Logs are pictured this month at Tupper Lake Hardwoods.
(Enterprise photo â Aaron Cerbone)
In the Northeast, where snow regularly falls into late April, heating our homes and buildings accounts for 40.3 million tons a year of carbon dioxide emissions (footnote 1) from more than 3.6 billion gallons of heating oil not to mention the other fossil fuels used for heat. (2) With President Biden’s announcement of the goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 52% by 2030 comes a call to action that will impact the daily lives of every American. Immediately, some people thought of restrictions, upheaval, and a significant price tag.
The Climate Solution Actually Adding Millions of Tons of CO2 Into the Atmosphere ProPublica 4 hrs ago
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This story was co-published with MIT Technology Review.
Along the coast of Northern California near the Oregon border, the cool, moist air off the Pacific sustains a strip of temperate rainforests. Soaring redwoods and Douglas firs dominate these thick, wet woodlands, creating a canopy hundreds of feet high.
But if you travel inland the mix of trees gradually shifts.
Beyond the crest of the Klamath Mountains, you descend into an evergreen medley of sugar pines, incense cedars and still more Douglas firs. As you continue into the Cascade Range, you pass through sparser forests dominated by Ponderosa pines. These tall, slender trees with prickly cones thrive in the hotter, drier conditions on the eastern side of the state.
Rubenstein School students (left to right) Helene Thomas ’21, Olivia Lopez ’21, and Miriam Wolpert ’20 stand near plot center after they finish installing the last of 271 Continuous Forest Inventory plots at the UVM Jericho Research Forest during summer and fall 2020. Photo: Tony D Amato
The University of Vermont (UVM) Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources has established 464 permanent monitoring plots on UVM Forests. The Vermont properties Jericho Research Forest in the town of Jericho, Talcott Forest in Williston, Wolcott Research Forest in Wolcott, and Washington Forest in Washington are owned by UVM and managed by the Rubenstein School.
The Continuous Forest Inventory (CFI) plots, installed during the summers of 2019 and 2020, will be re-visited each decade, beginning in the summer of 2021, to collect data and monitor changes in tree age and health, tree species composition, carbon sequestration, and other forest ecosystem attributes.