[HN Gopher] UK power station owner cuts down primary forests in ...
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UK power station owner cuts down primary forests in Canada
Author : tommoor
Score : 206 points
Date : 2022-10-03 14:20 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| mistrial9 wrote:
| something like this is happening on a daily basis in California,
| along the routes of major power lines. Tree contractors under the
| supervision of dot-mil cut well past their allotted areas. Once
| it is done, no arguing can fix it. The documentation of this is
| considered classified in some cases since the power lines are
| certainly critical infrastructure.
|
| Awake and aware people may howl and writhe more, except that the
| backdrop here is catastrophic wildfire, which also destroys
| irrevocably .. (catastrophic has a technical meaning in that
| context). Things really are grim in many forests at this time in
| history.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Same is happening all over Europe, with incinerators in the
| Netherlands the primary buyers.
| soupbowl wrote:
| I am a Canadian logger from western Canada. This article is
| nonsense and I have seen similar ones peddled locally.
|
| The wood used in pallets is garbage wood, all wood is graded. You
| cannot cut down high end old growth and chip it. You will loose a
| lot of money due to chipping high end wood into low costing
| pallets and you would get fined by the government.
|
| It is plausible the company was using garbage and blown down wood
| as well it is plausable that their cutting is to reduce fire
| risk. Logging has a terrible rep alot if people watched scary
| American clear cut documentarys when they were young and assume
| we wrecklessly mow down forests without thought or planning.
|
| If people don't want forests to be logged they can quit using
| wood. As well you'd need to stop putting out forest fires and let
| nature reset itself as it always did before humans showed up.
| tommoor wrote:
| This may be true, but Drax has received billions in UK taxpayer
| subsidies for being carbon neutral.
|
| No matter how you look at it processing and shipping wood from
| old-growth forests in Canada to burn in the UK is just not
| that.
| alex_young wrote:
| This linked photo sure looks like clear cutting to me:
| https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/07FB/production/...
| soupbowl wrote:
| Right, but you don't know what a clear cut is. I see wild
| life tree patches. Besides that this area will be replanted
| quickly.
| alex_young wrote:
| > you don't know what a clear cut is.
|
| Do you see evidence of selective logging there? I don't. If
| you're going to say I don't know what I'm talking about it
| sure would be good to hear why.
| soupbowl wrote:
| Does that picture show huge empty field were a forest was
| or sections of logged areas with large patches of trees
| between sections? It is not selective logging but it is
| also not a clear cut.
|
| In the past you would see a similar cut block with select
| large trees kept in the empty areas but that practice was
| stopped years ago due to safety. The large trees left in
| the open had a high chance of being blown over.
| alex_young wrote:
| It's a high altitude shot. There are large deforested
| areas, that's what the report is about. This clearly
| isn't an example of sustainable logging.
| soupbowl wrote:
| The area is not as large as you think and it will be
| replanted next year. What is sustainable logging to you?
| Not logging at all I would guess.
| uup wrote:
| After replanting, how long does it take for the old growth
| trees to return? /s
| soupbowl wrote:
| Do you think that all "old growth" forest is huge,
| healthy, high quality trees? In 30-40 years the planted
| trees will be large enough to harvest again. The cut
| block is not as large as you assume , that ecosystem will
| be fine.
| uup wrote:
| I'm just judging by the multiple 200+ year old trees in
| my own yard. There is no way anything remotely close to
| these trees will grow back in 30 years. Or go walk around
| Olympic National Park, which is very close to BC both in
| distance and climate. Ask yourself if it's possible to
| replace that forest in 30 years.
| soupbowl wrote:
| I could not edit my post 40-50 is what I meant. I have
| logged blocks with people that logged them as teens 40-50
| years earlier. Not ever tree logged is 100 feet long and
| a meter wide.
| null_object wrote:
| This is happening on an unfathomably large and devastating scale
| in Sweden, right now.
|
| Old forest is being savagely clear-cut and replaced by
| monoculture plantations to the detriment of animals, insects,
| birds and the entire rich ecology of the ancient woodlands. The
| new plantations have introduced new diseases and encouraged pests
| that further damage the old-growth trees - leading to even more
| clear-cutting to prevent the spread of the new blights.
|
| Near to where my family have a cottage, a forest that surrounded
| the visible remains of a bronze-age settlement was brutally
| clear-cut using the usual enormous machinery that completely
| churns the land and scars it irrevocably. The forest itself was
| probably five or six-hundred years old, and it was felled by
| these monstrous machines in a morning, leaving just horrifically
| bare soil and the cratered disfigurement of industrial forestry.
| No-one cares.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I guess many care, but they don't exert their care through
| money, which talks, sadly?
| rightbyte wrote:
| You can't vote with your wallet to prevent others from buying
| cheaper wood.
|
| In theory I guess you could buy the forest but it is probably
| hard to pay interest on the market value set by logging if
| you plan to just look at it.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| UK Govt: "Here's $6bn if you promise to cut down forests."
|
| This is the norm btw. All these "green" incentives that you or I
| think are for wind and solar? 90% of them are just burning trees.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Also discussed here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33064582
|
| Copying my comment from there.
|
| Waste wood for power is fine.
|
| Similarly other biomass from agricultural waste is good.
|
| Key word here is waste, because it'll naturally be cheaper and
| more efficient to use animal droppings or the inedible bits of
| food crops or post-consumer food waste or sawdust or offcut
| branches that are only going to be dumped in a way that releases
| methane. This can make them GHG negative, and so better than even
| renewables, though they can't scale as much so they're only part
| of the solution.
|
| If that primary forest was sold and cleared to make planks, then
| that might be a problem for Canada to look into, but people using
| the waste from the process is not.
|
| The article tries to imply that the whole forest was clear cut
| and burned for power but they don't actually state that,
| presumably because it's not true. It would be a much bigger scoop
| if it was.
|
| Once we get rid of the need to burn stuff for power by rolling
| out more renewables, it'll probably still make sense to process
| waste biomass via pyrolysis to achieve carbon removal.
| skrbjc wrote:
| What's not clear to me from the story is if Canada doesn't want
| people harvesting trees from those forests, why are they issuing
| licenses for logging them?
