Why cutting trees is good for the environment

by Karel Thönissen

Global warming is a serious threat, according to all major scientists. Something one can hear often is that forests produce oxygen and bind carbondioxide. Unfortunately, this is not true, or at least not true in a way that environmentalists would approve.

The point is that living plants do procedure oxygen and bind carbondioxide, but forrests do not. At least not a forest in a state of equilibrium. In a growing plant the photo-synthesis process takes CO₂ from the air and water from the soil, and produces hydrocarbons ('wood' and 'foilage') whilst releasing oxygen. That is the story for a single growing plant. That was the good news.

Now the other story about forests. Eventually plants die. In a forest in a state of equilibrium, there are as many plants life and growing as there are ones dead and rotting. Now that is exactly the problem that many environmentalists oversee. Every ton of hydrocarbons that is produced by a forest at some point, is rotting away at a later point. Since the rotting process is chemically the reverse of the growth process, rotting biomass will consume oxygen and produce carbondioxide. In the end nothing is gained: in a forest in a state of equilibrium there is no net oxygen production or carbondioxide reduction. Ergo, it is a mistake to count natural forests as carbondioxide reducers.

Now the interesting point: the above was true for a forest in a state of equilibrium: if we harvest the wood from the forest to fuel our houses, then there is no problem. From a global point of view the wood is still decomposed, but now it is used to heat our houses. If we fuel our houses with dead forest instead of mineral oil or coal, then we have used the carbon cycle to our advantage. It is not the burning of fuels itself that is bad, it is the release of carbonic material that had been stored safely in the crust of the earth. Taking wood from a forest creates open space in a forest where new trees can grow and bind carbondioxide.

Please notice that I am not proposing cutting all forests. My argument is only correct if fallen trees and trees that have been cut are replaced by new ones. Another concern is biodiversity and preservation of the natural habitat of animals and other plants. However, my point is that forests do not bind carbondioxide, whereas durable forestry does. We should look at these matters with pragmatism rather than dogmatism.