EP 172 The Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest with Paul Koberstein

In this one, I talk to journalist Paul Koberstein, whose recent book, “Canopy of Titans,” explores one of the most overlooked ecosystems on Earth: the Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest. Stretching roughly 2,500 miles from just north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to the western Gulf of Alaska, it’s the largest temperate rainforest on the planet. Fueled by Pacific storms and cool ocean currents, it supports towering redwoods, Sitka spruce, western hemlock, and cedar — some of the largest and oldest trees in existence. Acre for acre, these forests store more carbon than tropical rainforests like the Amazon, with vast reserves locked in massive trunks, deep soils, roots, and centuries of accumulated woody debris. But even though it’s one of the most carbon-dense ecosystems we have, and a critical buffer against climate change, it remains largely overlooked in global climate conversations.

Paul pushes back on some of the most common narratives about forests and climate. He points to those industry ads that promise for every tree cut down, three more will be planted. It’s an argument that sounds reassuring until you realize a young sapling can take a century to store the amount of carbon held in the massive tree that was felled. Trees are about 50 percent carbon. Through photosynthesis they pull carbon dioxide out of the air, lock that carbon into their trunks and roots, and release the oxygen we breathe. Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest alone holds more total carbon than any national forest in the country. That scale of storage is central to Paul’s point: the science doesn’t say we’re powerless. It suggests that we can still influence the climate back toward something more stable. If fossil fuels loaded the atmosphere with excess carbon, then forests, if protected and restored, can help draw it back down. Forests have stabilized the climate for thousands and thousands of years. Whether they continue to do so depends largely on us letting them do their job.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the show.

(00:13):
In this one, I talk to journalist Paul Koberstein, whose recent book, Canopy of Titans, explores
one of the most overlooked ecosystems on Earth, the Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest.
Stretching roughly 2,500 miles from just north of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge to the

(00:36):
western Gulf of Alaska, it's the largest temperate forest on the planet.
Fueled by Pacific storms and cool ocean currents, it supports towering redwoods, Sitka spruce,
western hemlock, and cedar.
Some of the largest and oldest trees in existence.

(01:01):
Acre for acre, these forests store more carbon than tropical rainforests like the Amazon,
with vast reserves locked in massive trunks, deep soils, roots, and centuries of accumulated
woody debris.
But even though it's one of the most carbon-dense ecosystems we have, and a critical buffer

(01:25):
against climate change, it remains largely overlooked in global climate conversations.
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(01:48):
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(02:11):
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(02:41):
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(03:02):
Back to Paul Koberstein Paul pushes back on some of the most common
narratives about forests and climate.
He points to those industry ads that promise for every tree cut down, three more will be
planted.
It's an argument that sounds reassuring until you realize a young sapling can take

(03:24):
a century to store the amount of carbon held in the massive tree that was felled.
Trees are about 50% carbon.
Through photosynthesis, they pull carbon dioxide out of the air, lock that carbon into their
trunks and roots, and release the oxygen we breathe.

(03:46):
Southeast Alaska's Tongass National Forest alone holds more total carbon than any national
forest in the country.
That scale of storage is central to Paul's point.
The science doesn't say we're powerless.
It suggests that we can still influence the climate back towards something more stable.

(04:09):
If fossil fuels loaded the atmosphere with excess carbon, then forests, if protected
and restored, can help draw it back down.
Forests have stabilized the climate for thousands and thousands of years.
Whether they continue to do so depends largely on us letting them do their job.

(04:34):
So here he is, Paul Koperstein.
This red light right here, it means we're recording.
Okay, fire it up.
Crude conversations.
Listen more than you talk.

(04:56):
Go to work!
You've spent decades reporting on forests, pollution, and climate.
Were there any questions or unease that ultimately pushed you to write Canopy of Titans?
Well, that's been a long journey as far as I'm concerned.

(05:17):
I am, you know, 40 years of experience in journalism.
I worked for the Oregonian newspaper in Portland, Oregon in the 1980s.
In 1989, I got a call at home.
It was like Easter Sunday, Easter weekend.
That Saturday, I got a call from my editor at the Oregonian.
He said, you know, there's been an oil spill in Valdez, Alaska.

(05:38):
We'd like to send you up with a photographer to write about it.
Your plane leaves in four hours.
So I, oh my god, I had to tell my wife that I'm not going to be home for Easter.
There was all that to do about that.
But I got on the plane, made the flight, got to Alaska.

(06:00):
And sure enough, there was an oil spill.
Yeah.
What was it like reporting on the Exxon Valdez oil spill?
Yeah, you know, we arrived there that Saturday night.
And the next day, Sunday, we headed to the press center in downtown Valdez.

(06:21):
I think it was at the community center.
And we talked to a bunch of the people who were hanging out there, fishermen and so on.
And they said, well, if you want to know the story about what's going on with a fisherman,
you need to go to Cordova.
And I thought, where is Cordova?
It's that way.
How do I get there?

