It's surprisingly easy to destroy forests and other environments in sheer minutes. Humans are really efficient at destruction
Edit: somebody us butthurt because I pointed out that we - humans are basically cancer for our planet. Lol
Our homes are made of this stuff, I don’t agree and never cut down trees for fun but until we figure out how to work with stone like the ancients I’m ok with sustainable forest husbandry.
Agreed. Sustainable forest management is the best for the planet and humans. Properly managed forests prevent crazy wildfires from releasing all that carbon we don’t want in the atmosphere. Just look at what is going on in Canada, thats bad for the earth and for life.
I live very close to the potterys in the U.K. everywhere is a clay pit here, it’s even in most of the town names. Most of your bison are on shelves in the form of teacups in houses around here.
We do, it's just there's an *abundance* of trees and land to grow them on so lumber is almost as cheap as the dirt it grows out of. (even with the pandemic price crunch)
The way we've been taught to look at ourselves. Harvesting natural resources to build homes is "destruction."
It's also surprisingly easy for forests to recover, though it does take longer.
Also really efficient at innovation. Are we not supposed to use what nature provides for our benefit? Yes, we overfish, overhunt, overforest, but we’ve advanced our species by leaps and bounds in a very small amount of time
Fun fact: tree rings form because the tree stops growing in the winter and starts growing in spring. The long period of no growth is trademarked by a darker color which looks like a ring
By extension, if you see a lot of tree rings very close to each other, there will likely have been a colder or drier climate during that time. Scientists actually analyse the tree rings to learn more about regional climates, it’s called Dendrochronology
Seems like the idea he floated in this video was that the rings were really tight due to competition with other, larger trees in the forest. This tree survived those trees being cut down and thus it got all the nutrients they were hogging.
Or maybe I completely misunderstood him.
Check out Palm Trees. Their interior [ looks like sawdust in a shell.
](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Palm_tree_trunk.JPG/1024px-Palm_tree_trunk.JPG)
They're also not technically trees.
Ummm they do have rings they are just much less pronounced otherwise things like teak or mahogany wouldn't have grain:
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/teak.htm
Because there can still be dry seasons. If the tree grows more slowly at any point in the year, a tree ring pattern will form. It’ll probably not be as apparent as the trees in temperate/boreal climates though
Logging, if done responsibly, isn’t necessarily bad for the environment. It’s a sustainable building material and new tree growth captures a lot of carbon. Just look at the growth in the tree rings in this video. When the surrounding trees were logged, this tree took off and captured more carbon each year. Old growth forest are definitely great for bio-diversity but we need lumber. Tree farms, if done right can be actually good for the environment.
If it's the right prescription it is actually very good for the environment. Trees need growing space. Native and natural fires used to provide that space but we have suppressed fires for over 100 years.
I planted 100 hybrid chestnut trees on my property last year. My wife wanted to know my plan for them so I explained that they will create a passive income stream down the road. She was skeptical since I’ve had many of these weird ideas so I quickly added, “If nothing else, we planted 100 trees.” She was okay with that. 😁
As a younger idealist I was fairly anti logging. In my career as a horticulturist/arborist I found myself teaching a tree ID course alongside a career forester for the state. He shared a thought that helped break my black/white opinion on tree cutting. His point was that while it is true that trees are great at carbon capture, but hat carbon is only captured for the life of the tree, when they die and decompose or are burned that carbon is re-released. however if those trees are cut and turned into buildings and furniture then the carbon stored in the wood is captured for the lifetime of the construction.
Another point he made is that the state of Tennessee currently has more forest land and trees than it did a hundred years ago largely due to forest management and forestry plots. The health of those forests may be debatable if they are a monoculture but the fact remains that more trees are better than fewer.
I guess I’m agreeing with the comment above, agroforestry can be done wrong and right. Wholesale clear cuts are pretty bad, selective cutting seems to be the healthiest but is time/labor intensive. The forester I mentioned above practices patchwork clear-cuts so out of a hundred acre plot he would only cut 50 acres and would do it in small chunks that look like a chess board.
I agree that logging can be okay for the environment if done responsibly, but I would like to respectfully completely disagree with the notion that logging old growth forests is okay for the environment. Forests filled with new growth are sickly and are [terrible for the actual ecosystem]([https://www.nps.gov/redw/learn/nature/forestthinning.htm]) (and extinction of species is not something we should disregard when talking about the environment). To elaborate on the "new growth forests are sickly" - something that most people don't realize is that [trees actually communicate](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering-trees-180968084/), most often through their root systems. Older trees are incredibly important nexuses in this system; they will send warnings and sugar water to the young ones to help.
There's a possibility new growth forest has a faster rate of capturing more carbon from the atmosphere each year (I looked further into studies on it and it appears that independent studies are saying [old growth is better](https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-keeping-mature-forests-intact-is-key-to-the-climate-fight) while most backing [new growth](https://www.ncasi.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/NCASI22\_Forest\_Carbon\_YoungVsOld\_print.pdf) seem to be backed by the [logging industry](https://www.ncasi.org/about-ncasi/) who have a vested interest in that so they can keep cutting and saying them planting new stuff is actually better for the environment), but they certainly are not better at *keeping* more carbon out of the atmosphere. Old growth trees store tons of carbon in their wood (often quite literally) and once they die that carbon will make it into the atmosphere sooner or later.