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| I can't speak for politicians and corporations. They have their
| own reasons for doing things (money).
|
| However, as an average Canadian, there is an expectation that
| when you have a license, you use the forest in a way that does
| not permanently scar the land. That the forest management
| practices used are up to date and considerate of the
| environment. It is a naive way of thinking but a common one
| based on the conversations I hear around me.
|
| In reality, it's often clear-cutting. Turn the land into
| something similar to a desert that will not be able to regrow
| possible for maximum profit, destroying the flora and fauna
| completely.
|
| People don't pay attention to who own the forest and are
| suddenly surprised when it disappear in a day. Then they move
| on and forget there was one in the first place.
|
| "The country is so big, surely we still have more forest!"
|
| It's also common to see lands that have been cleared of trees
| still have a border of uncut forest at the borders. Not for the
| environment but to hide the damage. You can only see the
| missing forest from the sky.
| soperj wrote:
| Part of the reason it destroys so badly is that they actually
| spray the areas with broad-spectrum glyphosate afterwards and
| then plant GMO pine.
| joshuamoes wrote:
| Thankfully most companies do not, but unfortunately their
| are some companies which hold a license which still allows
| them to spray.
| bombcar wrote:
| Because selling the logging licenses and then shaming the
| companies into not using them would allow them to have their
| cake and eat it, too.
| cronix wrote:
| Ask people in the EU what is currently happening to their
| forests with the energy crisis looming. Everyone now wants
| wood, or potentially freeze to death.
|
| https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/europe-.
| ..
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/07/world/europe/.
| ..
| gadders wrote:
| In my village in Kent in the UK, the chap that sells logs
| had a record day when the latest energy price cap was
| announced in July.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| The "freeze to death" risk is largely overblown. Just wear
| more layers of clothing, and get a few more blankets for
| your bed. You might be uncomfortable but you'll be fine.
| Heating your home to 25 C in the dead of winter so you can
| wear t-shirts instead of sweaters is a modern luxury, not a
| necessity.
|
| Most of the deaths attributed to the cold will be
| noticeable only in a slight uptick of elderly people living
| alone dying at a higher rate than usual, followed by a dip
| in their death rate in the subsequent months. The years of
| potential lost life (YPLL) will be minimal.
| [deleted]
| jeffalyanak wrote:
| I'm not sure what the situation is in this case, but in the
| past there have been a lot of licenses which were sold under
| previous laws and/or previous government administrations that
| can't easily be _legally_ limited.
|
| As a result, the current administration can't force them not
| to use those licenses, but are still likely to put at least
| _some_ pressure on them to minimize their use of them.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I can't imagine any country where the legislature couldn't
| pass a law revoking s sold license
| bombcar wrote:
| It can get very difficult, especially if it undermines
| the "trust" in the government.
|
| Could the US government cancel outstanding bonds? Sure.
| Would it harm sales of future bonds? Yep.
|
| It's much better and easier to just buy them back if the
| will is there.
| bombcar wrote:
| That's understandable, and perhaps buybacks should be
| attempted (around here there are conservatories that buy up
| "pristine" land and then take it off the market, either by
| themselves or via covenants with the gov't).
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| > It doesn't take thousands of years to develop a forest. Trees
| grow rapidly.
|
| Except it does, and they don't, because that's literally what
| makes old-growth forest so important and so rare. A forest is
| not "a field of trees", when we call something a forest we're
| talking about the complete, fully established, stable ecosystem
| that makes up a forest. And an old-growth forest is one where
| the trees took hundreds of years to grow (old growth trees do
| _not_ grow fast) with a floor composed of biomass accumulated
| over many generations of vegetation, requiring -surprise-
| thousands of years.
|
| Fields of trees only take 10~15 years to stand up, so you can
| log them. Which is why we do that. Actual forests take a hell
| of a lot longer to create, usually a few generations of humans.
| Except for old-growth forest: we can't create those, we die way
| too quickly. By the time a single generation of old-growth
| trees have done a cycle, it's anywhere from 150 to several
| thousand years later.
|
| If you've never seen old growth forest: imagine a huge, adult
| tree, so wide two people can't even put their arms around it.
| Good job: you just imagined a toy tree compared to old-growth
| forest, so let's do this again: Imagine a car. Then imagine a
| single-car garage built around that car. Then imagine a
| fantasy-world tree that is so big, the entire garage fits
| inside that tree.
|
| _That_ is what old-growth forest is. Those weren 't fantasy
| trees, that's what our forests used to look like. It used to be
| everywhere. Now, there is almost none of it left, and no one
| should ever be allowed to log it.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| That's not a forest. That's some trees.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Aren't trees found in a forest?
| monktastic1 wrote:
| Well I guess since people live in cities then every group
| of people is a city!
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| "Sure, we razed Manhattan and sold the rubble for scrap.
| But the people who live there put up a bunch of tents and
| makeshift shacks, which are technically buildings, so the
| city has been fully rebuilt!"
| debacle wrote:
| A mast-producing forest with a thick and high enough canopy to
| create its own microclimate takes 80-100 years to grow in some
| places, and yes thousands of years in others.
| eliaspro wrote:
| That'd be basically a tree plantation, but a real forest is an
| extremely complex ecosystem, whose soil builds up and evolves
| over hundreds of even thousands of years where microorganisms,
| mycelia and trees' root systems interact, cooperate, share
| nutrients and water.
|
| The same goes for the canopies, where a whole other ecosystem
| lives in it's own, with some species (animals and plants alike)
| never touching the ground of the forest for their whole
| existence.
|
| Forest are an incredible carbon sink and removing old growth
| will dry up the soil and cause outgassing of the captured
| carbon within a quite short period of time, cause weather
| induced soil erosion and destroy the former water retention
| capabilities, leading to more floodings.
| charles_f wrote:
| Trees in BC's old growth forests are not your backyard's trees.
| They're millennial gigantic old giants. Since they're gigantic,
| they're a prime product for lumber, and they've been decimated
| in the past 100 years. Growing these forests back _will_ take
| thousands of years.