(06:42):
You have two options, boat or airplane.
And I think the boat would have taken a few days.
So we jumped on a plane, flew to Cordova.
I remember that night, we had dinner at the Reluctant Fisherman Inn.
And it was absolutely delicious.
So while we were there, there was a big windstorm that kicked up.
And the effects of that became apparent the next morning when we flew over

(07:08):
Bly Reef, which is where the oil spill occurred.
And we noticed on the way over from Valdez to Cordova,
the oil was pretty much contained around that spot.
But on our return trip to Valdez, the oil was all over Prince William Sound.
It was just an incredible sight.

(07:30):
So we landed in Valdez, went to the press center.
And I remember Frank Iavarone, who was the on-site commander for Exxon.
I think he was the CEO of Exxon at that time, ExxonMobil.
And he was holding a press conference.
You know, he had made a statement, said,
well, we've got this contained.
There's no problem.
We're on top of it.
And I had just flown over the oil spill.

(07:53):
I noticed that it had gone.
It was anything but contained.
And I said, well, excuse me.
I just flew over the oil spill, and it doesn't look anything like you just described.
And so from that point on, it was pretty much a dog and pony show that really made no sense.
But I spent a bunch of time in Prince William Sound.

(08:14):
I absolutely loved the place.
It's not oily.
And came back and covered the trial for the air gun and covered the trial of Joseph Hazelwood,
who was the skipper of the Exxon Valdez in Anchorage.
I remember staying in the Captain Cook Hotel for a week.
And so that was a lot of fun.
And I came back a couple of times after that just to inspect the report on the aftermath

(08:41):
a year later.
Several years later, I started a publication called Cascadia Times in Portland.
And I've been writing about natural resources issues in this region ever since for that
publication.
In 2018, I started working on a book, which is now Canopy of Titans.

(09:02):
And one of the chapters in our book talks about oil and forests.
So I kept coming full circle, and we talked about what I discovered.
Did reporting on that oil spill, the Exxon Valdez, teach you anything about reporting

(09:24):
on natural resources, pollution, or climate issues?
It did.
I was a kid reporter.
I was in my 20s at the time.
And I followed around this reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and I think his name
was Charles McQuay, who had figured out a way to cover the oil spill and to make it

(09:45):
personal and make it real.
He wrote a brilliant article about one of the sea otters that had been captured and
had been oiled up really bad.
And he wrote about its ordeal.
And I realized that covering an oil spill is not just about the oil.
It's about the people.
It's about the fishermen.
It's about the animals and the wildlife and how it's all affected.

(10:06):
And it really opened my eyes, and I learned a tremendous amount.
I'm really sad that it took an oil spill for me to come to that realization.
But seriously, it was a life experience worth remembering.
Mm-hmm.
And I became interested in the whole oil infrastructure in Alaska, from Prudhoe Bay

(10:29):
down the pipeline to Valdez and how that all works, and some of the adjacent areas, the
NPRA area, which is west of Prudhoe Bay.
Your audience probably knows this better than me.
And, of course, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is off to the east, and some
of the ocean platforms to the north of Prudhoe Bay.

(10:50):
So I got immersed in my reporting over the years in all of that oil infrastructure that
you have developed up in the area and the implications of what you're doing and how
that fits into the climate and to our energy supply and energy situation and how it all
fits together.

(11:11):
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so Canopy of Titans.
Yes.
In it, you write that part of your motivation was to see whether we can get back to the
old normal or if that's even possible.
At this point, do you think that old normal still exists, or are we already living inside

(11:35):
something fundamentally new?
You know, I don't think the science tells us that we can't get back to the old normal.
I think that, you know, the climate is something that can be affected by all kinds of things.
And one of the things, of course, we're doing, burning oil, burning fossil fuels, is pouring
carbon into the air that's changing things, causing the global climate to warm up.

(12:00):
If we remove the carbon from the air, which I'm not sure is totally practical, I think
we can do it by means that I described in the book, we can reverse that.
And, I mean, theoretically it's possible whether we will do it or not, that's another
question.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

(12:21):
But yeah, I do think we can get back to the old normal.
It will take some effort, for sure.
You also write in the book that forests were once seen as our last line of defense against
climate chaos, but are now becoming major sources of pollution because of fires, insect

(12:46):
infestation, and deforestation.
When did that shift happen?
And what does it tell us about the scale of the climate crisis we're facing?
I think that the shift was very gradual.
I think that there are many factors causing forests to lose their ability to sequester

(13:12):
carbon, which is what we're talking about, storing carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere.
What trees can do, you know, trees are 50% carbon, they do photosynthesis, they remove
carbon dioxide from the air, and they keep the carbon in their bones and spit out the
oxygen, which we breathe.

(13:33):
So forests are the last line of defense for protecting the climate.
Forests have been stabilizing the climate for thousands and thousands of years, and
they have been doing this ever since there have been trees.
And they can still do it today.
If we let them, we need to let them grow, forests need to grow to sequester more carbon.