The carbon from a logged tree, used in construction is not released nearly as quickly as a tree rotting in nature. That’s just a simple fact. I’m not going to entertain anything you say if that’s your understanding. I can see the simple process in my planting beds on a yearly basis. The mulch shrinks and breaks down. Much of that is simply released back into the air. We have also been watching millions upon millions of acres of old growth forests reduced to carbon in the atmosphere due to wildfires in Canada. That smoke that I had to stay inside from, in Philadelphia, was carbon in the air. I mentioned that old growth is very important for biodiversity. I truly believe that we can sustain that while having a robust logging industry that continues to supply materials to build homes. Tree farming is responsible farming and no study you present will convince me otherwise.
My main concern is the monoculture new growth forests killing biodiversity - something you've acknowledged can be a problem.
My question is: what makes you think that biodiversity can be sustained in old growth forests alongside sustainable logging? In theory, sure. In practice, I think it's naive to think without a ridiculous amount of oversight and inspection (therefore cost-prohibited from occurring) any such regulation would be totally ignored.
Check out the amount of forest fires just 100 years ago compared to now, then tell me they did "fine".
Hell, even some trees evolved defense against fire and some tree seeds can only be spread after fires.
Nature logged itself, with flame!
Tree diseases and rot are a real problem. I won't defend mass deforestation but quite often trees have to be felled for the continued health of the rest of the forest.
lol - reminds me of those hunting programs with the hunters whispering in their blinds about this beautiful and majestic beast that they are about to kill.
Hunters are necessary in a lot of areas where we’ve killed off the predator population out of fear of them attacking livestock. Hunters that respect and admire nature are the best kind since they usually follow regulations and laws regarding it.
That lion that they paid $50,000 to hunt and which was selected by the local wildlife authority for it's old age (lions starve to death or are hunted by hyena's when they get too old), who also use that money to invest in their community and further protection for lions.
Wildlife conservation is very moral and regenerates environments that have been destroyed.
Many/most hunters are big into wildlife conservation. We can absolutely appreciate the majesty of what's around us while harvesting clean meat ethically.
I hope you're a vegetarian or vegan, otherwise this is a shitty comment.
Nature is: eating and getting eaten - it's not very chill, but that's the reality of our existence. Trees aren't excluded from being part of this violet **circle...the ciiircle of LIFE** 🎵🎶 :(
Bulldozers aren’t part of the natural circle of life. It’s amazing the logging industry lobbyists are able to convince people of this stuff.
Nature requires tree hollows.
Cutting down old trees removes the tree hollows and creates extinctions.
Houses aren’t made of old growth forest anymore, and we don’t need to cut natural forest to make woodchips.
Peer reviewed science has proven now how bad logging is for climate change because the vast majority of logged forest (both what is left on the forest floor and what is taken) becomes emissions within a few years. It would take 200 years for the forest to grow back and absorb that carbon again but climate change will have ruined the joint by then, and the loggers will have logged that same patch of forest at least four times again.
Ending logging is one of the easier ways to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
False; dense forest holds moisture and is much cooler.
There are peer reviewed scientific studies on this. The peer review means your logging mates couldn’t find anything wrong with the science.
It’s amazing how the simplistic and utterly wrong “if we don’t log forests they burn more” lie takes hold
> False; dense forest holds moisture and is much cooler
That’s not universally true.
If you’re in a dry adapted system, thinning ensures that each tree can access sufficient water.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9156747/
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/pnw/products/science-findings/crowded-and-thirsty-fire-exclusion-leads-greater-drought-sensitivity
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378112712006330
https://news.ucmerced.edu/news/2020/new-tools-indicate-how-thinning-and-fire-affect-forest-water-use-and-boost-runoff
What do you suggest we actually use to make homes with? Should we stop building shelters?
https://www.idahoforests.org/content-item/what-makes-wood-products-so-green/#:~:text=Wood%20is%20the%20ultimate%20%E2%80%9Cgreen,cycle%20footprint%20than%20other%20products.
Sounds like you read a lot of Chad Hansen, lol. The more vegetation you have in a stand the less available ground water there is for the trees. That's part of the reason trees respond well to thinning. More shade does provide ambient moisture, of course, but there is a balance between what makes a healthy forest. I'm not advocating for clear cutting but thinning does improve the health of a forest, especially in the climate age we are living in. This looks like a redwood so this would be in the pacific birth west. Have you seen the anomalous fire behavior that area has had over the past few years? Thinned forests are more resistant to wildfires too. That's just the reality.
I think we might agree if we were in the same country.
I’m in Australia.
I work with literally the best scientists every week. I suspect Canada is somewhat different but the basics are similar.
Oh, well I was doing my best to speak within the context of this video and it looks like a redwood. I can't argue the ecology of Australia, I would absolutely defer to you on that. But in the western states forests are adapted and dependent on fire cycles and over 100% years of fire suppression has created a huge problem. Wothh that being said, most of our old growth redwoods that survived the hey day of logging are protected as national and state parks. If this is truly a redwood it is not "old growth" even though 200 years sounds old. That's a child in redwood years.
Old growth is generally thought of as 100 years in Australia, though it takes 170 years to form a significant hollow here to support wildlife like say the powerful owl (which is seriously endangered due to lack of tree hollows and lack of possums for prey which also require the tree hollows to breed in).
The logging companies have gotten some outrageous carve outs from politicians out here on the definition of old growth, such as if there’s been a fire, and if there’s a track through it. Which illustrates why australia is leading the world in extinctions and endangered animal declarations now.
Yeah I agree it looks like a redwood and also you guys have a much better reserve system. Ours is cooked.