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cathedral+forest+bc&t=fpas&iax=ima...
| mattmoose21 wrote:
| A forest can grow in 15 years, but they are a lot different. I
| live in Michigan and you can still see some of the effects from
| the clear cutting that ended over 100 years ago.
| eloff wrote:
| While this is technically renewable energy, it involves huge
| amounts of non-renewable energy to turn carbon sequestering
| forest into energy. It must be logged, shipped, processed into
| wood pellets, and then energy to ship that to a port and across
| the ocean to the UK and then to the power plant. That's largely
| all diesel fuel of some variety. The power company is able to
| completely ignore the carbon cost there and even get 6 million
| pounds of carbon credits for being a good little world citizen.
| It makes no sense. I hope this kind of insane green washing gets
| shutdown before it causes widespread harm in other countries.
| ls612 wrote:
| Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the lengths some people will go to
| avoid other people saying that they use more fossil fuel.
| grej wrote:
| Obligatory related reading:
| https://twitter.com/DoombergT/status/1571063488860286977
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| gonna piggy-back on this to raise awareness about some of
| Austria's primal forests getting destroyed so they can build
| massive roads needed to transport concrete for wind mills.
| Austria usually uses reservoirs on the mountains which is a lot
| more effective (considering there is little wind). The "green"
| power generated is sold to neighboring countries. I've talked to
| the farmers who owned the land formerly ~2 years ago. They were
| acknowledging the damage but laughed it off as _" not a big deal
| because we've already sold our soul when we said yes to ski
| resorts"_
|
| oddly the only party that opposed the plan was the right-wing
| populist party.
|
| [1 in German]
| https://www.meinbezirk.at/lavanttal/c-lokales/erste-kaerntne...
| Victerius wrote:
| Yes the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time
| we created a lot of value for shareholders.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| Sigh- If only capitalism could match the unrivaled perfection
| of a planned economy, which historically has treasured the
| environment above all else
| chaostheory wrote:
| In case anyone is not aware of current events, right now at
| this moment the EU is facing an energy crisis due to their
| reliance on Russian energy. It's not just about the money, but
| being able to allow the majority of the populace to heat their
| homes
| kennywinker wrote:
| Right now. But this problem existed a year ago, two years ago
| - it's actually existed for decades.
|
| Not doing anything real about it for those decades, and then
| blaming russia for your inaction for the past 30-40 years?
| Classy move.
|
| Edit: re-reading this it comes off as a personal attack,
| which was not my intent - the "you" i'm speaking of is
| european nations - not the commenter i replied to
| mellavora wrote:
| EU resident here who hates the cold but will be wearing a
| down vest all winter.
|
| Yes, EU is facing an energy crisis due to reliance on Russian
| energy.
|
| How does switching to a reliance on another non-sustainable
| energy source help? That just creates another energy crisis.
|
| We need to face up to having a few cold winters while we make
| the change, there really isn't any other good way forward.
|
| And on the bright side, while a few cold winters isn't
| comfortable, it is a heck of a lot less destructive than what
| our grandparents and great grandparents lived through during
| the "cultural readjustments" of 1914-1920 and 1939-1945.
| These things come 1-2 times/century. If you manage it well
| you come out better.
| chaostheory wrote:
| For the people where a "vest" isn't good enough, it buys
| them and their respective governments time to figure things
| out before the weak and vulnerable fall prey to short
| sighted energy policies
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Nuclear is sustainable. Start by not decommissioning them
| until you have established independent energy security.
| makomk wrote:
| There is no way to "make the change". The kinds of
| renewable energy that are broadly available in Europe, like
| wind and solar, are not a full replacement for existing
| fossil energy sources - they're simply too intermittent and
| the storage technology to deal with that does not exist.
| (The BBC has been falsely claiming otherwise, insisting
| that other energy sources are pointless and a waste of
| money by treating wind and solar as though they were direct
| GWh-for-GWh replacecments for natural gas and nuclear.)
|
| That's why biofuel burning is so common - not because it
| "creates a lot of profit for shareholders" but because
| politicians have to square the circle of keeping the lights
| on asnd homes warm whilst dealing with voter expectation
| that they switch to renewables that are fundamentally
| unable to do that. The UK opposition party released a "100%
| renewable energy by 2030" promise recently and if you look
| at how they plan on filling the gaps when there's not
| enough energy from the wind and sun, sure enough it's
| biofuels just the same as the current lot.
|
| Also, I don't think you quite grasp how catastrophic the
| energy crisis is in Europe - the entire continent is
| deindustralising because the energy supplies to keep modern
| industrial civilisation going are no longer there. There's
| a real risk that in a few years time Europe might no longer
| be part of the developed world if politicians do not change
| their path.
| eyeball wrote:
| They're going to get an increase in biter attacks if they don't
| knock it off.
| charles_f wrote:
| > The provincial government of British Columbia says old-growth
| forests are particularly important and that companies should put
| off logging them.
|
| Why, then, selling those licenses in the first place? Sounds like
| something that could be made illegal if there was an actual will
| to do so.
|
| https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/forestry/forest-...
| katbyte wrote:
| Recently a bunch of the old growth logging was on First Nations
| land so it was up to them iirc.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| For reference there has been a significant amount of protests
| in recent months about old growth logging in BC so this _is_ a
| controversial issue.
|
| The current government has "deferred" a bunch of old growth
| logging licenses as part of damage control efforts in response
| to the criticism.
|
| A complicating factor is the fact that indigenous nations of BC
| are gaining more and more strength and control over their
| traditional territories and are not necessarily opposed to
| logging. Recently a nation on Vancouver island asked protestors
| to go home.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Is it a federal license or a provincial one? It would be ironic
| if they were granted one from the province
| charles_f wrote:
| Would be even more ironic if it were the federal[1]
|
| [1] https://globalnews.ca/news/8346968/cop26-pledge-
| deforestatio...