(14:01):
And if we protect them, and certainly we need forests, we need forest products, I'm not
saying we need to stop cutting down trees, but if we protect the trees that store the
most carbon, which are the older trees, the bigger trees, then we can make a dent on global
warming.

(14:21):
And that's the point of the book.
You know, as I was reading the book, I kept thinking like, who is this book for?
You know, is it for a general audience?
Is it for people who work in climate sciences?
Is it for people who, you know, create policy?

(14:46):
Yeah, you know, when I was a kid, reporter back in the Argonian, and an editor, Bob Caldwell,
who told me once, he said, never underestimate the public's appetite for stories about their
forests.
And so I think that forests are appeal to everything, and I think that's what we need
to do to everyone.
So I thought, you know, a book about forests could also have that same kind of appeal.

(15:09):
And I wrote the book as a narrative, nonfiction.
So every chapter is a story about a person or a group of people who are doing something.
And then work in the science.
The science is the backbone of the book.
We have 300 footnotes from all kinds of scientific studies that we consulted, and it's based

(15:34):
on science.
It's based on not just rhetoric of, you know, opinion of environmentalists.
It's based on what the scientists are telling us.
The scientists are telling us that if we protect forests, we have a fighting chance to combat
global warming.
But the other point of that is, of course, you've heard that we need to stop burning

(15:57):
fossil fuels and convert to renewable energy, and everybody knows this.
But if that's all we do, if all we do is shut down the coal plants and stop driving
our gasoline cars and switch to electric vehicles and wind and solar, that still won't
be enough to rediverse global warming.

(16:19):
We need also to take care of another problem, which is, since mid-1700s, we've been dumping
lots of carbon into the air.
That's basically the beginning of the industrial revolution.
So there's about 300 gigatons, that's an enormous amount, 300 gigatons of carbon in

(16:40):
the air as a result of that.
The only way to get rid of that carbon, to keep it out of the air, that I know of, is
forests.
As I said, they absorb the carbon.
And the only way the forest can do that is we let them grow, and they'll do the job.

(17:02):
But we can't just rely on one strategy and not the other.
We have to do both, and that's the point of the book.
So if forests are the only system capable of pulling carbon from the air at the necessary
scale for mitigating climate change, does that make ongoing deforestation one of the

(17:24):
most consequential climate decisions humans are facing right now?
I think so.
I think that the deforestation, not just in the Amazon, we heard a lot about the Amazon,
but the forests on the Pacific coast of North America per acre store far more carbon than

(17:44):
the tropical rainforest.
So we need to protect the Amazon.
We need to protect forests in the tropics.
But we also need to protect forests in the temperate zone, outside of the tropics.
This forest is the largest temperate rainforest in the temperate zone in the world.

(18:04):
It has about three times as much carbon per acre as the Amazon.
And the point of the book is that this rainforest, which has the world's biggest trees and stores
the most carbon per acre, is a key component to any kind of plan to restore the climate.

(18:25):
Why do we hear so much more about protecting tropical rainforests than we do about protecting
temperate rainforests?
I think if you look back at the history of the international effort to restore the climate,
which is basically the international intergovernmental panel on climate change that the UN created

(18:49):
some decades ago, their emphasis has always been on the tropical rainforest.
And the experts I've talked to say, tell me that this is because the timber industry,
which has a very strong foothold in the northern hemisphere, would like nothing more than to
protect forests in the tropics and not have their own forests, their own timber supply chain,

(19:15):
affected by any plan to combat climate change.
So I think there's a certain element of intrigue that's involved there.
I could say more strongly, but I'll leave it at that.
The point is that the politics have been such that it's much easier to protect forests that

(19:38):
are far away than the ones that are here, close to home.
And the political power on this planet is in the northern hemisphere.
I think everybody should realize that.
So are you saying that by redirecting our attention to tropical rainforests,

(19:59):
it leaves these temperate rainforests open for logging and things like that?
Yeah, I think going back to the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, there was a decision made to focus on
the Amazon and tropical rainforests like that and not really think about temperate rainforests

(20:21):
and any temperate forests at all.
The supply chain of the timber industry is not affected if you protect the Amazon,
but if you protect this temperate rainforest here, it certainly is.
And there's also forests in the East Coast and the South and Europe that are also

(20:46):
part of that supply chain.
Yeah.
In the book, you say that the world's most carbon-dense forests aren't tropical.
They're along the Pacific coast of North America.
Why do you think that is so poorly understood?
And how has that misunderstanding shaped climate policy and conservation priorities?

(21:13):
Well, I will tell you that when I first started working on this book in 2018,
I did not know that.
I mean, I came to this really at a loss to really understand what's going on.
So one of the first things I learned was that there had been some recent research showing that

(21:34):
this temperate rainforest was, in fact, far more carbon-dense than the Amazon.
A paper by Dr. Beverly Lott, Oregon State University,
drove that point home for me, and it really resonated.
I also noticed at the time when I started working on the book in
2018 that no one else really knew that either.

