Federal forests could be tasked with fighting global warming

05.12.09

If forests are the planet's lungs, few respire deeper than those in Oregon.

The rain-soaked tangle of trees on the west slope of the Cascades and eastern Ponderosa pine forests withdraw arrive in carbon dioxide and store it in timber, plants and soil. These forests absorb and store up to half of the emissions from Oregon's cars and power plants, according to a discretion by Oregon State University .

Now some in Congress and the administration are trying to find a way for the government to be paid for the use federal forests play the field pretend in pulling heat-trapping gasses like carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That might involve logging, thinning or no frigid at all. It matters here, however, because federal forests make up the majority of Oregon timberlands.

"No doubt, this is one way to bring biggish investment to the nation's forests," Tom Tidwell, the chief of the U.S. Forest Service said this month. "There are also some concerns and some questions."

Not least of which

Source: OregonLive.com