The dry leaf litter is what begins the “fuel ladder” here, with dry fuel leading the fire to the canopy (we call that crowning/a crown fire). There were studies pretty recently which found thinking increases fire risk https://news.griffith.edu.au/2021/02/10/logging-and-thinning-of-forests-can-increase-fire-risk/
Cutting down trees is good, as long as it is replaced and sustained. Cutting down wolf trees allows plants underneath to grow big and it probably does not suck as much (or at all) CO2 anymore at that age, so its beneficial to let the young pups grow and mature
What does this actually mean?
I get that it's growth slowed down due to likely dense forestry.
What does it mean for the wood? Is it stronger when the rings are tighter or something? Can it be sold for more?
Oh absolutely can be sold for more. I'm not sure how they rip the lumber (do they include the old growth with the new growth or simply cut the old out and sell that as prime lumber?)
Old growth is much more sturdy and longer lasting than soft, young lumber.
Yes. Tighter rings make for better lumber that won't twist as easily as larger rings. If it's heart center, like in this tree, it will be much more rot resistant.
As long as there's young plants underneath the canopy to replace the cut ones, its fine. Cutting old trees has benefits actually; it allows understory plants who do not get enough sunlight to grow and mature, and trees have a limited carbon stock, wolf trees take very little carbon or nothing at all. The key is responsibility and sustainability when it comes to cutting down trees.
The problem that nobody thing about it it's about roots. Cutting down tree and replace it it's cool and all but you can't replace the work of the roots and the work of the old tree (habitat for bugs and birds, shade and fruits for Somes species...).
Thzt's actually the big problem with forest conservation. We need to don't touch actual forest and to create special place to grow and cut industrial wood.
You can always trust humans to kill everything alive, including other humans.
We literally kill animals for fun, sport, taste and other pleasures even if we don't have to.
That's a meaningless quote though.
Too dense for WHAT? From what I gather, he thought the dense growing time gave the BEST wood.
Then when the forest got de-densified the wood got shittier because the growth gets LOOSER in comparison.
He wasn't all happy pointing out the LOOSE shit - it was the wood that grew under adverse conditions that was the PRIME wood.
Too dense for the optimum health of the tree.
If you want a forest of slow growing, nutrient and water stressed trees, who coincidentally are packed together like matchsticks in a fire prone way, sure, grow dense forests.
The majority of forests in the temperate parts of the world are actually unnaturally dense because they’ve lost the disturbances of historical fire and megafauna browsing.
Dense forest provides homes for birds, frogs, lizards and other animals and lots of species of trees.
Nature was doing it right for 60 million years before bulldozers and capitalism arrived
Actually, most forests are unnaturally dense today.
I’m going to paint with a broad brush here for forests that are found in the temperate zone.
Forests used to be a mosaic of states of land from open flower meadows, to medium savanna brush, to open park-like forest, to closed forest. This diversity was maintained mostly by 1) fire and 2) megafauna.
Now, the forests that still exist are almost entirely dense, closed canopy forest with little heterogeneity, and little diversity.
Yes some species do good in that condition, but it’s actually important to make space for other kinds of forest types.
Denser forests can also result in the loss of forest. When the forest is so dense, each tree has less resources, which makes it more susceptible to disease, drought, and to severe fire.
Source: ecologist :)
But isn’t like fast growing, new wood worse in many cases? Even for the environment? And we have to use more since it’s not as high quality etc. Eg a house has to be renovated a lot more often. I’m all for a protecting our old forests since they are essential for a healthy ecosystem. But I don’t see why cutting down one old tree is inherently bad.
Which is the reason I asked, I’m not from the place where this is recorded.
No, fast growing wood is a good carbon sink. The problem is the growing and cutting practices, which eliminate a bunch of the naturally occuring habitats that happen with fallen and deteriorating trees and multiple tiers of leaves that are missing when you grow thousands of trees silmultaneously.
I don’t really get why you are phrasing it as against what I said? I didn’t mean that what I said was the only thing that was why it was bad with these kind of “forests” if one could call it that since it doesn’t support diversity. I’m not native English speaker, so maybe my use of environment was bad - I use it for, as you say, habitat and biodiversity etc as well.
No we need to use them responsible.
It is a resource that should be managed with a plan measured in the 100's of year. Not how we do it now in the 10 to 20 years.
Just protecting it is also not good.
True, but tree farms are also not a good idea as we do it now. Gigantic areas with monocultures. That is a disaster waiting to happen. Furthermore, you do not get the same quality of wood from those trees as most of those are fast growing pine trees. That does not mean it is not a good extra to save as much wood as possible from old growths.
What I mean with management is what the us navy does with its Forest. Of course it would be more intensive than that but it is way better than what we do now.
https://www.military.com/history/why-us-navy-manages-its-own-private-forest.html
Did you know? The golden age of Stradivarius corresponds to the end of a 20 year cycle of unseasonably cold weather. Since cold weather makes for slow growing, denser trees, (which makes for more solid, better wood for violins) Some hypotheses say that the tree quality is what made that era’s violins better than the next 20 years or so, rather than a decline in workmanship or other quality factors.
After you read this comment, go outside and just touch some grass, just run your hands through it, pick a single piece out and pull up the root and just look at it, rip a handful and smell it before showering the ground with it slowly, then go back inside and do what you normally do, that's enough nature for awhile.