(21:56):
The forest service, which is supposed to assess all the climate and environmental
impacts of its logging operations, did not analyze for the climate impacts of logging,
and that has since changed, although it's gone back to the way it used to be with Trump in charge.
But under Biden, there was definitely a push to recognize that trees and forests are part

(22:21):
of the climate solution.
This is new.
The whole area of science is evolving.
One other thing I want to mention is that you may have heard that
corporations, even the federal government, are investing billions of dollars
trying to find a technological solution to the climate.
They want to find a way to capture carbon and store it

(22:44):
underground or in some safe place away from the air.
They've been spending billions and billions of dollars in doing this, and the result is
they can capture something on the order of one-tenth of one percent of annual emissions
with their carbon capture technology.
It's not working.

(23:07):
That's why I say only forests can do the job at the scale and at an affordable cost.
Forests are sequestering carbon free of charge.
They wouldn't have to spend billions of dollars to figure out how to do it.
They do it already.
Mm-hmm.
This enormous forest that you talk about in the book, the Pacific temperate rainforest,

(23:33):
can you describe what that is just so listeners have an idea of what we're talking about here
and the scale?
Sure.
So we start the book at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
Let's say you're driving up north of San Francisco on Highway 99 or Highway 1.

(23:59):
Fifty miles north of the Bay Area, you come to the Russian River, which some scientists
say is the southern extent of this vast rainforest, which extends 2,500 miles north of that point
all the way into the Gulf of Alaska.

(24:19):
So it's enormous.
And it's the largest temperate rainforest in the world.
A temperate rainforest, as I said, is a temperate zone close to an ocean.
It gets lots of rain.
And this region gets a ton of rain.
And the other thing that we notice that when we're starting to write about this is, well,
what do we call it?

(24:39):
I mean, does it have a name?
We had not seen any name on the map that said this is the Pacific Coast temperate rainforest.
And we consulted some experts in geography, the author of an atlas at the University of
Oregon, and they couldn't help but say it had no name.

(25:00):
It had no name in the National Register of Geographical Names.
So there's a group of scientists that was calling it the Pacific Coast temperate rainforest.
We use that name in our book.
But that name is a little bit clunky.
It's awkward.
It doesn't really roll off the tongue.
It's not something you can put on a bumper sticker or a T-shirt, like save the Amazon.

(25:21):
I mean, you could notice that you save the Amazon.
It's an easy, rolls off the tongue.
But this rainforest has no name.
And one of the things that we write about in the book is that if it had a name, people
probably would do more to care about it and to try to protect it.
There's a group in the state of Washington that has just begun following our lead, actually,

(25:44):
to try to name it and to protect it as a single entity.
And we hope they're successful.
We hope they get a name.
Maybe someone in your audience will come up with a good suggestion.
But we're looking for one.
Because Alaska still contains vast stretches of relatively intact temperate rainforest,

(26:11):
I wonder if it represents one of our last real opportunities to protect carbon at scale.
And if it does, what are we at risk of repeating from the lower 48?
Yeah, you know, the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska stores more carbon in

(26:34):
total than any national forest in the United States, in large part because it's so big.
It's like 16 million acres.
But also because about 5 million acres of this is old growth that hasn't been logged
in roadless areas.
The rest of the 48 states have been really pretty well carved up.
The areas of this rainforest in Washington, the state of Washington, British Columbia,

(27:01):
Oregon, and Northern California, about 80% of that forest has been cut down and only
20% of the old growth is left.
The situation is completely the opposite in the Tongass.
And so protecting the Tongass has really got to be a high priority to stabilize the climate.

(27:23):
I don't think that Trump, the federal government, is really interested in doing that.
They just simply want to cut, cut, cut, build roads and cut more and more trees.
Big trees, trees that store carbon, old trees that store a lot of carbon.
They're growing still, and they're storing more and more carbon as they age.

(27:49):
So the opportunity in Alaska, in the Tongass, is there.
And it has been passed by elsewhere in the country, pretty much.
Mm-hmm.
I want to get back to the idea of naming this forest.

(28:10):
Do you think that that would make a difference?
Do you think that it would matter to conservation?
Well, let me ask you this question, Cody.
Do you have kids?
I have one, yeah.
So your kid probably, I'm sure, has a name.
Yeah.

(28:31):
I would say that we name our children, we name our favorite places, we name everything
so we can know and love them and protect them and cherish them.
It goes with the forest.
I think that people would rally behind this forest if it had a name.

(28:53):
They would recognize the name and perhaps stand up and be counted as one of its fans.
And I think that naming it is probably the most essential thing we can do right now,
other than protect it.

