Letter

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David Beebe said, in a comment here on this previous post:

“Perhaps vested interests aren’t the best sole source for getting to the heart of the science on this matter without at least including contrasting conclusions coming from perhaps more objective sources?

For instance, http://216.250.243.12/90scientistsletter.pdf”

Now I know some but not many of these “vested interests”. In fact, Jim Burchfield has posted on this blog. As far as I know, all scientists have vested interests in getting research funds. And if you know a lot about something, (say a bird species), you tend to think they are pretty important; hence you are never very objective. Maybe we ought to give up the mythology of the objective scientist and just slog through the claims and counterclaims using logic and practitioner knowledge and see how far we get.

So let’s examine the knowledge claims in this letter.

1. Replacement of fossil fuels with bioenergy does not directly stop carbon dioxide emissions from tailpipes or smokestacks. Although fossil fuel emissions are reduced or eliminated, the combustion of biomass replaces fossil emissions with its own emissions (which may even be higher per unit of energy because of the lower energy to carbon ratio of biomass). Agreed.

2. Bioenergy can reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide if land and plants are managed to take up additional carbon dioxide beyond what they would absorb without bioenergy
This isn’t the clearest statement. Plants will grow and absorb carbon. If the previous plants are removed and used for bioenergy, new plants will grow and absorb carbon equivalent to that released when the previous plants are burned. Are we saying the same thing here? Not sure.

3. Alternatively, bioenergy can use some vegetative residues that would otherwise decompose and release carbon to the atmosphere rapidly. I would add possibly “even more rapidly through fires.”
4. Whether land and plants sequester additional carbon to offset emissions from burning the biomass depends on changes both in the rates of plant growth and in the carbon storage in plants and soils. OK.

6. For example, planting fast-growing energy crops on otherwise unproductive land leads to additional carbon absorption by plants that offsets emissions from their use for energy without displacing carbon storage in plants and soils. Agreed but not many acres around that are unproductive but would also grow energy crops.

7. On the other hand, clearing or cutting forests for energy, either to burn trees directly in power plants or to replace forests with bioenergy crops, has the net effect of releasing otherwise sequestered carbon into the atmosphere, just like the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.

The other letter did not talk about replacing forests with bioenergy crops, or clearing forests. If it is thinning, that carbon would be released anyway when the suppressed trees ultimately die. I am not following this logic for thinnings, or for dead trees. If we take dead trees, they are replacing fossil fuels and the place they vacated will be sequestering carbon. By getting the dead guys out, they are also opening places for new plants to re-sequester faster.

These seem to be the main questions:

1. What biomass are you taking off the acres?
2. What would happen to the carbon if you didn’t remove some biomass?
3. What would happen to the carbon if you removed the biomass but didn’t use it for energy?
3. What is the difference if you did use it for bioenergy?

Let’s use an example.

You are doing a thinning in ponderosa pine to “restore to HRV” and/or for fuels reduction.
You can use the trees for energy to replace fossil fuels OR you can put them into wood products OR you can pile them and burn them.

If you put them into wood products, the carbon will be released more slowly than in the woods. But you would be using the gas for heavy equipment and transportation and electricity (coal?) at the mill, more transportation to the Home Depot, etc. However, at the Home Depot it would replace boards from Canada, which might presumably have the same gas to extract from the woods, maybe hydro for western mills (don’t know) and possibly more transportation.

If you put the trees into bioenergy, you would still have to haul somewhere or chip and haul. But should this be compared to, say, extracting natural gas? There seems to be plenty of hauling associated with that, including heavy equipment drilling, compressors, etc. Or our old friend coal. Say, on an open mine there are huge pieces of equipment moving overburden and coal around (see photo above) (compared to how much for a skidder per energy unit) , and it goes on a train to the power plant, if you are in Wyoming, at least.

In fact, the more you think about this (in our region, we are being litigated on both coal and natural gas impacts currently, but not bioenergy) the more it makes sense to not consider carbon any differently from any other environmental impact.

It makes sense to me to line them all up (carbon, particulates, development impacts, etc.) and then make the judgment about what is the best energy source .

A carbon-o-centric view of energy sources might be good for some things (like setting up carbon trading), but not so good for others (deciding on the least expensive, and impactful energy technology that helps put jobs in rural America, and lets us control our own energy destiny).

Biomass and Carbon Accounting- Two Letters and a Powerpoint

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Found these on the Society of American Foresters Policy website here. First, there’s a link to a powerpoint by Al Lucier on biomass and carbon.

Then there are two letters to the House and Senate, signed by a group of scientists, including this quote:

A consortium of research institutions has, over the last decade, developed life cycle measures of all inputs and all outputs associated with the ways that we use wood: a thorough environmental footprint of not just managing the forest, but harvesting, transportation, producing products or biofuels, buildings or other products, maintenance and their ultimate disposal. 4 Results of this research are clear. When looking across the carbon life cycle, biomass burning does produce some fossil fuel emissions from harvesting, transportation, feedstock preparation and processing. These impacts, however, are substantially more than offset by eliminating the emissions from using a fossil fuel. Sustainable removals of biomass feedstocks used for energy produce a reduction in carbon emissions year after year through a reduction in fossil fuel emissions far greater than all of the emissions from feedstock collection and processing. When wood removals are used to produce both renewable materials as well as bio-energy, the carbon stored in forest products continues to grow year after year, more than off-setting any processing emissions while at the same time permanently substituting for fossil fuel intensive materials displacing their emissions.

