In 1983 Eduardo Galeno wrote the following; (my adaptations are in brackets).
“The sterile machine (of industry) hates everything that grows (old) …It can produce nothing but prisoners and cadavers, spies and police, beggars and exiles……Extermination plan: Destroy the grass (and the forest and the oceans), pull up very last little living thing by the roots, sprinkle the earth with salt (and pesticides) Afterward, kill all memory of grass, (forests and oceans). To colonize consciences, suppress them; to suppress them, empty them of the past.” Eduardo Galeno
Around 440 million years ago, land plants appeared and took hold of land surfaces. Before this there was very little atmospheric oxygen. Plants remove carbon dioxide (but not methane) from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Before 1988 our atmospheric CO2 was about 350 parts per million. Last year at this time, CO2 ppm were measured at 424.80. If we had stopped cutting down primary/old forests in 1988, the carbon already released could have been sequestered and we could have possibly slowed down our current trajectory towards irreversible harm. Forests are not simply a collection of trees in one specific area but a laboratory for the evolution and diversity of plants and animals, all co-operating to sustain life on this planet. “…old-growth temperate rainforests are the most extensive and impressive example of temperate rainforest in the world…..are amoungst the most massive ecosystems on earth. Tremendous accumulations of biomass result from the combination of long periods of time between disturbances; the longevity of many north-western trees, their inherent ability to grow large, and relatively slow decomposition rates…..Evergreen conifers can gather sunlight and grow almost all year round ” Andy MacKinnon and Jim Pojar, 1994. Forests know how to sustain life. Maybe humans can learn a thing or two from them.
Difficult as it is to imagine, the news media is telling us that this summer’s forest fires could be worse than last year. The CO2 released from Canada’s wildfires combined with our GHG emissions from burning coal, gas and oil makes Canada a leading global climate criminal. The on-line climate action information bulletins rarely mention deforestation as a cause of the climate crisis. They rarely mention how forests and their accompanying biodiversity/biomass absorb atmospheric C02. Dr. Stephan Harding explains: “the very structure of an ecosystem-namely which species are present, the depths of it’s roots, the extent of it’s leafiness, it’s release of cloud-seeding chemicals to the air-all have massive effects not only on climate both locally and globally but also on the great cycling of chemical beings around the planet.”
Publicly funded BC Timber Sales continues to allow the clear-cutting of the last remaining old forests, i.e., deforestation, on Crown Lands. Rapid loss of biodiversity is happening each and every day in the forests of BC. “…the current mass extinction is a crime of vast proportions…..cutting down the forest is a catastrophe, not only for the millions of species living in them, but also for the world’s climate.. ” Dr. Stephan Harding claimed in the book Animate Earth, in the year 2006.
Most people agree that random slaughtering of humans is unethical. but rationalists would argue that overpopulation will balance out the loss of those killed. But most people will argue that murder is wrong because each person has intrinsic value. Since there is no divide between human and “more than” human life forms, can we not conclude that it is wrong to dismantle any aspect of the natural world? Until humans humbly respect the sanctity of life, we will not stop destroying the forests, the oceans, and the grasslands. Modern humans have been hoodwinked into ignoring the very basic laws of nature.
“even if solar, wind, and other green technologies were able to completely replace fossil fuels, an impossible scenario in itself, (they actually have a NET ZERO CARBON REDUCTION PER DOLLAR) as long as deforestation continues, that is not enough to stop global warming…..Stopping deforestation and restoring logged areas would remove more carbon dioxide from the AIR EACH YEAR THAT IS GENERATED BY ALL THE CARS ON THE PLANET. ” Bright Green Lies, co-authored by .Derrick Jensen
Two weeks ago I wrote BCTS, demanding that they take all old-growth cutblocks off their auction list. Not surprisingly, no word back so next up is the Minister of Forests.
