logging is a form of agriculture. the only difference between a tree farmer and any other farmer is that the tree farmer only has a chance to harvest his fields once or twice in his life. why dont you hippie jerks go sit in a wheat field?
"logging destroys the whole ecosystem!"
i'd say its no worse than mowing your lawn. your lawn has a god damn ecosystem too. and im sure it had a much different one before someone went and put a house there.

now just look around you and see how many dead trees are around. do you use paper? do you have wooden furniture? you're probably sitting on a dead tree right now. i know i am. I bet you even live in a house made out of poor dead trees. if you hate logging so much, why dont you try living without wood products? it wouldn't be easy thats for sure.

That's a good point of view but an uneducated description of the subject. Logging is a million times removed from any other type of agriculture. There is no compairison other than at the most general level.

A logger will be able to harvest his crop once in his life and if he lives long enough he might just see the second crop taken off the same block, but that is very very unlikely.

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Originally posted by MrOblivious:
if you hate logging so much, why dont you try living without wood products?

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Before you lash out at a particular group of people, you should educate yourself on why they take the actions that they do. When it comes to logging, most activists understand the necessity of cutting down trees. Although there are also reasons to oppose it. Some of the reasons to oppose logging in a certain area:

-The cutting of trees in a area may do damage to the local ecosystem.

-Unnecessary urban sprawl.

-Opposition to bio-engineered trees.

There are other reasons in which activists may oppose the logging of trees. The point is, the stereotypical view of people chaining themselves to trees just to save the tree from being harvested is foolish.

ok, ok. but don't you think people who own forest land have the right to use it as they please? don't tell me i'm uneducated, i lived on a tree farm for over 13 years. how is logging a million times different than any other form of agriculture? a wheat field would have a largely diverse ecosystem if it was harvested only every 40 or 50 years.

MrOblivious, your post has really opened a can of worms for me. I totally understand the frustration that's evident in your point of view- as would anyone else who has been stigmatized and smeared by the hypocracy, vicious rhetoric, and deliberate malice of the fascists who call themselves environmentalists. No one who hasn't been through it can imagine what it's like to be helplessly subjected to a massive, premeditated effort dedicated to denouncing their employment, slandering their character, and destroying their way of life; and all of it conceived and carried out for no better reason than paying the overhead of it's architects. I loathe and despise environmentalists; they deserve nothing but contempt.
My bias might be absolute, but I still try to be objective. I am not talking about moderates here- people who think that encouraging good stewardship of the planet is necessary and noble. By that definition I am one of them. But they had better find a new name to describe their values, because 'environmentalist' has been permanently corrupted to mean the extremists who hide their true agenda of seeking personal power and influence behind the shiny ideal of saving Mother Nature. They wanted the name for it's propaganda value, and they appropriated it for their own use; now let it be used to describe them for what they really are- masters of self-serving deceit; stone cold schemers who, despite their sanctimonious claims, see the reform of resource industry practices as a devastating failure. They know full well that the day industries begin acting responsibly and to people's satisfaction is the day opposing them becomes redundant, and it will cost the environmentalists both the ability and the means to ripe-suck donations out of well-intentioned people in the name of poor old Planet Earth. Self-preservation is what motivates them to take increasingly antagonistic positions that are carefully manipulated to destroy any possibility of consensus, cooperation, or a lasting solution. And self-preservation is their justification for using degenerate tactics like personal attacks, suppression of information, doctored photos, misleading statements and publicity stunt demonstrations. In the case of forestry their campaigns are largely waged in Europe, as far from the actual scene as possible to give them control of the facts and nullify any opposition, and because they know local populations are too close to the truth to accept their bullshit tales of horror in the woods. Consumers of wood products overseas are exposed to a constant barrage of carefully selected information and images detailing only the most irresponsible logging practices, accompanied by emotional pleas for donations to help save the mighty trees. They even stoop to shipping idealistic European students over to forestry reliant regions to conduct 'spontaneous' protest demonstrations that begin when the T.V. cameras arrive and fade out when they leave.
Nobody will ever convince me that forestry hasn't been conducted poorly in the past, or that it can't be improved in the future. I understand the wisdom of questioning efforts to trade a natural bounty for profit. But the idea that people would lie and cheat and characterize those efforts as evil- for profit- makes me sick.
Oh yeah, MrOblivious, I know where you're coming from. I have marvelled at the hypocrisy of an environmentalist who droned out a mantra describing the sin of forestry while recording my vehicle plate number on a piece of kraft paper held to a wooden clipboard, using a wooden pencil. I have seen them mewling about the immorality of lumber production while sitting on wooden chairs at a wooden table, in a wood-frame building. And I choked on my disgust at seeing a fool whose head they'd stuffed with lies screaming "tree killer" at a man whose face was permanently scarred with wounds suffered fighting a forest fire to save....trees.
The world is full of the cynically self-righteous and the people they prey on, and exposure to environmentalists gave me some insight into their abilities and willingness to use others for their own purposes. I could wish that they hadn't chosen the effort to clean up humanity's act to corrupt, but that wouldn't change anything.
The activities I witnessed took place in an area where the truth was right before their eyes, which means that honesty is not something they take very seriously. My advice is to just see them for what they are and try to avoid thinking that those whose efforts are sincere deserve the same contempt. One day those same people might realize that a good way to clean up the environment would be to dispose of environmentalists.