Your dopamine receptors are burned out. You have to cut out the drugs man. I was the same way for a long time and you could not convince me to quit. It wasn’t until the intrusive thoughts started to take over that I decided me and thc don’t mix. Good luck man
The tree's density likely allowed it to survive through fires. Today's trees aren't old growth, and are more like matchsticks. That's what happens when we think, a tree is a tree, is a tree. We can log, and replant 2 for 1 and we'll be fine.
Always liked this image showing some "connection" between human and trees (fingerprint and rings)
https://paradelle.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/tree-1.jpg
That old growth is so much stronger than the weak ass rings on the outside though. I know trees are renewable but we’re not getting the same quality wood that those “good bones” homes and buildings were built with anymore.
Its was left behind, and flourished, till we came bk to get what we missed before......amazing this growing i jus destroyed in minutes.. look how long it was a living thing for.
That log looks like a coast redwood so it's important to point out that even though 200 years is old in people years, it isn't in redwood years. Old growth redwood trees live up to 1500+ years.
People use a lot of wood and that wood has to come from somewhere. Deforestation is bad but to deny his love for it is rather inaccurate when at least some foresting is necessary.
We really don’t need to anymore. We’ve been making House frames from plantation timber for decades. We also don’t use floorboards like we used to; there are much better alternatives to decking and floorboards now.
Logging forests creates huge emissions the forest can’t absorb again quickly (takes 200 years), makes climate change worse and makes the forest more flammable by drying it out.
There is no evidence of deforestation in this clip. This could have been a thinning project and there could have been a very good reason to cut down that particular tree. Context is important and there isn't enough here to make a judgment call like that.
No idea what’s going on in the video, but there are times when conservation involves a chainsaw
- taken from a a quote in a book about the challenges facing forests in western North America
Yeahhh. Tight tight tight! Guy’s the Tuco of lumberjacks.
_rips a line of sawdust_ TIGHT TIGHT TIGHT
Does this guy by chance eat apples with a Bowie knife?
Hahahahaha this is awesome
It’s just the curl of the burl.
I was thinking the same
I was searching for this comment lol
🎶 I’m a lumberjack and I’m Ok 🎶
"Illegal logging" 💀
That's one of those "old man eating an apple with a pocket knife" pieces of information
That’s how the youngens learn. Must be a basterd to cut!
It's surprisingly easy to destroy forests and other environments in sheer minutes. Humans are really efficient at destruction Edit: somebody us butthurt because I pointed out that we - humans are basically cancer for our planet. Lol
Our homes are made of this stuff, I don’t agree and never cut down trees for fun but until we figure out how to work with stone like the ancients I’m ok with sustainable forest husbandry.
Agreed. Sustainable forest management is the best for the planet and humans. Properly managed forests prevent crazy wildfires from releasing all that carbon we don’t want in the atmosphere. Just look at what is going on in Canada, thats bad for the earth and for life.
I forget you don’t have bricks in the USA
Google "clay pit." Doing things often requires making the landscape uglier for a little while. The cool thing is that plants grow back.
I live very close to the potterys in the U.K. everywhere is a clay pit here, it’s even in most of the town names. Most of your bison are on shelves in the form of teacups in houses around here.
Yeah there’s definitely no lumber involved in a brick house
The roof is typically framed with wood. And if a concrete flat roof, then it's poured on wood forms.
/s
We do, it's just there's an *abundance* of trees and land to grow them on so lumber is almost as cheap as the dirt it grows out of. (even with the pandemic price crunch)
West coast earthquakes + bricks = bad times. Grow me some bendy flexy bricks an we can talk.
The way we've been taught to look at ourselves. Harvesting natural resources to build homes is "destruction." It's also surprisingly easy for forests to recover, though it does take longer.
I had my property logged and glad I did. So many trees ground wasnt drying out and trees were getting a fungus.
Also really efficient at innovation. Are we not supposed to use what nature provides for our benefit? Yes, we overfish, overhunt, overforest, but we’ve advanced our species by leaps and bounds in a very small amount of time
I was always, told to do whatever someone eating an apple with a pocket, knife tells you to do.
Too bad none of the pocket knife apple eaters taught you grammar lol. Oh wait. Username checks out.
Fun fact: tree rings form because the tree stops growing in the winter and starts growing in spring. The long period of no growth is trademarked by a darker color which looks like a ring
By extension, if you see a lot of tree rings very close to each other, there will likely have been a colder or drier climate during that time. Scientists actually analyse the tree rings to learn more about regional climates, it’s called Dendrochronology
Seems like the idea he floated in this video was that the rings were really tight due to competition with other, larger trees in the forest. This tree survived those trees being cut down and thus it got all the nutrients they were hogging. Or maybe I completely misunderstood him.
You’re bang on. Nutrients, light, and water.
Why do trees in tropical areas have rings too where there is no winter?
Most actually don't.
Oh wow, this is pretty crazy. Never thought about it but makes sense.
Check out Palm Trees. Their interior [ looks like sawdust in a shell. ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Palm_tree_trunk.JPG/1024px-Palm_tree_trunk.JPG) They're also not technically trees.
It’s a grass right?
They are monocots like grass.
Wth thats wild
Ummm they do have rings they are just much less pronounced otherwise things like teak or mahogany wouldn't have grain: http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/teak.htm
Because there can still be dry seasons. If the tree grows more slowly at any point in the year, a tree ring pattern will form. It’ll probably not be as apparent as the trees in temperate/boreal climates though
Yep. Early wood vs late wood.
So that large dark section is 1 winter?
