The Dec. 24 article, “Trees sold for their carbon,” was seriously flawed and very misleading.
Apparently a tract of forest on the Olympic Peninsula will not be logged and the carbon that will stay in the trees as a result will be sold to a “carbon bank” which will then sell these carbon credits, at a profit I imagine, to offset the activities of other folks whose activities do emit carbon into the atmosphere to form carbon dioxide. Sounds like a way to be environmentally responsible and make some money on the side … trouble is it is total baloney!
The article states that “Carbon is released when trees are cut down”… not so, unless the wood is used for firewood. Most of the carbon in a tree is sequestered in the lumber for many years until the lumber rots or is burned. There will be carbon released from the chainsaws and logging trucks but not from the trees. A far better solution, if keeping carbon out of the atmosphere is the primary goal, is to cut down the slow growing mature trees, convert it to lumber and plant new, fast-growing trees that will take up larger amounts of carbon from the atmosphere as they grow.
Instead of mindlessly reprinting this Peninsula Daily News article, The Herald should have taken the author to task and/or researched further to see if this really is the boondoggle it smells like.
Chris Mann
Marysville
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