forget logging, and say goodbye to treehuggers. four times as much paper can be harvested from an acre of hemp as from an acre of trees, and hemp regrows every year. it also takes fewer chemicals to process hemp paper. a substance similar to wood can also be made from hemp that is sturdier and longer lasting than regular wood. now if only the us government would stop feeding the market to the logging industry and would finally throw jeb bush into a pit of boiling tar we could legalize industrial hemp growing and get rid of tree huggers while simeltaneously obviating continued deforestation.

If you love the tree so damn much, you and your tree huggers should throw down together, start a land buying corporation, and buy a shitload of forestland and protect it all you want.

Then in 20-30 yrs. when the land is/shares are worth 10+ times as much as you paid and you don't care anymore, you can sell it at an engrossing profit.

[This message has been edited by buttthrax (edited 01-26-2003).]

Cutting down trees is ok if its from a plantation, but if its native forrest or bushland then it should be left alone. In Australia huge ammounts of land have been cleared, mostly for cattle grazing and wood, and this has had devastating effects on the environment including the extinction of many native species. Native trees are also drought resistant and when they're cut down the land can turn to dust and is unusable for generations. Salinity is also a major problem and farmers have recently had to start planting rows of trees on their properties to help the situation.

yes, plantations. this is what i'm talking about. i've probably planted more trees in a day than most psychotic environmentalists plant in their entire lives. i suppose it doesn't really count though if they're all just going to be killed later. who needs a damn ecosystem anyway?

Yo buttcrax, actually that is happening now. There is a little group called the Nature Conservancy, which buys up wetlands and so forth from private owners and places them in trust so they will not be despoiled. One of their first thingies was Hawk Mountain, now a raptor preserve. The Lenape considered it to be a sacred site since many of the migrating raptors on the east coast flew over it. It's a great place to camp.

dude its not about not cutting down trees, its about renewable and recognition of reserve lands.
i think you missed the point dumbass.

Tree fuckers are even worse

Renewability-yes!

Note to totse users:the less said, the better: ironically you'll be read more.

I read only short, poetic posts.

Let's strike a balance between destroying our planet too much and satisfying our Enlightment belief in progress.

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Originally posted by ArmsMerchant:
Yo buttcrax, actually that is happening now. There is a little group called the Nature Conservancy, which buys up wetlands and so forth from private owners and places them in trust so they will not be despoiled. One of their first thingies was Hawk Mountain, now a raptor preserve. The Lenape considered it to be a sacred site since many of the migrating raptors on the east coast flew over it. It's a great place to camp.

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I know. I was being serious.