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| resources are a provincial thing so I'm not even sure if it's
| really possible for this to be a federal license. I mean,
| maybe so if the feds owned a bunch of land (ie. say from an
| old military base) that was wooded and they logged it, but
| this seems like an edge case.
|
| The "crown" land in BC is controlled by the Province.
| blooalien wrote:
| Because old growth is also the most desirable wood and
| therefore valuable, and money is more important than _literally
| anything_ else in the history of everything?
|
| (I'm just spit-ballin' a guess here, as I don't really know the
| answer either...)
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Don't worry, those trees will (maybe) grow back in hundreds
| of years. What's so bad about taking some short term profits
| in the mean time, right?
| thomascgalvin wrote:
| Hey, assuming humanity is still alive, that's just in time
| for our great-great-great-great-great grandchildren to
| enjoy them!
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I wonder if trees grown in periods of high CO2 result in
| higher or lower quality timber.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Fast growing trees tend to make inferior lumber. This is
| readily apparent with modern plantation grown species
| like fir and poplar that are not as high a quality as the
| same trees grown in natural forest conditions where their
| growth is slowed by competition for space.
| citrusybread wrote:
| not true for all woods.
|
| fast grown oak is better:
|
| https://blog.lostartpress.com/2020/11/17/slow-growth-oak-
| why...
|
| >Fast-growing oak has widely spaced annular rings,
| sometimes up to 1/4'' per year (see fig. 3.3, above).
| This timber is exceedingly strong because it has fewer
| rings, which creates a great concentration of the dense
| latewood that grows in the summer. But the resulting
| timber is visually distracting. Its radial face comes out
| looking heavily striped. It can also be difficult to
| work; it has an uneven texture resulting from the widely
| spaced transitions between the earlywood and latewood.
| abraae wrote:
| Inferior perhaps but adequate for purpose e.g building
| houses. In that sense fast growing trees are superior.
| Thetawaves wrote:
| Faster growth is generally less dense growth as well. In
| the physical sense that is - tree rings are bigger, the
| material is lighter, and as you might guess - weaker.
| hoosieree wrote:
| Unscientific guess - trees are mostly carbon, so more CO2
| can support more wood. Of course, we aren't simply adding
| CO2 while keeping everything else equal. Worse growing
| conditions due to drought or whatever don't help trees.
| voisin wrote:
| Reminds me of this: https://www.derekchristensen.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2014/12/...
| xyzzyz wrote:
| This is extremely strange article from American perspective, but
| it probably hits British sensibilities.
|
| As I understand it, a company got a logging license in BC, cut
| down a square mile of forest, sold most of the logs to a lumber
| company to be processed into lumber, and the rest of the logs
| that the company couldn't use for lumber, and the logging waste,
| got ground up and used as biomass for energy. Sounds like...
| completely normal day in Pacific Northwest?
|
| I think this might be affecting British sensibilities negatively
| simply because the scale of forests here is completely different.
| British Columbia alone has size which is more than than triple
| the size of the entire United Kingdom, and most of it is indeed
| covered in forest, most probably being old growth too. Cutting
| down a few square miles of it is really not a big deal, unlike in
| Europe, where similarly old forests are comparatively extremely
| rare. Canadian government shares this view, which is why it sold
| a license to log these trees in the first place.
| fy20 wrote:
| That would make sense, except the investigation revealed that
| they are not using just the waste, the timber goes directly
| from the forest to the pellet manufacturer.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| That's not what the linked article says.
| jcheng wrote:
| > Panorama wanted to see if logs from primary forests cut
| down by logging companies were being transferred to Drax's
| Meadowbank pellet plant. The programme filmed a truck on a
| 120-mile round trip: leaving the plant, collecting piles of
| whole logs from a forest that had been cut down by a
| logging company and then returning to the plant for their
| delivery.
|
| > Drax later admitted that it did use logs from the forest
| to make wood pellets. The company said they were species
| the timber industry did not want, and they would often be
| burned anyway to reduce wildfire risks.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Yes, Drax alleged that the logs turned into pellets were
| waste.
|
| What the journalists could have done is to not follow the
| truck that was certain to take logs to process them into
| pellets, but instead follow random trucks taking logs
| from the site and see where they are destined to. If they
| did it, and then claimed that all trucks from the site
| went to pellet plant, that would have made this article
| much more heavy hit. Given that the article does not
| allege (despite confusing language) that every, or even
| majority of the logs were turned into pellets, I conclude
| that it is more likely that they were not.
| morans wrote:
| jaclaz wrote:
| I seem to understand that the issue is about the "most of the
| logs" and on the company statement about their pellets being
| generally made not from logs (at first only by those that were
| "small, twisted, or rotten" and later also from "good" logs but
| of " species the timber industry did not want").
|
| So possibly a good question would be which species these
| forests of woods are made of and in percentage how much timber
| is directly processed into pellets from logs.
| gnfargbl wrote:
| _> Cutting down a few square miles of it is really not a big
| deal, unlike in Europe, where similarly old forests are
| comparatively extremely rare._
|
| Ancient forest is so rare as to be almost non-existent in
| Britain. This is because we gradually cut it all down over a
| long period of time [1], presumably on the iterated basis that
| there was a lot of it and that cutting down a few square miles
| was really not a big deal.
