What was once Helpful may now be Harmful

Source: Jeff and Annabel of Digging_for_Fire (Creative Commons License)

This news article comes from the Chicago Tribune and highlights the unfortunate turn of events affecting Canada's vast forests. Once touted as "carbon storage sink", our forests have in recent years experienced so much stress that it has caused them to begin to emit carbon rather than store it. This quote from the article sums it up well:

Earth's lungs have come down with emphysema. Canada's forests are no longer our friends.

It is unfortunate but environmentalists cite that logging should be cut back in order to stem any further carbon emissions (or worse, "carbon bombs"). Government scientists contradict this, stating that reducing logging would cause wood-dependent products to be constructed with the much more environmentally damaging production materials such as concrete, plastic or metals. Both parties have valid points however I would really like to look at what we can do to heal our forests. I hope to see a followup of this article soon, I'll try to keep everyone posted!