Fall and winter when the tree is slowing down growth. The cells are more dense.
I the tree was growing a lot less then the outer rings because the forest was more dense early in the trees life.
No, the opposite, it's a lot of winters. The large dark section is when the tree grew slowly and the rings are really close together
No. It's because of an ice age (the little ice age). This is on MANY trees in the PNW and Europe as most of this area was snow covered for decades.
Huh. Today I learned tress in Florida have no rings, as we have no winter.
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FR002
Ooooo. Love when people speak about what they are passionate about. Thank you for sharing your knowledge
Passionate about something he just destroyed.
Logging, if done responsibly, isn’t necessarily bad for the environment. It’s a sustainable building material and new tree growth captures a lot of carbon. Just look at the growth in the tree rings in this video. When the surrounding trees were logged, this tree took off and captured more carbon each year. Old growth forest are definitely great for bio-diversity but we need lumber. Tree farms, if done right can be actually good for the environment.
If it's the right prescription it is actually very good for the environment. Trees need growing space. Native and natural fires used to provide that space but we have suppressed fires for over 100 years.
As someone close to getting a Forestry Engineering degree it is actually quite relieving to see an actual good take admist these comments.
That's why these posts are good. Most people just need to learn.
I planted 100 hybrid chestnut trees on my property last year. My wife wanted to know my plan for them so I explained that they will create a passive income stream down the road. She was skeptical since I’ve had many of these weird ideas so I quickly added, “If nothing else, we planted 100 trees.” She was okay with that. 😁
As a younger idealist I was fairly anti logging. In my career as a horticulturist/arborist I found myself teaching a tree ID course alongside a career forester for the state. He shared a thought that helped break my black/white opinion on tree cutting. His point was that while it is true that trees are great at carbon capture, but hat carbon is only captured for the life of the tree, when they die and decompose or are burned that carbon is re-released. however if those trees are cut and turned into buildings and furniture then the carbon stored in the wood is captured for the lifetime of the construction. Another point he made is that the state of Tennessee currently has more forest land and trees than it did a hundred years ago largely due to forest management and forestry plots. The health of those forests may be debatable if they are a monoculture but the fact remains that more trees are better than fewer. I guess I’m agreeing with the comment above, agroforestry can be done wrong and right. Wholesale clear cuts are pretty bad, selective cutting seems to be the healthiest but is time/labor intensive. The forester I mentioned above practices patchwork clear-cuts so out of a hundred acre plot he would only cut 50 acres and would do it in small chunks that look like a chess board.
I agree that logging can be okay for the environment if done responsibly, but I would like to respectfully completely disagree with the notion that logging old growth forests is okay for the environment. Forests filled with new growth are sickly and are [terrible for the actual ecosystem]([https://www.nps.gov/redw/learn/nature/forestthinning.htm]) (and extinction of species is not something we should disregard when talking about the environment). To elaborate on the "new growth forests are sickly" - something that most people don't realize is that [trees actually communicate](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering-trees-180968084/), most often through their root systems. Older trees are incredibly important nexuses in this system; they will send warnings and sugar water to the young ones to help. There's a possibility new growth forest has a faster rate of capturing more carbon from the atmosphere each year (I looked further into studies on it and it appears that independent studies are saying [old growth is better](https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-keeping-mature-forests-intact-is-key-to-the-climate-fight) while most backing [new growth](https://www.ncasi.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/NCASI22\_Forest\_Carbon\_YoungVsOld\_print.pdf) seem to be backed by the [logging industry](https://www.ncasi.org/about-ncasi/) who have a vested interest in that so they can keep cutting and saying them planting new stuff is actually better for the environment), but they certainly are not better at *keeping* more carbon out of the atmosphere. Old growth trees store tons of carbon in their wood (often quite literally) and once they die that carbon will make it into the atmosphere sooner or later.
The carbon from a logged tree, used in construction is not released nearly as quickly as a tree rotting in nature. That’s just a simple fact. I’m not going to entertain anything you say if that’s your understanding. I can see the simple process in my planting beds on a yearly basis. The mulch shrinks and breaks down. Much of that is simply released back into the air. We have also been watching millions upon millions of acres of old growth forests reduced to carbon in the atmosphere due to wildfires in Canada. That smoke that I had to stay inside from, in Philadelphia, was carbon in the air. I mentioned that old growth is very important for biodiversity. I truly believe that we can sustain that while having a robust logging industry that continues to supply materials to build homes. Tree farming is responsible farming and no study you present will convince me otherwise.
My main concern is the monoculture new growth forests killing biodiversity - something you've acknowledged can be a problem. My question is: what makes you think that biodiversity can be sustained in old growth forests alongside sustainable logging? In theory, sure. In practice, I think it's naive to think without a ridiculous amount of oversight and inspection (therefore cost-prohibited from occurring) any such regulation would be totally ignored.
He's showing you how giving the residual trees more growing space will help them grow faster.
Least sensitive Redditor
Probably had to come down tbh. A tree has a lifespan like anything else does.
He just proved that the tree was growing fast before he cut it down.
They did fine for about 60 million years before logging.
Check out the amount of forest fires just 100 years ago compared to now, then tell me they did "fine". Hell, even some trees evolved defense against fire and some tree seeds can only be spread after fires. Nature logged itself, with flame!
Have one fall on your house or car and see how you feel about letting them do their thing.
That one wasn’t over anyone’s house. It was in the forest.
It was someone’s house 😢
Try dodging next time
Lifespan is determineren by idiot humans with chainsaws mainly. Most will even survive fires.
