BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 12:02 PM

"...but when you have a sorry-ass administration like is in office now..."


                SRS - I agree with you completely. The best thing to do is elect responsible people to government. I would suggest the first step is to get rid of electronic voting machines.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 11:00 AM

This article on Green Corporations gets into some of the issues about why it makes financial sense for a company to spend more initial dollars to prevent such catastrophes as Exxon Valdez and Bhopal, rather than spending dollars down the road to clean up mistakes. The greening process makes sense from a purely profit-driven motive, which is the motive of utmost importance to most corporations operating where the eyes of the world are on them. Situations like the deforesting of Papua New Guinea happen because the majority of people are ignorant of what's happening, and a rogue corporation can operate in relative obscurity and with fewer negative financial outcomes.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 10:48 AM

The fact is that Malthus was right...human population growth is exponential. Two tend to breed four who tend to breed sixteen and so on, while the harvesting of resources progresses at a much slower rate. Where population growth is most out of control, and where (ironically) a large family is most valued from a cultural standpoint, tends to be in the very areas where resources are most limited- the Third World. China has taken a top down approach, mandating a maximum of 2 children per family. In Europe and North America, the approach has been bottom-up, but has also worked effectively to lower the birthrates. There is no doubt that such approaches should be applied to other areas such as the horn of Africa, where farms of 3/4 acre and smaller are food sources for average families of 8 individuals. In such situations, and in the absence of resource protection and/or population control, something has to give. What gave in Rwanda was genocide and mass exterminations.
But the harvesting of resources can be examined as a separate issue. American farms are 20 times more productive on a per-acre basis than they were 100 years ago, due to changes in crop selection and rotation strategies. Chevron extracts oil in Papua New Guinea using a low-impact strategy that has allowed its production areas to become effective wildlife and timber preserves. The timber companies in the American southeast use silviculture methods that allow continuous harvesting without deforestation.
Such strategies indicate a way forward. And for us to make no distinction between a Chevron Corporation which minimally impacts the environment and a Rimbunan Hijau Corporation which clear-cuts and destroys the natural environment, does companies like Chevron who ARE adopting clean resource management methods a great disservice. We should boycott and apply pressure aginst the bandit corporations, and support the efforts of the good ones with our consumer dollars.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 10:05 AM

The most that "people" can do is to limit their own family size. They can offer helpful suggestions and education to others, but when you have a sorry-ass administration like is in office now and their policy to the world is "don't have sex," that goes over like the proverbial lead balloon. Chances are very good that you won't make a bit of difference if you stand here and tell someone else to keep it zipped, but if you take measures to clean up your act and your community, it is better than nothing.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 10:00 AM

"When you deflect attention to population issues then you defer the work that needs to happen regarding forests now."

             People can delude themselves into thinking they are doing something constructive, and these things might make them feel good, but unless they address human population growth, I think everything else they do simply goes out the window.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: eddie1
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 05:59 AM

I always smile wryly when I see pleas like this - Save The Planet!
Don't worry, the planet will look after itself. Through natural regeneration the planet will renew everything we have taken away or it will adapt to the new conditions.
The problem is - we might not be around to see it!

Eddie

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: skipy
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 05:08 AM

Millions of trees are cut down to make toilet paper, save trees use both sides!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 02:18 AM

Save trees - kill a beaver

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 12:06 PM

Easter Island was once covered with the largest palms that grow in the South Pacific. Eventually, all of the timber was cut down, employed primarily as rollers for the huge ceremonial statues that line the coasts there. These people were probably intelligent individuals with no desire to destroy themselves or their society, but the force of habit and the will of their kings overcame their instincts for preservation, and Easter Island was left a barren landscape, nearly devoid of human population, and left only with these massive silent idols that symbolize the folly of their builders.

Can't we, with clear indications of the destructive path we are on, change our behavior? We have the benefit of seeing that cultures in the past, from the Anasazi to the Greenland Norse to the Easter Islanders, have failed to protect their common resources in the face of population growth, and have been doomed because of it. But we also have examples, like Iceland, Japan, and New Guinea, where resources were protected and cultivated and continue to support their populations. Surely we have the intelligence and technologies to escape from the boiled frog syndrome...where a frog sitting in a pot of water brought slowly to boiling will not sense the gradual change, and die because of it.

Even in the face of opposition and greed and ignorance, we have to try to change things. Even though we lack leaders who could guide us, I believe we still have the strength to change things from the bottom up. We can't give up.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 11:26 AM

When you deflect attention to population issues then you defer the work that needs to happen regarding forests now.

Look at the recycling/reuse of materials in existing structures that are being torn down. Look at alternate materials, and earth structures, etc. Buildings don't need to be constructed of wood. And they're doing some remarkable things with concrete these days.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Riginslinger
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 08:42 AM

Probably the most important first step in saving the forests, and the planet for that matter, is to do something about checking human population growth.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 07:48 AM

Good post Leej, and Bill's point on Brazil makes me think of something else.

The thing that is thrown back in our face from the governments involved especially is "You did it and made billions.....We want our share." Yeah, they "learned" alright.

Ya' know it may be just the cynic in me but the older I get the more I fear it is too late. I don't think it is but it gets more difficult to bring the needed enthusiasm to bear.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 03:13 AM

Right y'are, Bill Lad. So shall we declare its just way to late to do anything about it?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 08:03 PM

And even sadder, much of that timber goes for things like disposable chopsticks and one time use plywood building forms.

You'd think the situation in Brazil would have wakened the world up...but....I guess it just made it clear to bad companies that so little will be done.

Subject: BS: Fight Deforestation-Save the Planet
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 05:51 PM

Yeah, I know its a bit preachy for a thread title.

But the fact remains that tropical rainforests which maintain balance in the Earth's ecosystem, are a primary defense against global warming, and preserve habitat for indigenous people and animal species, are being clear-cut at alarming rates. Most of the logging lease contracts are being obtained through graft, kickbacks, and violent coercion and with cooperation of governments like those of Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. The clear-cut land is left bare and open to tropical rains which cause massive topsoil losses and silting-in of rivers, deltas, reefs, and coastal areas. The damages are massive and irreparable. The motivation is purely one of short-term profit.

The primary culprit is a Malaysian company named Rimbunan Hijau. Timber logged from this land is generally "laundered" by shipping it to China for conversion into construction lumber and plywood, and then sent to companies for distribution and sales in Europe and Australia. YOU can help put and end to this by looking for materials only from companies boycotting the illegal lumber, which include

UK          International Plywood, Caledonian Plywood, Premier Forest Products, Wolseley UK, Screwfix(Kingfisher Group)

France       Castorama, Point P(St Gobain), PBM (Wolseley Grp), Leroy Merlin

Netherlands    Pont Meyer, Hoek Lopik, Oldenbroom

Germany         Holz Possling

Belgium          FEPCO Intl

Everyone of us needs to put pressure on our governments to not only give lip service to curtailing massive deforestation, but to abolish the importation of illegally cut timber that enables it to exist, and to lobby for a world-wide network of protected forest, and for the investigation and prosecution of companies like Rimbunan Hijau.