|
| Some of it has been replaced in the last hundred years, but the
| replacement is of a very low quality, relatively speaking:
| mostly just fast growing conifers.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestry_in_the_United_Kingdom
| lolinder wrote:
| > This is because we gradually cut it all down over a long
| period of time, presumably on the iterated basis that there
| was a lot of it and that cutting down a few square miles was
| really not a big deal.
|
| This feels like a critique of the parent, but if so it
| ignores the key point: BC's forests cover 230k square miles
| [0]. The _entire island_ of Great Britain is only 80k square
| miles, 15% of which (12k square miles) was estimated to be
| forest in 1086 [1].
|
| To put this in perspective: If British Columbia deforested
| itself at the rate Britain did (an average of 9 square miles
| of forest lost per year), it would take 25 thousand years to
| finish the job.
|
| Yes, BC needs to log responsibly, like everyone else. But
| "responsibly" for BC has a very different definition than it
| does for Britain, and imposing British sensibilities on
| Canadian logging isn't useful.
|
| [0]
| https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/docs/mr/mr113/forests.htm
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2013/jul/27/history-
| of-en...
| DoughnutHole wrote:
| Unfortunately British Colombia isn't deforesting at a rate
| of 9 square miles per year, it's been deforesting at an
| average rate of ~1579 square miles/year for the past 21
| years. [0] At that rate it'd take about 145 years to finish
| the job.
|
| Depite the seemingly limitless bounty of British Colombia's
| forests modern technology will let us wipe them out in a
| fraction of the time it took pre-modern Europeans to do it
| to their own continent.
|
| There are definitely more pressing concerns around the
| world with regards to deforestation than BC - at least BC
| are making _some_ efforts to preserve their forests and
| replant, unlike many equatorial countries with arguably
| more precious rainforest ecosystems. But a net loss is
| still a net loss, and tree farms are not a one-for-one
| replacement for old-growth forest.
|
| As an aside: the 15% forest cover Britain of 1086 wasn't
| its pre-human state - it was aleady heavily deforested by
| humans. Prehistoric and ancient humans were very effective
| at deforestation, since the most popular method of early
| agriculture in Europe involved burning swathes of land,
| farming the nutritious soil left in the fire's wake, and
| then moving and burning more forest when the soil became
| useless.
|
| By the beginning of recorded history Europe had already
| achieved most of the deforestation it ever would.
|
| [0]: https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/C
| AN/2/?...
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| One of the most worrying attitudes I see held by humans
| is "don't worry we have near limitless sources of X" --
| whether X be water, forests, land, energy, atmosphere,
| etc.
|
| I really liked Isaac Asimov's "The Final Question" for
| exploring the attitude that humanity has near limitless
| resources. Unfortunately for us, we may not have faster
| than light travel to exploit the resources of our
| universe.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > It will take X years to deforest.
|
| Not, because this is not a lineal system. At some
| threshold point the forest will collapse.
| fragmede wrote:
| Here is an example of said modern technology.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luygMuoFnXs&t=35s
| 7952 wrote:
| Ancient woodland has a soil ecosystem that is impossible to
| replicate. So even if native trees are planted it is not the
| same.
| rightbyte wrote:
| You can cut down every forth tree in a four times bigger
| area or whatever. It is just not as economical as cutting
| all down in a smaller area.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| The article made it pretty clear that the company was lying
| about nearly everything.
|
| >------------------------------------------- Drax told the BBC
| it had not cut down the forests itself and said it transferred
| the logging licences to other companies.
|
| But Panorama checked and the authorities in British Columbia
| confirmed that Drax still holds the licences.
|
| The company says it does use some logs - in general - to make
| wood pellets. It claims it only uses ones that are small,
| twisted, or rotten. Felled trees in British Columbia
|
| But documents on a Canadian forestry database show that only
| 11% of the logs delivered to the two Drax plants in the past
| year were classified as the lowest quality, which cannot be
| used for wood products.
| >-------------------------------------------
|
| So the very first issue is that its leadership ought to be
| fired for same. People adjacent to the burning wood might as
| well take up smoking as far as health effects and it should no
| way no how profit from any credit for "green" energy.
| kennywinker wrote:
| This "we have lots of it!" attitude is why we have very little
| old growth left.
|
| But the story here isn't "company that makes power by burning
| wood burns wood" it's a company that receives money from the uk
| gov for "sustainable practices" and says they only burn waste
| wood is actually burning old growth.
| briffle wrote:
| Every Summer, the State of Oregon seems to have at least one
| 50,000 acre fire, which is about 78 SQ miles. last few years
| have been more like 400,000-600,000 acres over a few very
| large fires.
|
| Most of these fires are caused by lightning. Either way, its
| losing forests to fire, but at least the power plants the
| smoke is getting treated to remove particulates, filtered,
| etc, plus generating power.
| kennywinker wrote:
| No. Just no.
|
| You can't justify clearcutting logs for power generation by
| citing forest fires.
|
| Forest fires are happening in part because of forest
| management practices that support logging. Not to mention
| climate change causing more heat, and bringing invasive
| species that kill trees. This is a positive feedback loop
| that would have all of north america as treeless as ireland
| if we accept "it's gonna burn anyway"
|
| Forest fires are a natural part of the ecosystem - when the
| forest is managed well a fire can burn through quickly
| killing VERY few trees.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| The article says that they only burned waste from logging
| process. This might be unclear, because the article is
| written in a (probably purposefully) confusing way, but they
| very much did not cut and ground up massive old growth timber
| for pellets.