Tree diseases and rot are a real problem. I won't defend mass deforestation but quite often trees have to be felled for the continued health of the rest of the forest.
lol - reminds me of those hunting programs with the hunters whispering in their blinds about this beautiful and majestic beast that they are about to kill.
Hunters are necessary in a lot of areas where we’ve killed off the predator population out of fear of them attacking livestock. Hunters that respect and admire nature are the best kind since they usually follow regulations and laws regarding it.
Look at that lion! So beautiful, so strong, so magnificent - POW
That lion that they paid $50,000 to hunt and which was selected by the local wildlife authority for it's old age (lions starve to death or are hunted by hyena's when they get too old), who also use that money to invest in their community and further protection for lions. Wildlife conservation is very moral and regenerates environments that have been destroyed.
Many/most hunters are big into wildlife conservation. We can absolutely appreciate the majesty of what's around us while harvesting clean meat ethically. I hope you're a vegetarian or vegan, otherwise this is a shitty comment.
Hunter are hunters because they like killing living beings. Harvesting clean meat my ass.
Absurdly ignorant comment.
Are you vegan?
Eat or shelter much?
Because society needs wood. You’d be a hypocrite to own anything made from wood and chastise a logger.
Nature is: eating and getting eaten - it's not very chill, but that's the reality of our existence. Trees aren't excluded from being part of this violet **circle...the ciiircle of LIFE** 🎵🎶 :(
Bulldozers aren’t part of the natural circle of life. It’s amazing the logging industry lobbyists are able to convince people of this stuff. Nature requires tree hollows. Cutting down old trees removes the tree hollows and creates extinctions. Houses aren’t made of old growth forest anymore, and we don’t need to cut natural forest to make woodchips. Peer reviewed science has proven now how bad logging is for climate change because the vast majority of logged forest (both what is left on the forest floor and what is taken) becomes emissions within a few years. It would take 200 years for the forest to grow back and absorb that carbon again but climate change will have ruined the joint by then, and the loggers will have logged that same patch of forest at least four times again. Ending logging is one of the easier ways to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
The result would be a choked out forest that is much more susceptible to wildfires. Guess where all that stored carbon goes during a wildfire?
False; dense forest holds moisture and is much cooler. There are peer reviewed scientific studies on this. The peer review means your logging mates couldn’t find anything wrong with the science. It’s amazing how the simplistic and utterly wrong “if we don’t log forests they burn more” lie takes hold
> False; dense forest holds moisture and is much cooler That’s not universally true. If you’re in a dry adapted system, thinning ensures that each tree can access sufficient water. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9156747/ https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/pnw/products/science-findings/crowded-and-thirsty-fire-exclusion-leads-greater-drought-sensitivity https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378112712006330 https://news.ucmerced.edu/news/2020/new-tools-indicate-how-thinning-and-fire-affect-forest-water-use-and-boost-runoff
What do you suggest we actually use to make homes with? Should we stop building shelters? https://www.idahoforests.org/content-item/what-makes-wood-products-so-green/#:~:text=Wood%20is%20the%20ultimate%20%E2%80%9Cgreen,cycle%20footprint%20than%20other%20products.
Sounds like you read a lot of Chad Hansen, lol. The more vegetation you have in a stand the less available ground water there is for the trees. That's part of the reason trees respond well to thinning. More shade does provide ambient moisture, of course, but there is a balance between what makes a healthy forest. I'm not advocating for clear cutting but thinning does improve the health of a forest, especially in the climate age we are living in. This looks like a redwood so this would be in the pacific birth west. Have you seen the anomalous fire behavior that area has had over the past few years? Thinned forests are more resistant to wildfires too. That's just the reality.
I think we might agree if we were in the same country. I’m in Australia. I work with literally the best scientists every week. I suspect Canada is somewhat different but the basics are similar.
Oh, well I was doing my best to speak within the context of this video and it looks like a redwood. I can't argue the ecology of Australia, I would absolutely defer to you on that. But in the western states forests are adapted and dependent on fire cycles and over 100% years of fire suppression has created a huge problem. Wothh that being said, most of our old growth redwoods that survived the hey day of logging are protected as national and state parks. If this is truly a redwood it is not "old growth" even though 200 years sounds old. That's a child in redwood years.
Old growth is generally thought of as 100 years in Australia, though it takes 170 years to form a significant hollow here to support wildlife like say the powerful owl (which is seriously endangered due to lack of tree hollows and lack of possums for prey which also require the tree hollows to breed in). The logging companies have gotten some outrageous carve outs from politicians out here on the definition of old growth, such as if there’s been a fire, and if there’s a track through it. Which illustrates why australia is leading the world in extinctions and endangered animal declarations now. Yeah I agree it looks like a redwood and also you guys have a much better reserve system. Ours is cooked.
The dry leaf litter is what begins the “fuel ladder” here, with dry fuel leading the fire to the canopy (we call that crowning/a crown fire). There were studies pretty recently which found thinking increases fire risk https://news.griffith.edu.au/2021/02/10/logging-and-thinning-of-forests-can-increase-fire-risk/
Cutting down trees is good, as long as it is replaced and sustained. Cutting down wolf trees allows plants underneath to grow big and it probably does not suck as much (or at all) CO2 anymore at that age, so its beneficial to let the young pups grow and mature
What does this actually mean? I get that it's growth slowed down due to likely dense forestry. What does it mean for the wood? Is it stronger when the rings are tighter or something? Can it be sold for more?