(29:15):
You know, there's a quote from the book.
There's an ancient Chinese saying that we caught in our book that says that the best
time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.
The next best time to plant a tree is today.
And we say that if you really want to time travel, the best time to plant a tree was

(29:39):
1,000 years ago.
And the best thing you can do today is protect a tree, is protect that tree.
A lot of people think that planting a tree is the way to sequester carbon.
It's the best way to sequester carbon.
It's not.
A little tree, a young tree is not going to hold any carbon.
A big tree, a big towering 300-foot giant that we have in this rainforest sequesters

(30:04):
an enormous amount of carbon.
And we have 67 million acres of trees that are like that.
You're going to have a huge carbon sink.
And we need to think about protecting this forest as a solution to the climate crisis.

(30:27):
How does industrial forestry actually destroy natural forests?
Not just by removing trees, but by simplifying ecosystems, degrading soils, releasing stored
carbon, and reducing long-term resilience.
You know, a forest doesn't store all of its carbon above the ground in the trees.

(30:51):
An old-growth forest stores over half in the branches and down logs and material on the
forest floor that's decaying, that's dead and decaying, but still stores carbon.
A log, a Douglas fir log that's fallen on the ground will store, if it's really big,

(31:11):
it'll store carbon for hundreds and hundreds of years.
And when you log that forest, typically they'll take out the stuff on the ground and burn
it, like pretty much immediately.
And that sends lots of carbon into the air.
So one of the reasons you want to protect the forest is not just to protect the trees

(31:34):
that are standing, but protect the carbon on the ground that's not standing.
One scientist I interviewed, Suzanne Simard at the University of British Columbia, said
that after two or three harvests, clear cuts, about 90% of the carbon in the soil on the

(31:55):
ground is gone.
And so, you know, there's more than one reason to protect the forest, not just for the trees,
but for all of the carbon.
And when we use the term natural forest, what does that mean?

(32:16):
Natural forest is a fairly loose term.
It usually means a forest that has not been logged, that has, you know, there might have
been a fire at some point in its past, and through natural regeneration, regrew.
A logged forest is not a natural forest.
A logged forest typically is a tree farm, a tree plantation owned by a private timber

(32:39):
company.
It's logged every 30 to 40 years, never has a chance to store much carbon at all.
You know, so that is the definition of a non-natural forest.
And a lot of people say that a tree farm isn't a forest at all.
It's a crop.
It's like corn.

(33:00):
Okay, yeah, that's interesting.
I've never thought about it like that.
But, you know, if you see like, you know, a Christmas tree farm, you know, you would
never consider that a forest.
I don't think I ever thought of a Christmas tree farm as a forest.
Well, it's just a bunch of trees growing and cut down at a very young age.

(33:21):
So, you know, no, that's not a forest.
That's a crop.
Yeah, definitely.
And people like their Christmas trees.
So it's not a bad thing.
It's just not a forest.
Neither is a row of corn, for that matter.
So what happens to these areas that have been logged over three times, you know, and they

(33:45):
aren't able to do what they're naturally there to do?
Yeah, you talk about cumulative impacts of repeated logging of a landscape, you know,
and it becomes not just carbon free or holds little carbon, but also it impacts the biodiversity.

(34:11):
And that is the other part of this equation that people really need to understand that
an old forest provides habitat for lots and lots and lots of species that don't do well
in a tree farm.
Mm hmm.
For example, in Southeast Alaska, we talked to the president of one of the native Alaska

(34:36):
native corporations, not corporations, but actual nations, I guess.
I have to be careful because different geographical areas use different terms for different things.
So, for example, in the lower 48, we call them Indian tribes.

(34:57):
In British Columbia, we call them First Nations.
And in Alaska, they're Alaska natives.
And people get pretty upset if we use the wrong nomenclature for what we're talking
about.
So I have to likewise be very careful.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Yeah, that's something in Alaska that we really do think about.
You know, throughout the lower 48, you go to a city and they say, you know, like Denver

(35:22):
native or, you know, Sacramento native or whatever.
And that seems that doesn't always jive with like the Alaska sensibility, because we would
never say if we were born and raised in Alaska, me, I'm a white man.
I would never say I'm Alaska native.

(35:43):
It wouldn't even cross my mind to say it or think it.
But I call myself a Portland native because I was born here.
Um, but, you know, there's a lot of sensitivity around this whole issue.
And part of it arises from the fact that we as white people basically stole this land
from native people and, you know, midnight, mid 1800s.

(36:04):
And they have not really been compensated at all, or fairly compensated even for the
land that was stolen from them.
So yeah, we need to be careful about how we talk about it and be respectful of, you
know, what, you know, what people, you know, call themselves, I guess, when referring to

(36:29):
their own culture.
But I was getting to a point, I interviewed this president of an Indian group on Prince
of Wales Island.
And by the way, Prince of Wales Island is an incredible spot.
Um, it's an island off of Ketchikan in South, pretty much extreme Southeast Alaska.