|
| Setting aside the issue of logging an old growth forest, in
| any logging operation you'll always end up with some material
| that's not practically usable for various reasons. Using it
| as fuel sounds to me like rather effective use of resources.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Sounds to me like subsidizing old growth logging. More of
| those trees would have stayed in the ground if someone
| wasn't buying 11% of the logs they cut to burn.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Wood pellet is around 4 times cheaper than construction
| lumber per pound. That means that these 11% of the logs
| capture less than 5% of the revenue of the entire
| operation.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Assuming elastic demand, that's 5% less logs cut. Why is
| the UK funding 5% of an old growth logging in BC as
| "sustainable energy"?
| tialaramex wrote:
| > The article says that they only burned waste from logging
| process. This might be unclear, because the article is
| written in a (probably purposefully) confusing way, but
| they very much did not cut and ground up massive old growth
| timber for pellets.
|
| The article tells you what Drax claims, and then it
| explains the reality their investigators found, repeatedly
| contrasting what Drax says, then what they proved, then
| what Drax said about that, back and forth showing what
| desperate liars they are.
|
| > Reporter Joe Crowley also followed a truck from a Drax
| mill to verify it was picking up whole logs from an area of
| precious forest
|
| Drax tried insisting those weren't Drax trucks, it told the
| BBC third parties do the logging. This wasn't true, it's a
| matter of public record. So then Drax said ah, OK, well we
| do turn some logs into pellets, but only if there's a
| problem with them. Reporters showed it's whole forests.
| Drax said, ah, well those forests were the wrong sort of
| woood.
|
| _whole forests are waste_ according to Drax
|
| > Drax later admitted that it did use logs from the forest
| to make wood pellets. The company said they were species
| the timber industry did not want, and they would often be
| burned anyway to reduce wildfire risks.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > Reporters showed it's whole forests.
|
| They did not. Again, the article doesn't say that,
| though, as I said, it's written in (likely deliberately)
| confusing way, so it's not very surprising that you came
| out believing that after reading it.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Reporters filmed a logging truck, full of logs, going
| from these forests to Drax's pellet plant. That's all the
| plant does, it makes pellets for fuelling the vast power
| station.
|
| There's no sign of other magical trucks, maybe taking
| logs to be milled for IKEA or for sale in US hardware
| stores, and unsurprisingly Drax doesn't try to pretend
| such trucks exist. Drax has the license, Drax does the
| logging, Drax is the exclusive consumer of these logs,
| all the logs are "waste".
|
| According to the Canadian government 89% of the logs
| going into that plant were of a grade that a conventional
| timber mill would process for commercial use. Except no
| need, these logs are all "waste" turned into pellets to
| be burned for "green" credits.
|
| It isn't just the UK government who were hoodwinked. The
| pellet plant itself is the same scam. It originally told
| the Canadian government it would convert waste from
| nearby mills into pellets. "At least 95%" of the pellets
| would be from sawmill waste, free money for the Canadian
| economy. Except oops, turns out that wasn't quite true.
| Almost immediately they needed to import waste from
| further afield, and then they found a much cheaper
| option, instead of paying to haul waste from other mills
| just buy whole trees. Soon the majority of the "waste"
| for the pellet plant was perfectly good logs.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Perfectly good according to whom, exactly? Expert
| journalists? I can scarcely believe that pellet plants
| are paying nearly as much for good logs as sawmills.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >It isn't just the UK government who were hoodwinked. The
| pellet plant itself is the same scam. It originally told
| the Canadian government it would convert waste from
| nearby mills into pellets. "At least 95%" of the pellets
| would be from sawmill waste, free money for the Canadian
| economy. Except oops, turns out that wasn't quite true.
| Almost immediately they needed to import waste from
| further afield, and then they found a much cheaper
| option, instead of paying to haul waste from other mills
| just buy whole trees. Soon the majority of the "waste"
| for the pellet plant was perfectly good logs.
|
| Citation please.
|
| There are more economically fruitful things to do with
| "perfectly good" logs than sell them to the nearby chip
| plant let alone the one far away.
| pas wrote:
| > There are more economically fruitful things to do with
| "perfectly good"
|
| at current energy prices in Europe? not necessarily.
|
| but it should be easy enough for Canada and/or the UK &
| EU to get to the bottom of this. after all they have some
| customs enforcement, so they know what goes out and comes
| in on the ships.
| tialaramex wrote:
| The Canadian company ("Pinnacle Pellets") which was set
| up to do this no longer exists. Guess which company
| bought them... Did you guess their main customer, Drax?
| Because that's correct.
|
| What's left, at least on my first attempts is one lonely
| page of Drax's site:
|
| https://www.drax.com/northamerica/pellet-sales/
|
| > There are more economically fruitful things to do with
| "perfectly good" logs than sell them to the nearby chip
| plant let alone the one far away.
|
| No need to "sell them" at all. Drax owns the logging
| outfit, the pellet company and the converted coal plant
| in the UK to burn the pellets. It is converting Canadian
| forests into cash in the UK, any "prices" which exist
| internally are notional and don't represent actual money
| anybody actually paid for anything.
|
| Now, that UK plant gets paid market prices for
| electricity, which is currently a very reasonable (by
| recent standards) PS115 per MWh, which is equivalent to
| if you were charged about 12C/ per kWh before anybody
| pays their overheads or makes a profit. But earlier today
| it was PS439 per MWh. But, on top of those prices, it
| also get a green subsidy because it persuaded the British
| government that this is just _waste_ you see, it 's not
| chopping down perfectly good trees, they're _waste_ and
| so this is carbon neutral, see ?
|
| Somehow Drax was profitable when prices were about PS45
| per MWh. So, now their income from burning the same
| amount of wood is more than double, sometimes closer to
| _ten times_ what it was, and yet you think there 's no
| incentive for them to do the thing the documentary showed
| they are doing ? Why?
|
| Edited to add: Here's a news release from the acquisition
|
| https://www.globenewswire.com/news-
| release/2021/04/13/220929...
