[at-l] These...

[Felix J]

greyowl at rcn.com wrote:

>I know that I am going to make some enemies with this statement,
>

I doubt it.  Hopefully we're mature enough to allow everyone to have 
opinions...(good one, Johnson)  Plus, we already know if we like you, or 
not...   :-) 


> however old growth forests have a lot less diversity than a mixed aged forest.  A climax forest has the lowest diversity of all and as the trees are not growing very fast, they have a lower CO2 uptake rate than a mixed age forest. 
>

So...how is any of that a bad thing? Do all forest have to have the same 
diversity? Or, level of diversity? Do they all have to take up the same 
CO2 volumn?

> Selective logging is the answer and yep, get rid of some of those ancient trees.  By one estimate that i stumbled across a couple of years ago there are more tress growing in the United States now then there has been in the last 2000 years.
>

I strongly disagree with both parts of this. I do agree that selective 
logging doesn't have to be a bad thing, I don't believe that you do it 
just to do it. And, I don't believe the latter part at all. Plus, I 
don't know why it really matters how many trees there were 2000 years 
ago and don't believe they have a clue as to what it was like here then.

>
>To make this trail related, if we cut down more trees along the trail we would open up the trail to more sunlight which would dry the trail out faster and reduce soil erosion.    It also means drier trails to hike on.
>

So would a paved trail.