[Jeff Head]

We did talk about it. The message of the movie (one of them) was that without trees we have no air. When they clear cut all the trees in the story...a really bad capilatlist came along selling people clean air. I showed them the forests right before their eyes to show them that there are plenty of trees, even though in Idaho it is one of our major job and product producers. They understood intrinsically that the timber companies are not cutting down all the trees and destroying our air...but that they are planting more...in fact more than they take. Also, I explained how good harvesting actually improves the forest and the habitat for the animals.

Anyhow, we had a good talk about all of this and they came away from it understanding that there are people with causes who will slant the trth in order to influence them and that they should be critical thinkers and look around them to see the trugh of these things...and then talk to epople who are involved and people they trust.

[Kirkwood]

What do you say when one of the kids asks about clear cutting tropical forests that are not being replanted?

[Aevery_Freeman]

Ironically, in the winter much of America's O₂ comes from photosynthetic plankton in the Pacific.

It's Obama that wants to kill algae to make gas.

Simple truth: Some organisms must die so that I may live.

[Yaelle]

At first I was jealous because if I take mine to that show, we won’t be driving through gorgeous forests on the way home to make that point. But here in the big city there are a lot of trees and almost all were brought in! Maybe not by lumber co’s but it still shows that humans are good stewards of the earth. In SoCal, all the famous palms, eucalyptus, etc, were all brought in. The only natural trees are the scrub oaks and very few others. An arid desert was made fruitful, literally, by us planting. (we won’t get into the water issues this lesson, lol)

[jmacusa]

Do you suppose the idiots who tell kids ‘’trees make air’’ ever had a good look at the Sahara desert?