| iso1631 wrote:
| "Reporter Joe Crowley also followed a truck from a Drax
| mill to verify it was picking up whole logs from an area of
| precious forest"
|
| Maybe a "whole log" is waste, sounds odd to me though -
| surely someone wants to use whole logs for more than
| burning?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| That depends entirely on the size and shape of the log.
| Lumber mills don't want thin and twisted logs.
|
| It seems safe to assume they aren't burning valuable logs
| just to be cartoon villains.
| DrPhish wrote:
| The economics of sawmilling are absolutely brutal, and
| everything is done for profit maximization on every tree
| harvested. Sometimes perverse incentives will drive
| things like eg the price of 7' studs surges so all the
| 14' 2x4 or 2x6s are cut in two, or in an extreme example
| if the price of chips surges enough then maybe perfectly
| good lumber would be chipped instead of sold as lumber
| (this happened briefly in the 80s if I recall correctly)
|
| To go over how from seedling to end product every single
| part of the usable tree is used to maximum economic
| advantage would take more time than I have available, but
| suffice it to say that in Canadian lumber, plywood, osb
| and paper there is as close to zero waste as is humanly
| possible.
|
| Also, as a footnote, there is a lot more thought given to
| future harvests, environmental concerns (carbon capture,
| riparian areas etc) and social license (work with first
| nations, community involvement, worker safety) than the
| average person would believe.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > It seems safe to assume they aren't burning valuable
| logs just to be cartoon villains.
|
| Perhaps are they chopping down more wood than would be
| normally chopped because they are being paid above market
| rates for it and thus is becomes profitable to do so
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| If they're burning trees that could have been valuable
| lumber instead, then they're burning money for no reason.
| Probably they aren't doing that.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| If you scroll down, way past when most people give up
| reading, you'll find that apparently 11% of the logs from
| that area is unusable for production lumber, ie. are a
| waste.
| iso1631 wrote:
| First "Drax said it did not use the logs from the two
| sites Panorama identified."
|
| Then "Drax later admitted that it did use logs from the
| forest to make wood pellets"
|
| Which time were they lying?
|
| Then there was the bit where Drax said it transferred the
| logging licences to other companies, despite the evidence
| showing they didn't
| xyzzyz wrote:
| I don't even know what Drax said, exactly, because the
| journalists won't bother to quote it, so I'm not going to
| opine on whether they lied.
| winter_blue wrote:
| > most of it is indeed covered in forest, most probably being
| old growth too
|
| This is incorrect. Only about 2.7% is old-growth. Source:
| https://thenarwhal.ca/b-c-old-growth-data-misleading-public-...
|
| In the past 250 years, people have destroyed the vast majority
| of old-growth forests in North America, especially in Canada
| (much of it exported), in the pursuit of quick money.
|
| I hope there are massive protests in British Columbia, against
| all of this old-growth logging nonsense, at the scale of truck
| protests. Protests so massive that the supposedly pro-
| environment NDP government of British Columbia bans this large-
| scale environmental destruction.
| telotortium wrote:
| If there are any real protests, Trudeau will just freeze the
| protesters bank accounts as well as their families - no way
| to win.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| The article you linked seems to quibble on what "old growth"
| means. Apparently, they only consider something to be "old-
| growth" if it's both old and _big_. According to BC
| government, however, a quarter of BC is old growth. And,
| apparently, the government was totally fine with the logging
| at hand. So, again, a completely normal day in Pacific
| Northwest.
| soperj wrote:
| As someone who resides in the province, and near the site in
| question. You're wrong. There isn't much old growth left. Lots
| of replanted timber stands, not much old growth.
| debacle wrote:
| "The provincial government of British Columbia says old-growth
| forests are particularly important and that companies should put
| off logging them."
|
| That's not really enough. BC should regulate these forests
| heavily.
|
| Old growth forest is like nothing else on the Earth. There is
| organic material sometimes several feet thick. Trees with trunks
| like school buses stacked end-to-end.
|
| Mankind will not survive a world where it is expected that
| corporations (especially megacorps) simply "do the right thing."
|
| The UK company should not be on the hook here - they probably had
| no idea what the source of the wood was before this article, and,
| if the article is to be believed the timber was going to be cut
| anyway for the more valuable lumber species.
| joshuamoes wrote:
| As a northern British Columbia some of what you were saying
| makes sense. The provincial government has also just recently
| put in deferrals that very possibly could lead to about half of
| the mill shutting down.
|
| If old growth was as you to defined it, I think nobody would be
| chopping it down, but as it sits for forest to be considered
| old gross it only needs to have one tree per hectare over a
| certain size. in much of the area up here second growth from
| the early 20th century is even being considered old growth. The
| restrictions were primarily put in place for coastal old growth
| which is closer to your definition.
|
| From what I have seen, primary logging always goes to the Mills
| first since they are willing to pay more money.
| debacle wrote:
| Being across the continent from this, the only thing I'll say
| in response is that none of the photos in the OP look like
| old growth forest to me.
| clarionbell wrote:
| That's how many biomass power plants get their fuel.
|
| https://e360.yale.edu/digest/u-s-forests-are-being-devastate...
| quacked wrote:
| One of the things that makes ecological protection so hellishly
| difficult is that the "environmentally minded" side of the
| argument pitches all of its propaganda assuming that the
| recipients of the propaganda are already in line with many other
| values.
|
| As an example, the two major save-the-environment angles in the
| US are the 'hippie' ("We need to save the forests and the Earth
| because all of the species need to live in harmony") and the
| 'scientist' ("We need to save the environment because we are all
| going to die from ecosystem collapse and catastrophic flooding").
| Both of these personas are astonishingly easy to caricature and
| it's effortless for right-wing political leaders to find the
| silliest and most ridiculous examples to paint as representative
| of the movement.