(36:52):
Um, we flew over there and did some flyovers of the forest there and looked at the, some
of the dying, um, Alaska yellow cedar that, um, is kind of scarring the landscape.
And we can talk about the yellow, yellow cedar, um, because it's, it's actually a victim of

(37:12):
climate change.
But, um, the, the tribal president told me that, uh, a plantation, um, which are being
planted or growing all over their native area and in place of natural forests are way too

(37:33):
thick for, for, um, species like that they rely on, like deer, deer to navigate through
and, um, barely really nothing grows under the, uh, under the canopy because the trees
are put together so densely.
And this is one of the arguments for, um, protecting natural forest that there's more,

(37:54):
more food in there, more, more wildlife that enters and thrives in there.
And then it has an effect on the native subsistence population.
Mm-hmm.
You said the yellow cedar is a victim of climate change.
Can you talk a bit about that?

(38:15):
Yeah, we're, we're not getting too deep into the science.
I'm, I'll give it a shot.
Um, so the yellow cedar, uh, evolved with, you know, in, in Alaska, uh, very cold, cold
climate.
The winters were very snowy.
They are used to heavy snowfall around its, its stem.
But with global warming, the, the snows aren't as deep and as the insulation isn't as effective

(38:41):
and their roots in these yellow cedars are, are dying because they didn't, and winter
because they can't get enough heat to survive.
Um, so global warming is having an effect on these yellow cedar forests.
Yellow cedar is an incredibly beautiful tree.

(39:01):
Um, we looked at a stand of, a very close look at a stand of yellow tree, yellow cedar
on Princeville I-9 and it was incredible.
Um, the other thing that's happened there is that there's a lot of logging of yellow
cedar and the loggers are very selective of what, what trees they take to the mill.

(39:23):
We'll cut down the entire forest and only take about 30% of, uh, of the trees to the
mill.
Maybe the other 70% to, to rot in the sun and, uh, um, and to decompose and go back
into the air.
Um, so yellow cedar is, is a very interesting, um, tree because it was useless, uh, in musical

(39:49):
instruments.
There's a mill in, in, uh, Craig, Alaska that, um, that makes an incredible musical
instruments or mills the wood for instruments and, uh, uh, they can't get enough of what
they need.
And, and yet all this yellow cedar is being left on the ground.

(40:12):
It just doesn't make any sense to me, but that's kind of an aside.
Um, one of the things that struck me, um, and that's the thing that struck me when we
did a flyover of Prince Wales Island, there's a dock behind this mill and in Clay Walk,
which is north of Craig on the west side of the island.

(40:34):
And there's a big barge that was docked there.
And they, a bunch of log trucks had come and dumped off their load on the, on the shore
and logs were being loaded down to the dock.
And as we flew over the, uh, over the, the dock, um, we could see this happening.
And we, um, on the internet, we checked to see what was going on with this, the ship

(40:59):
about four weeks later, it arrived at a port in China.
So all these old growth logs were being exported, um, from Alaska to China, which
we thought was just absolutely crazy.
How often were you able to see with your own eyes,

(41:25):
you know, some of these issues that you talk about in the book?
We went to all over the, all over this region.
We made a couple of trips to Alaska, to Southeast Alaska, flew to Juneau and took a
ferry boat from Juneau to Sitka up, um, the Peril Strait, which is a pretty incredible

(41:50):
little stretch of water that is, um, I guess, northeast of Sitka.
We also did our trip to, um, Prince Edward Whales Island and, uh, in Kachkan.
But we also traveled to the Olympic Peninsula, the Redwood Forest.
We wanted to go to British Columbia, but our trip was scheduled in like April of 2020,

(42:15):
which is pretty much the, uh, the, uh, apex of the COVID pandemic.
And the entire country was closed.
We couldn't even swim there.
It was, it was ridiculous.
What we did was we had contacts, uh, in British Columbia, people who were taking drone videos.

(42:36):
So we could see via these videos what was happening and probably got a better look at
what was going on there than if we'd actually seen, seen the, the activities with our own eyes.
And we could see that there's one, there's one forest, uh, that was being, um, subject

(42:56):
of considerable controversy called Ferry Creek, which is on the west side of Vancouver Island,
north of Victoria, uh, a watershed that is intact, had not been logged at all.
And a timber company wanted to come in and cut it all down.
And, uh, there's about a thousand arrests of people who, um, wanted to, to make sure

(43:18):
that did not happen.
And, and, uh, here we are five years later and it still hasn't been cut.
So, um, hopefully it won't.
How long does it take for a newly planted forest to start mitigating climate change?
Yeah, that's, that is a good question.
And, and the timber industry would tell you one thing and, uh, the science tells you something

(43:45):
completely different.
So there's an, uh, been a, a television ad campaign that the timber industry through
the timber industry through the, in Washington, Washington and Seattle and Portland TV stations
that show, uh, a group of kids walking through a forest.
And the narrator says that these trees will be cut down.

(44:06):
And, but for every tree that's cut down, we plant three new ones.
And they talk about, uh, the climate benefits of that, um, which is basically just bull.
Really?
A young tree will take a century to really store much carbon.
A hundred years.

