This barren field of stumps was a verdant forest before we changed the climate. How do we not make reversing it our top priority?

March 6, 2023 by Joshua
in Nature

My friend visited a place of his childhood near his grandmother’s home. Where once there was a forest, all remained were vast tracts of stumps. I could cry at these images.

The most recent damage came from beetles. Winter cold would limit their eating, but global warming prevented that cold, so they just kept eating. The fallen trees were hazards for fires and other problems, plus people could use the wood for fires, so the government cleared out all the fallen trees.

This once-forest is in Europe. My friend told me that another part of the problem was that long before global warming, this forest was old growth, which people centuries ago cut down. They replaced the once-diverse trees with one or two types of wood, making them less resilient to single pests like that beetle.

Many other once-resilient forests are prone to similar results. These results also reinforce how carbon offsets increase greenhouse emissions. It’s one thing to hear about these things elsewhere. How much closer to yourself do you need to see disaster? Do you realize that acting when it hits you is way too late? These scenes result from actions decades and centuries ago, so what you do today will keep affecting people for decades and centuries to come.

Stop polluting. It’s that easy. Yes, it is.

How do we not make reversing situations like this one our top priority?

How do we not make reducing our consumption and population birth rate our top priority, every one of us and all our institutions?

More pictures of the barren once-forested land.

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