Finally, biomass power facilities generally contribute to a reduction of greenhouse gases beyond just the displacement of fossil fuels. The use of forest fuels in a modern boiler also eliminates the methane (CH4) emissions from incomplete oxidation following open burning, land filling, or decomposition which occurs in the absence of a higher and better use for this material. Methane is a 25 times more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. In contrast, the mining of coal and exploration for oil and gas release significant amounts of methane and other harmful pollutants into the environment. Any modeling to examine the impact of carbon-based fuel sources must account for all of these impacts.

Now, think about the scientists who signed this letter and the analytical suggestions in the Angora lawsuit for NEPA. Perhaps lawsuits, as well as scientific papers, would be best informed by a vigorous public debate over knowledge claims.

Angora Restoration- Much Ado About Relatively Little

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Watershed Tour of Angora Fire (photo by Steven McQuinn)

Today this story was in the AP “Burned forest value central to Tahoe logging fight.”

So far, I have seen it in a Bellingham Washington paper and the San Jose Mercury News. I wonder about the timing, as the lawsuit was filed in February (11th?) as per this press release.

As with all vegetation management lawsuits, I hunted around to get the acreage of the project. It was a bit hard to tell from the article since it seemed to be focused on “why fire is good” but not so much on “why whatever the project is proposing is bad.”

I found the EA and DN here, and the appeals here.
I decided to take a look at the John Muir Project appeal decision since those folks were interviewed in the AP story. Here is what that appeal decision says about the project (my apologies for the quality of Adobe to blog conversion):

Alternative 2 includes activities on approximately 1,416 acres of the approximately 2,700 acres on National Forest System lands. The modification included:

Hand thinning and piling/burning will be used instead of aerial logging approximately
447 acres where slopes are over 30%.

The prescription will change in Units 1, 3, 6, 8 and 11 to remove 16 inches and less live
trees and 20 inches and less dead standing and downed trees (See final EA Figure 2-2).
Piles would primarily include woody material 14 inches and less. The portion of tree
boles over 14 inches would be left on the ground.

Alternative 2, as modified, includes the following activities:
Fuel removal of standing dead and downed wood and thinning of live trees on
approximately 1,411 acres.
Within the 1,411 acres:
o 6 acres of conifer removal for aspen stand enhancement;
o approximately 77 acres of treatment proposed in wildlife snag zones (39 acres in
SEZ; 38 ac Subdivision);
o 13 acres of conifer removal for meadow restoration/aspen enhancement in the
Gardner Mountain meadow.

A ground-based logging system on up to 964 acres (including 13 acres of Cut-to-Length
mechanical thinning in Gardner Mountain Meadow) located in areas with slopes under
30%.
New construction of new roads (up to 7.7 miles) and landings to facilitate fuel removal.
Reconstruction or opening of existing roads, trails, and landings to facilitate fuel removal.
Decommissioning/restoring 1.9 miles of road and 16.7 miles of trail.
Existing and new landings and staging areas would be utilized to facilitate removal of
fuels for ground-based operations.
Reconstruction of 1,200 feet of Angora Creek.
Treatment of the following noxious weeds: bull thistle, field bindweed, St. John‘s wort,
tall whitetop, and oxeye daisy.

But here’s my favorite appeal point..(I couldn’t easily find the appeal itself, so I am assuming that the appeal point was accurately summarized; if anyone can point me to a copy of the appeal, I will post it here.)

Contention A: The CO2 emissions from the Angora project will have a significant impact on climate change. (Appeal #10-05-00-0102-A215, pp. 12-13)

I’m hoping that something got lost in translation between the appeal and the appeal decision.

What Do We Know About Carbon and Wildfires?

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One of my ideas for this blog was to be a place where we could share information and learn about topics from others who know more- as well as share alternative framings of an issue.

One topic that recently came up in my office relates to carbon and wildfires. (Yes, the other main topic of interest is the “orderly government shutdown.”)

Is it simply that there is vegetation, and soil, and that ultimately no matter how severe the fire, everything will grow back, the soil will redevelop, and it will be carbon-neutral? Or are there other ways of thinking about this?

In many parts of the country, people like to thin pine trees to either create “historic” conditions, to reduce fuels and change fire behavior (to protect communities), or to decrease stocking so that pines will remain healthy, especially in a potentially warming environment, or all of the above. Many of the carbon discussions seem to be about what happens if you thin trees and either sequester them in various kinds of products, or use them to replace fossil fuels- and how that relates to the carbon you might have released by burning up the stand.

So my question is whether conditions that keep fires from being intense enough to destroy carbon in the soil, are “good” for climate mitigation.

Some of this may relate to timing. Like soil will “grow” back unless something has happened to make that impossible. But if it takes 1000 years, by which time we will have decarbonized our society, should we still count it? Obviously it’s easier to know about replacing trees than replacing soil. Or understanding the damage that fires can do and what it takes to reverse it. Or understanding how changes in climate will affect future development of soils and vegetation.

Here’s one paper I found by Bormann et al. Here’s another one by Hurteau et al.