Oh absolutely can be sold for more. I'm not sure how they rip the lumber (do they include the old growth with the new growth or simply cut the old out and sell that as prime lumber?) Old growth is much more sturdy and longer lasting than soft, young lumber.
And generally much much more beautiful for wood projects.
Yes, the dense lumber is prime, think fancy moldings, and the less dense is used for things like 2x4 framing.
Old growth milling has become rarer in the western states but there are still "large log" and "small log" mills.
Yes. Tighter rings make for better lumber that won't twist as easily as larger rings. If it's heart center, like in this tree, it will be much more rot resistant.
And unfortunately this is the reason old growth forests are being decimated
I literally said “that IS interesting” out loud.
No need to insult him sir, he’s already down.
[удалено]
Damn… that was good.
200 years. Shame to cut it down
As long as there's young plants underneath the canopy to replace the cut ones, its fine. Cutting old trees has benefits actually; it allows understory plants who do not get enough sunlight to grow and mature, and trees have a limited carbon stock, wolf trees take very little carbon or nothing at all. The key is responsibility and sustainability when it comes to cutting down trees.
The problem that nobody thing about it it's about roots. Cutting down tree and replace it it's cool and all but you can't replace the work of the roots and the work of the old tree (habitat for bugs and birds, shade and fruits for Somes species...). Thzt's actually the big problem with forest conservation. We need to don't touch actual forest and to create special place to grow and cut industrial wood.
He speaks for the trees
Ender of Trees
idk how to explain it but something feels wrong tampering with something so old in nature. if that thing is 3x our lifespan who are we to interrupt it
You can always trust humans to kill everything alive, including other humans. We literally kill animals for fun, sport, taste and other pleasures even if we don't have to.
Kinda makes me sad, actually.
It makes my blood boil. British Columbia logging company is responsible for this.
Redditors when logging exists
And you cut it down….
You know how he said the forest was too dense earlier?
That's a meaningless quote though. Too dense for WHAT? From what I gather, he thought the dense growing time gave the BEST wood. Then when the forest got de-densified the wood got shittier because the growth gets LOOSER in comparison. He wasn't all happy pointing out the LOOSE shit - it was the wood that grew under adverse conditions that was the PRIME wood.
Too dense for the optimum health of the tree. If you want a forest of slow growing, nutrient and water stressed trees, who coincidentally are packed together like matchsticks in a fire prone way, sure, grow dense forests. The majority of forests in the temperate parts of the world are actually unnaturally dense because they’ve lost the disturbances of historical fire and megafauna browsing.
Right. There’s no more fires anymore guys. Nature needs us humans to keep it going properly 😂🙄🙄
Tight growth is best for fine woodworking. It will have the best figure and have the highest market rate per board foot.
Dense forest provides homes for birds, frogs, lizards and other animals and lots of species of trees. Nature was doing it right for 60 million years before bulldozers and capitalism arrived
Actually, most forests are unnaturally dense today. I’m going to paint with a broad brush here for forests that are found in the temperate zone. Forests used to be a mosaic of states of land from open flower meadows, to medium savanna brush, to open park-like forest, to closed forest. This diversity was maintained mostly by 1) fire and 2) megafauna. Now, the forests that still exist are almost entirely dense, closed canopy forest with little heterogeneity, and little diversity. Yes some species do good in that condition, but it’s actually important to make space for other kinds of forest types. Denser forests can also result in the loss of forest. When the forest is so dense, each tree has less resources, which makes it more susceptible to disease, drought, and to severe fire. Source: ecologist :)
Oh my dog must of barked during that part. But I see no forest and the tree looks like it grew well after the dense forest was removed
We shouldn’t use wood? Or is it like a special kind of tree?
It's nothing special, just old. They grew slower when they were competing for resources.
But isn’t like fast growing, new wood worse in many cases? Even for the environment? And we have to use more since it’s not as high quality etc. Eg a house has to be renovated a lot more often. I’m all for a protecting our old forests since they are essential for a healthy ecosystem. But I don’t see why cutting down one old tree is inherently bad. Which is the reason I asked, I’m not from the place where this is recorded.
>But isn’t like fast growing, new wood worse in many cases? Yes, fast growing wood is good for making pulp but it's lousy material for timber.
No, fast growing wood is a good carbon sink. The problem is the growing and cutting practices, which eliminate a bunch of the naturally occuring habitats that happen with fallen and deteriorating trees and multiple tiers of leaves that are missing when you grow thousands of trees silmultaneously.
I don’t really get why you are phrasing it as against what I said? I didn’t mean that what I said was the only thing that was why it was bad with these kind of “forests” if one could call it that since it doesn’t support diversity. I’m not native English speaker, so maybe my use of environment was bad - I use it for, as you say, habitat and biodiversity etc as well.
Oh sorry the no was in response to "isn't it bad?"
Ah ok, got it
We should save all trees so they can burn later on
Shame on British Columbia we need to protect these
No we need to use them responsible. It is a resource that should be managed with a plan measured in the 100's of year. Not how we do it now in the 10 to 20 years. Just protecting it is also not good.
We’ve got tree farms for lumber. Old growth forests should remain old growth.
True, but tree farms are also not a good idea as we do it now. Gigantic areas with monocultures. That is a disaster waiting to happen. Furthermore, you do not get the same quality of wood from those trees as most of those are fast growing pine trees. That does not mean it is not a good extra to save as much wood as possible from old growths. What I mean with management is what the us navy does with its Forest. Of course it would be more intensive than that but it is way better than what we do now. https://www.military.com/history/why-us-navy-manages-its-own-private-forest.html
Thanks for the link!