(44:28):
I mean, after a hundred, you'll, yeah.
Um, it'll take this, this, the little trees, a hundred years to store as much carbon as,
as in that big tree that was cut down.
Okay.
Young trees just don't, they're, you know, they're small, they, they grow fast, but they,
um, they don't store much carbon until they get much bigger.
Um, some scientists have said that, uh, a forest when it's newly planted in a crop

(44:55):
will take 30 years to even break.
Even, you know, during the first 30 years, it'll be a net carbon polluter.
And, uh, after that, it gradually gets to be, you know, a, a, have a benefit to the climate
and all growth for us, of course, is ideal, which are trees that are over 175 years old

(45:16):
in most places.
Um, they grow up until, you know, first three or four or five or 600 years, they grow up pretty
fast.
Um, after that, they slow down and, uh, they still store carbon.
Um, but their main duty is to, to sequester carbon, not to, to add any more.

(45:38):
The timber industry likes to say, well, those old trees are old and decadent, need to be
removed and replaced with new ones.
Uh, they don't acknowledge the science that says that's completely bunk.
An old tree stores more carbon and it can't be replaced by anything that, uh, within, you

(45:59):
know, centuries.
I wonder what you would say to somebody who said something along the lines of
okay, what happens if we stop cutting down trees?

(46:20):
You know, we stop, um, using all that timber for everything we need it for.
What do we do then?
You know, do we just not have those products anymore?
Do we not build those things?
Do we not, you know, have those structures?
Yeah, I want to be clear.

(46:41):
I'm not saying we should not cut down any trees.
Let's just not cut down the trees that do the most for the climate.
Um, you know, the timber industry will tell you that it's better to store carbon in lumber
and plywood than in a forest.
And that's, that's absolutely not true.
But realistically, we'll, we need timber, timber products.

(47:05):
We need, um, you know, timber, trees give us, um, homes, they provide medicine and food
and all the things that they, that we need.
We need to, you know, balance that with, you know, the competing demands of the forest
for climate and biodiversity and actually drinking water.

(47:26):
A forest will provide all those things, but a piece of lumber doesn't.
And, uh, so I guess my, my, my, my spiel is that we can cut down some trees.
We can cut down the ones that are growing in tree farms.
That's fine, but protect the mature, the, the trees that are a hundred years older,

(47:49):
older, the annual growth, protect those trees and, uh, um, and then stop burning fossil
fuels, which I imagine it's not a message that many people in your audience will adhere
to, but that's what the science is telling us.
And what does that look like to stop burning fossil fuels?

(48:14):
Well, I, you know, obviously we need to replace the energy, um, in fossil fuels with something.
Um, solar is, is probably the best in terms of the cost and the availability.
Um, wind is an option and highly controversial option as well.
Um, there's a new book by Bill McKibben about, um, solar, um, I think it's called

(48:41):
Here Comes the Sun named after a Beatles song from way back in the sixties.
Um, and I, I think that, uh, solar is, has really the most promising in terms of the
cost and the availability of any of the renewable, um, sources of energy.
One source of energy that is allegedly renewable is called bioenergy, biomass or like, sorry,

(49:10):
um, a number of companies are, are, are cutting down trees and making wood pellets out of
them that are then burned and in power plants in place of coal.
That source of energy is not, is not renewable.
Um, studies show that burning wood pellets for energy produces between 20% and four times as

(49:33):
much carbon as a coal plant.
So if, if it makes the problem worse, I'm not sure how it can be a solution.
And yet, um, a number of countries in Europe and in Asia have been subsidizing this industry
with the belief that it does help solve the climate crisis.

(49:54):
Um, a lot of, a lot of these same countries have backed off and ended those subsidies.
And as a result, the wood pellet industry in the United States is basically collapsing.
So, um, so no, it's not a solution.
People say it is, but it's not.
Of all the climate mitigation strategies being discussed today, which do you think

(50:16):
holds the most promise and which ones worry you the most?
Well, I, I worry the most about ideas, proposals, projects, where a lot of money is being
invested in and taxpayers subsidies are, are diverted into that don't solve the problem.

(50:41):
And, uh, and, you know, and would continue to make it worse.
In fact, um, when we talk about climate capture technologies, they just simply are not to
the point where they are actually even making a dent.
So that those, those ideas worry me because it takes money away from, from things that

(51:02):
could actually help, um, to, to do things that make it worse.
Um, I think if we focus on solar, solar power, um, we would make a lot of, a lot of progress.
And, uh, I do recommend Bill McKinnon's book to, to, to really hit that idea hard because

(51:24):
I think, uh, it's getting ignored.
What about places like Alaska where in the summer, you know, there's a lot of sunlight.
There's a lot of solar, but in the winter time, not so much.
Yeah, I guess that, that is, that is an issue.
And, um, it gets onto, it gets to the, uh, idea of transmission of energy from one place

(51:53):
to another.
Um, and I'd imagine that there are some places on earth that are not practical, practical
for renewable sources like solar or wind.
Um, and you have to deal with that.
It's, it's obvious that's an issue.
Um, but, uh, the lack of transmission lines is a big issue as well.

