I’m looking across at the olympic peninsula right now from victoria right now and it really just settled in for me that losing that might actually be possible.
I would literally be willing to die trying to save the hoh rainforest.
Am I overreacting here?
Yes I do. But I think the logging will mostly take place in the unvisited and ecologically important part of parks while the part of parks intended to receive visitor will remain “pristine” until the whole ecosystem collapses when the wildlife die off.
The current administration wants to cut for timber, dig for minerals and metals, and in places where this isn’t possible or have been completed, build “Freedom Cities” where corporations rule like nation states. Free from regulation and oversite. Their whole plan is tremendously fucked for the common American.
Ah, like the cities in The Parable of the Sower.
Yes.
I hope it doesn’t happen, but logging doesn’t work exactly like the lorax. They need to ensure a future to the industry, so they’d do chucks and replant. No, it’s not the same as it would have been, but it’s at least less devastating than strip mining the Grand canyon.
Well, it depends. On short leases, it does work exactly like the lorax. They just clear cut that shit as hard as they can to maximize how much money they can make on it. Montana and some other northern states eventually figured out that you should set these companies up with 100 year leases that pierce the corporate veil, so that even if the company strip cuts the plot and declares bankruptcy, you can go give the owner a big fat financial wedgie for the next 100 years. I think it’s a pretty smart solution, and from what I’ve heard, the companies in these arrangements do pretty good forest management.
I’ve honestly never heard of this. Could you link me to an article or something that I could read to learn more?
Jared Diamond wrote about it in Collapse, where he covers how we handle extractive industries and how we could better regulate them. That’s where I learned about it. I tried finding an article about it, and I could find stuff talking about the policy indirectly, but nothing directly about it.
Even if they replant, that doesn’t undue the ecological harm. Look at what happened when palm oil started to show up in everything. They cut down all the natural habitat (rain forests with lots of old growth!) and planted tons of palm trees. It killed all the wildlife, but to an uninformed person, it still “looked” like nature. And the fact that they were replanted (so it wasn’t just stripped bare) was a facade that made it not seem bad.
Old growth doesn’t work like this. Logging companies are constantly trying to take bigger swaths than they’re allotted because there’s no active enforcement leaving orgs like BARK OUT et. al. To do the ground truthing and sue in court, often after the damage is done.
Often logging companies want this wood because it’s much higher quality than second growth. The dense wood is a higher grade and sells for a higher premium. If you’ve seen wood in an old house versus modern you’ll notice the ring structure much more tightly packed and less knotting. It’s much stronger.
Here’s a maps image of old growth in the mt. Hood wilderness:
And here’s the Oregon coast range:
notice the patchwork? That it’s roughly 1/3 unplanted clear-cut now?The first image is 100% old growth in a national forest. The second is 0%, in mostly privately owned land owned by logging companies or less so under BLM/FS. Patchwork logging doesn’t sustain biodiversity. Replanting is almost always done with a monoculture of trees that make logging easier in later harvests. These second growth forests hold less water, sequester less carbon, and are less drought resistant. This in turn makes them more prone to wildfire, flooding, erosion, and desertification. They are also less food abundant so they can’t sustain as much wildlife.
Most of western Oregon looks like the second image, and the old growth is only 10% of the original area nation wide. We don’t need to log old growth at all. There’s plenty of second growth. Just manage it.
E: structure
As an American I confirm that, as a whole, we’re pretty goddamn stupid.
So yeah, I could totally see this happening.
I’ve heard that it’s problematic to log them as there isn’t enough sawmills in the US to cover the given and they are all low on staff + those mills are standardized for those Standard sized trunks and not old-growth forest wood.
That doesn’t mean I doubt it but that’s some hope on the horizon
As a Canadian looking in, I honestly believe they will. They’ve already done worse things and gotten away with it.
You mean like genocide, slavery, and being the only country in history to use atomic bombs against another country?
Naming things the current administration hasn’t gotten around to yet?
nah, the slavery never stopped
Aside from nuclear weapons you are describing practically every nation state since ever, especially post Industrial Revolution. To the point that the argument is useless. The US is just as bad as Britain, France, Spain, the Dutch, the history of the Russian empire, Japan, china, the current state of many African counties etc etc!
It’s also worth mentioning how the US is such strong allies with the very country they dropped a bomb on and helped with reconstruction through and beyond the Meiji era and continued to be an ally to Japan…
No one anywhere near this thread is advocating for those thing so what are you getting at other than saying boo! ghosts!? Sooo…
As a Brit I say that it doesn’t make it ok that my country did shit things cause another did, I also look at our current behaviour. We are both still doing bad, shitty things.
USA rebuilt Japan to stop communism.
Nothing makes the past okay. Citing the past nihilistically only makes the future worse.
Your opinion of why the US did something only serves to discredit why they should ever do anything or the net benefit of those actions regardless of intent.
The US could help eradicate AIDS, is that evidence of compassion, soft power, or imperialism?
Point is… why argue against eradicating a plague?
You’ve been a shitty country in the past and you’re a shitty country now. What are you trying to achieve by saying other countries do bad things too?
Simple if you choose to cite rando shit from centuries ago you’re not actually engaging.
It’s called low hanging fruit and apparently it’s the best you got. Take it up with the Dutch? I mean they raped the Congo… are you okay with rape? You never mentioned them in your recount of history.
Fact is the US fucking sucks because of current shit aka republicans. Blanket statements and blandly waving hands towards the past few centuries doesn’t help at all.
I haven’t got a clue what you’re trying to achieve here…other countries did bad things, I know. But we aren’t talking about those countries, so I don’t understand why you’d bring them up.
Nor have I mentioned “the past few centuries”…there’s no need.
Can you enlighten me as to what your objective is?
Interestingly they haven’t logged the alaska panhandle and I bet that’s the first to go. Best trees in the entire world
The US isn’t doing it, one small group is and nobody’s stopping them. Subtle difference, I know.
Didn’t the US vote for this?
31% voted for it.
31% voted for it and 0% stand against it.
0% have authority to stand against. Roughly 28% or something voted against.
69% (nice) of Americans didn’t vote against it.
They were voted in by Americans, and nobody has made any significant moves to impede them. It is not a small group, it is the USA in any sense we normally mean the term when referring to the actions of its government.
We should collectively use necromancy to resurrect Teddy Roosevelt to beat the shit out of the current administration.
Instructions unclear, his corpse now has a hickey.
Probably not actual national parks: even the current administration can’t be that depraved, can they?
However there is even more national forest, national monument, and blm land that already may be managed for resource extraction. Odds are, they’ll just open wide
even the current administration can’t be that depraved, can they?
Every time I ask myself that, the answer turns out to be “yes”
Do I think this administration is stupid enough to do something like that? Yes
Do I think this administration would do something even stupider, more corrupt, or evil than your question? Also yes
god this is a sad thought
Yes.
Trumps tariffs hit Canadian lumber.
This causes fake crisis in lumber prices.
Trump leases land to us lumber companies who now sell lumber… Remember it’s more expensive than what Canadian lumber costs, but Trump handled that with tariffs… Now us lumber is artificially cheaper than Canadian.
= Trumps rich friends profit while Americans pay more for lumber and lose national parks
I think every single acre of public land will be gleefully giving away to billionaires yes.
Sold off to pay for the crypto pump and dump he’s setting up.
Which is just gonna make the billionaires even more wealthy.
He’ll really try. It’s up to us to stop him.
anyone who wants to seriously resist this should start preparing for it already or finding ways to support those who want to be more active about it if they cant afford to do anything themselves.