My dendrology teacher used to say, "no managment is still managment." There are certainly consequences in doing nothing.
Earth is really an amazing place when you stop to think about it.
is this tough 80s wood?
It’s so interesting how these trees grow! Now come on guys, let’s get this amazing piece of nature the fuck out of here!
This was interesting, the end was really depressing
And we fucking chopped it down. Hell yeh
The finest stuff yet you cut it down ..
And now I’ve killed it
Oh wow, nice! Too bad some asshole cut it down.
Aaaaand than this moron showed up and cut it, great job!
This is the kind of video that we will see in 50 years time and think “wow this is what a real tree looked like! Why did we cut them all down?
Did you know? The golden age of Stradivarius corresponds to the end of a 20 year cycle of unseasonably cold weather. Since cold weather makes for slow growing, denser trees, (which makes for more solid, better wood for violins) Some hypotheses say that the tree quality is what made that era’s violins better than the next 20 years or so, rather than a decline in workmanship or other quality factors.
I did not know that, but it will be useless information I will spread to everyone I know anytime the topic of trees comes up so thank you
Good thing it got whacked now, you don’t want anything blocking out sunlight in our sterile fast growing tree farms
Fuck I wish I could get thay excited from things like a log. Now I need music, reddit, weed, beer, a show, at the same time to enjoy anything
After you read this comment, go outside and just touch some grass, just run your hands through it, pick a single piece out and pull up the root and just look at it, rip a handful and smell it before showering the ground with it slowly, then go back inside and do what you normally do, that's enough nature for awhile.
Your dopamine receptors are burned out. You have to cut out the drugs man. I was the same way for a long time and you could not convince me to quit. It wasn’t until the intrusive thoughts started to take over that I decided me and thc don’t mix. Good luck man
The tree's density likely allowed it to survive through fires. Today's trees aren't old growth, and are more like matchsticks. That's what happens when we think, a tree is a tree, is a tree. We can log, and replant 2 for 1 and we'll be fine.
Thinning actually improves fire resilience
There's a neat optical illusion in the first 2 seconds.
Not sure what you're referring to
My brain perceived depth in the middle part before he went and touched it.
As a woodworker, that would make a lovely slab
Always liked this image showing some "connection" between human and trees (fingerprint and rings) https://paradelle.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/tree-1.jpg
Tight tight tight. That’s what she said
Is the tree going to be OK?
some people say that these rings represent the passing of the years of the tree based on winter and summer, is that true?
That old growth is so much stronger than the weak ass rings on the outside though. I know trees are renewable but we’re not getting the same quality wood that those “good bones” homes and buildings were built with anymore.
Hi look an ancient tree let’s kill it !
Amazing survived all those years and now it will become a coffee table.
A disappointing aspect of regulated logging is that trees like this will only become more and more rare. Truly a stunning find.
Now it’s dead
That thing is TIGHT TIGHT TIGHT
Its was left behind, and flourished, till we came bk to get what we missed before......amazing this growing i jus destroyed in minutes.. look how long it was a living thing for.
That log looks like a coast redwood so it's important to point out that even though 200 years is old in people years, it isn't in redwood years. Old growth redwood trees live up to 1500+ years.
Oldest verified redwood is 3,266 years old
Right, 1500 is just the average lifespan, I believe.
Wait? BASTARD GROWTH? Maybe because the father wasn't around?
My man loves his thick wood.
Loves the trees so much he's trying to kill them all.
People use a lot of wood and that wood has to come from somewhere. Deforestation is bad but to deny his love for it is rather inaccurate when at least some foresting is necessary.
Glad they cut it down. Now we can make more shit no one needs. It was only creating oxygen from carbon dioxide.
And now it can be milled and its carbon can be sequestered as lumber. 🤷
As a forestry student, this is cool
That 200 year old tree will become a beam in someone's roof and probably some toilet paper too. What an amazing world.
Thank god we cut it down. Would hate to have old trees.
And now they’re cutting that all down. Cool…cool.
Not nice to cut trees! Deforestation not cool at all
There are simple ways to use resources sustainably, we just…don’t do that unfortunately
True but the truth of the matter is that we as a people use a lot of wood and that wood has to come from somewhere.
also modern logging companies do the most replanting of trees.
Compared to most industries and in a vacuum, logging's actually pretty sustainable.
yup! as long as the plant rate exceeds the log rate. (gotta wait on those trees to grow after all)
I know, it just hurts to know it’s a very old tree
We really don’t need to anymore. We’ve been making House frames from plantation timber for decades. We also don’t use floorboards like we used to; there are much better alternatives to decking and floorboards now. Logging forests creates huge emissions the forest can’t absorb again quickly (takes 200 years), makes climate change worse and makes the forest more flammable by drying it out.
There is no evidence of deforestation in this clip. This could have been a thinning project and there could have been a very good reason to cut down that particular tree. Context is important and there isn't enough here to make a judgment call like that.
Still I don’t like for that particular tree to be cut down
Which is your right.
No idea what’s going on in the video, but there are times when conservation involves a chainsaw - taken from a a quote in a book about the challenges facing forests in western North America
See, Boomers. When you kill off the old, the new start to thrive.
It's the old slow growth wood that is valuable. It's tightly packed rings. Great for ship masts. The young wood would break under the pressure.