More trees than there were 100 years ago? It's true!

Mother Nature Network ^ | Feb. 9, 2011 | Starre Vartan

[Free ThinkerNY]

The numbers are in.

In the United States, which contains 8 percent of the world's forests, there are more trees than there were 100 years ago. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), "Forest growth nationally has exceeded harvest since the 1940s.

By 1997, forest growth exceeded harvest by 42 percent and the volume of forest growth was 380 percent greater than it had been in 1920."

The greatest gains have been seen on the East Coast (with average volumes of wood per acre almost doubling since the '50s) which was the area most heavily logged by European settlers beginning in the 1600s, soon after their arrival.

This is great news for those who care about the environment because trees store CO2, produce oxygen — which is necessary for all life on Earth — remove toxins from the air, and create habitat for animals, insects and more basic forms of life.

Well-managed forest plantations like those overseen by the Forest Stewardship Council also furnish us with wood, a renewable material that can be used for building, furniture, paper products and more, and all of which are biodegradable at the end of their lifecycle.

The increase in trees is due to a number of factors, including conservation and preservation of national parks, responsible tree growing within plantations — which have been planting more trees than they harvest — and the movement of the majority of the population from rural areas to more densely populated areas, such as cities and suburbs.

Tree planting efforts begun in the 1950s are paying off and there is more public awareness about the importance of trees and forests.

[Soothesayer9]

Oh give the tree huggers time...they will get around to banning oxygen.

[Christian Engineer Mass]

{Photoshop of Al Gore face into baghdad bob picture}

No, no. There is no good news about trees. Sky is falling, All is death and pain. Your family is going to die in 2012. It’s the republicans’ fault.

[goodwithagun]

Not if my husband has to keep cutting them down to heat our home because of all this global warming, lol.

[macquire]

More but different trees. The old hardwoods are gone, replaced by fast growing pine, aspen, etc.

[lonestar67]

And increased CO2 enhances plant growth and forest expansion.

Oh wait. Were not supposed to know that.

CO2 is a pollutant.

[Inyo-Mono]

There are a lot more pine trees on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada range in California than a 100 or even 150 years ago. This fact has been discovered by comparing old photos to the same scenes today.

[JoeFromSidney]

Just a minute here. Trees, like other plants, extract CO2 from the atmosphere and convert the carbon (and some hydrogen) into woody material, while releasing oxygen to the atmosphere. However, when the trees die, all that carbon is again oxidized. This is true whether the tree burns, or is eaten by termites, or consumed by fungi. From seed to maturity to death and decay, the net production of oxygen by trees is ZERO, and the net extraction of CO2 is likewise ZERO. The idea that plants produce oxygen comes from looking only at part of their life cycle.

If the greens were serious about reducing CO2, they'd advocate planting trees, turning them into paper, using the paper ONCE (no recycling), then burying the paper where the oxygen in the atmosphere couldn't get at it.

[lurk]

Tree growth goes in eras. If you watched the same plot of ground over a 1000 year period, you would naturally see various phases of hardwood and softwood growth over and over again, affected by bugs, people, animals, weather, fire, global warming and cooling.

[GreenAccord]

The old hardwoods are gone, replaced by fast growing pine, aspen, etc

Did you figure that all out on your own? Or did you do some exhaustive research that revealed that with more trees now, they weren't OLD growth? You know, cuz all those trees that are around now that weren't here in 1910, I'm sure you would have *thought* they were old growth.

[adorno]

More trees than there were 100 years ago? It's true!

So then, by correlation, we should all conclude that, global warming was caused by, more trees.

The democrats should be asking for government funding to chop down all those extra trees that are harming the environment.

[DaxtonBrown]

Time for a big bonfire and marshmallow roast.

[The Great RJ]

In 2000, a Rapid City, SD photographer sought to give an exact contemporary view of the photos taken during Custer's 1874 expedition to the Black Hills. You are immediately impressed that the photos taken in 2000 showed extensive forests where the 1874 photos showed empty meadows and prairie. The reason is decades of reforestation and extinguishing forest fires. See sample photos from the book here

[4Speed]

TREE PING

[4Speed]

TREE PING

[panaxanax]

“More but different trees. The old hardwoods are gone, replaced by fast growing pine, aspen, etc.”

Yep. Those old growth trees sure came in handy when we were building the greatest nation ever!

[hinckley buzzard]

More but different trees. The old hardwoods are gone, replaced by fast growing pine, aspen, etc

True that the great climax forests which greeted the settlers are gone, but the hardwoods are not exactly scarce. While lumber companies plant softwood for harvest, natural progression allows other growth to revive with maple-beech and oak-hickory stands spreading slowly and patiently to reclaim their place in parks and national forests.

Sadly, the great American chestnut, the most impressive tree of the continent east of redwood country, seems gone for good.

[Straight Vermonter]

You nailed it. The only net oxygen producers are the photoplankton. They don’t get consumed like land based plants because they die and fall to the bottom of the ocean and get covered by sediment.

The rain forests as the “Lungs of the Earth” is a load of crap.

[immadashell]

And the animals are moving back in. We have more white tail deer than you can shake an SUV at, a bald eagle nest less than a mile away, a burgeoning coyote pack replacing the role previously played by wolves and an occasional wayward lovelorn male moose hitting on the local dairy cows. And this is western New York State which was 25% forest and 75% farmland 75 years ago but is 75% forest and 25% farmland today.

[Vince Ferrer]

The increase in trees is due to a number of factors, including conservation and preservation of national parks, responsible tree growing within plantations — which have been planting more trees than they harvest — and the movement of the majority of the population from rural areas to more densely populated areas, such as cities and suburbs.

Automobiles have played a significant part in the reforestation of America. The railroads cut down significant numbers of trees in the establishment and maintenance of the railroads, for railroad ties, for fuel, and for the towns that sprung up along the rails. The era of the automobile replaced this large user of wood, and largely with petroleum.