|
| If you want to get 'conservatives' to agree to do something about
| conservation, you need to appeal to the 'religious' ("Did God
| give us these gifts so we could destroy them in our own name?")
| and the 'nationalist' ("For centuries these proud forests have
| stood as a symbol and vital backbone of our nation's economy and
| spirit, and only powerful and clever stewardship will allow us to
| both profit from our natural resources as well as hand them down
| in full strength to our grandchildren so they can continue to
| steer the nation to prosperity").
| kennywinker wrote:
| Criticizing someones methods of activism is always kinda a joke
| to me. If you care, and think you have a better way to win
| people over - MAKE YOUR CASE - don't tell others they're doing
| it wrong and if they just said the right words you'd get on
| board and help.
|
| The scientist making a religious argument, when they didn't
| believe it, is just as easily dismissed as the scientist making
| the science argument. Turns out you need pastors and religious
| leaders and conservatives to make those arguments to
| conservatives. Why aren't they? You tell me - i'd guess that a
| few do and the audience would rather hear other things - plus
| all the nice oil money goes to media that pitches climate
| denial messages
| quacked wrote:
| > Criticizing someones methods of activism is always kinda a
| joke to me. If you care, and think you have a better way to
| win people over - MAKE YOUR CASE - don't tell others they're
| doing it wrong and if they just said the right words you'd
| get on board and help.
|
| Point to where I said I wasn't on board.
|
| Criticism of ineffective activism is necessary for anyone who
| continually beats the same message and then has no idea why
| they keep losing elections and failing to achieve their
| goals. "Why do they keep voting right-wing?"
| kennywinker wrote:
| If you're on board, and have a better argument than you see
| being made for why others should be on board as well - it's
| time to make your case. The climate isn't going to wait.
| quacked wrote:
| I _literally did_ made my case. Real climate action done
| with majority consensus must win the support of people
| who don 't currently believe in environmental causes.
| This will require a change in messaging in order to
| capture opponents. The alternative is violent suppression
| of consumption and industry, which I am also open to.
| strainer wrote:
| Criticism is of interest to us when we are serious about
| achieving success. When really trying to achieve something,
| ideas of fatal flaws are fascinating. On the other hand
| during a performance, criticism must be effectively ignored.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _If you want to get 'conservatives' to agree to do something
| about conservation, you need to appeal to the 'religious' ("Did
| God give us these gifts so we could destroy them in our own
| name?")_
|
| You can't win that game against their own priests, particularly
| if you don't even believe the religious arguments you're trying
| to make. Atheists smugly and self-servingly explaining
| Christianity to Christians with arguments the atheist doesn't
| even believe himself is something they're already very familiar
| and derisive of.
|
| Use arguments you _actually_ believe yourself. People can tell
| when you aren 't.
| quacked wrote:
| What makes you think I don't believe in God, and what makes
| you think that no one who believes in God wants to protect
| the environment?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| If you do, then knock yourself out and go preach to your
| fellow Christians. Something about the tone of your comment
| lead me to believe that you, like myself, do not.
| quacked wrote:
| You are perfectly demonstrating the total inability of
| left-wing people to govern effectively. The Christians
| make up a huge percentage of people who oppose climate
| reform. If you want non-violent, non-authoritarian action
| on environmental protection, they need to be on board.
| Why is this principle difficult for you and your co-
| believers to understand?
| atemerev wrote:
| The lengths people go to avoid using nuclear energy...
| mabbo wrote:
| The shame here is on my country, Canada, for not putting a stop
| to this as much as the UK.
|
| Why are we granting logging licenses to foreign companies that
| will simply burn the wood? Because the logging industry is huge
| money for British Columbia. Because "jobs" and "the economy" and
| a dozen other reasons that boil down to "we really like the money
| we get paid for it".
|
| Hey, _we_ didn 't harm the climate because _we_ didn 't burn the
| pellets! And the UK didn't harm the climate because _they_ didn
| 't cut down any trees! Everyone wins, and also we get handed a
| bunch of money.
| wsc981 wrote:
| If you buy the CO2 narrative, then cutting trees should be
| deemed bad, since these trees will not be able anymore to
| absorb CO2.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Trees make themselves out of the CO2. A growing tree absorbs
| CO2, an already grown tree is effectively neutral, and a dead
| tree releases the carbon when fungus decompose it.
|
| If you cut down a tree and turn it into a house that lasts
| for 200 years, then you've sequestered that carbon for longer
| than the tree likely would have.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Note that this _really_ depends. A quick growing tree
| wouldn 't have lasted 200 years, but there are tree species
| in which individuals have been around for longer than
| recorded human history. I don't think any of them occur in
| the right part of the world, but if they did it'd be easily
| possible there's a tree which was once pissed on by a
| mammoth (~4000 years ago), and yet is still alive now.
|
| England has some trees that are definitely hundreds and
| probably a couple of thousands years old. And England isn't
| exactly the ideal place to be a tree, it's small, heavily
| populated and the people who live on it cut a _lot_ of
| trees down either for firewood or to build things. I 'd be
| surprised if Canada lacks 2000 year old trees.
| miguelazo wrote:
| Wonder if these are the same forests going into the Kirkland
| toilet paper at Costco.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Another great example of the mediocrity of Canada. Over and over
| again it proves itself to be the shoddiest of the developed
| countries.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| As a (presumably) fellow Canadian: Things do look bleak some
| days, and "Others are worse" is cold comfort. The fact that the
| grass is always greener, and a nation always looks worse from
| the inside though, is at least slightly reassuring - it at
| least implies things are at least salvagable.
| cenkozan wrote:
| A Canadian company is cyanide gold mining in Turkey. They
| destroyed thousand year old forests while the poison spills
| everywhere. They just get a hand slap and get another license
| all the time.
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