Greenpeace is calling for a restriction to be placed on Canada’s logging business immediately after a recent report from the University of Toronto. The report finds that cutting down the trees that have drawn large amounts of carbon out of the air will release a “carbon bomb” and potentially speed up the effects of global warming. While the trees are drawing carbon out of the air, the forests are known as “carbon sinks”, but when they begin to be destroyed for logging, large amounts of carbon (on par with burning fossil fuels) are being released, and the forests then become a “carbon source”.
Much of the carbon release comes from the soil that is upturned by machinery during the logging process, and the speed at which the carbon is released once the logging begins is cause for concern. However, according to Greenpeace officials, Canada’s boreal forest can still be preserved, and we can avoid destroying any more of our natural resources if we increase awareness about the issue.
Although the Canadian Forest Products Association claims that the process of logging will become carbon neutral by 2015, Greenpeace is skeptical that this is even possible, and that effects of the process might not be measured until years after the logging is completed.To find out more about this issue, or to help protect Canada’s forests, visit Greenpeace today.