(52:15):
And it's not just Alaska.
It's pretty much getting it from anywhere where the sun, to anywhere where it's not,
and then when the sun is not shining at night or, you know, or, uh, in other climates.

(52:35):
I, I just want to say that I'm not the expert on solar, um, and all renewable energy.
Uh, I refer people to McKibbin and others who have studied this issue more extensively than I have.
Given everything, you know, from forest ecology to global policy,

(53:00):
what do you think is the most likely outcome of climate change mitigation?
Maybe not the best case scenario, but the most realistic one.
Um, I think this is, this is a long-term problem and it's going to be a solution that,
you know, we've settled on after decades of trying to figure out what to do and being

(53:23):
actually reminded that inaction is, is harming people and, uh, and for society to function.
We, I don't think we can continue to have our temperatures continue to rise like they have been.
Um, so I think that, uh, the realization, it's like the, it's like the frog in the

(53:45):
pot of boiling water, right? So at some point we're going to realize that it is time to get
out of the water and do something about the problem in the same sense that, uh, you know,
humanity is going to have to realize that, is going to realize that at some point,
maybe not anytime soon, but at some point, you know, we're gonna have to change how we do

(54:09):
how to, how we, how we produce power, how we can outrun our lives. And,
and what we're doing now is, is, is going to, you know, we're, we're, we're the frog.
In my experience, people like yourself, uh, journalists, um, I could also include artists,

(54:33):
scientists, you know, fill in the blank, get into this type of work, dedicate themselves to
understanding and conveying climate change issues. For example,
they get into this work for a reason. You know, I wonder what your reason is.

(54:54):
Well, I, I can talk about my own personal background. Uh, so when I was, when I was a kid,
I just absolutely love camping and love the forest. And I remember one time our family did
a camping trip to a place called Brighton Bush, which is a, a old growth forest east of Salem in
Oregon. And I remember falling into what the, the Brighton Bush river, which is a, basically a fast

(55:22):
moving Creek. And my father grabbing me by the ankle and rescuing me and pulling me out. Um,
that was a fairly, um, traumatic experience, but, um, I have ever since then just been enthralled
with forest. And so when I got a job at a newspaper, one of the things I wanted to do was

(55:44):
find a way to get under the environment and I was able to wrangle that. And, uh,
I haven't looked back. It's been 40 years of covering it, covering for us in the,
in the environment, um, as a reporter, as a journalist, rather than as an activist. And,
uh, you know, it's, it's been, it's been a good, it's been a good life, good career.

(56:09):
You know, I'm thinking about that situation with you falling into
the, uh, the water and your dad grabbing you by the ankle. Um, but I would, I would guess,
I would assume that there's gotta be more to your forest experience than just that,

(56:30):
just a near death experience where your dad, you know, saved his son.
Yeah. Over the years we would travel to, you know, all around Oregon and Washington
and, and Western United States. And we would go through areas that had been clear cut
and replanted. And, uh, there'd be a sign that said replanted in whatever 1979 or whatever.

(56:55):
And, uh, you know, and you realize that this was a forest at one time that has now been reduced to
something that doesn't look like anything like a forest. And, uh, you know, as a young kid growing
up, you'd see these signs and travel through these areas and, and just feel a sense of sadness

(57:16):
that this has happened. And, you know, it's, it's devastation. And, uh, I guess when you're a kid,
you don't realize that there's been a lot of timber jobs that were associated with those
clear cuts. And, and of course there's a lot of need for the, for the wood products that
came out of that. But, um, in my way of thinking, uh, loving the forest, loving the beauty of a,

(57:41):
of a dark green forest with a, with a stream running through it compared with a tree farm,
with the stream might be full of silt or whatever, just not there anymore.
It's a real deep sense of loss.

(58:03):
When you think about your childhood or your youth and you're in the forest,
you know, do any memories come to mind? Is there any thing you find yourself going back to as, um,
maybe your inspiration or your motivation to continue on this beat, you know, on reporting on

(58:31):
climate change? Um, you know, part of me is, uh, of course the level of loving forest, but also,
um, loving science. I, uh, went to the University of Oregon. I started out as a math major and took
math and physics and, and, uh, really dense in scientific topics. Um, after about two terms,

(58:56):
I realized that this was not for me, but I, I went into journalism school, but I retained
that interest in science. And so when became a, an environmental reporter, I had this background of,
of an understanding of the scientific discipline. Um, maybe not as a, as a file biologist or

(59:18):
ecologist, but, uh, but just understanding the, the way a scientific mind works, the way
scientific evidence is, is presented and proven and really having a deep appreciation for,
for, um, for facts and, uh, scientists and journalists have that in common. We, we love

(59:39):
facts and, uh, you know, um, there's a lot of rhetoric going around, a lot of poems being
written about trees and forest and so on. And that's not me, but I, I do like the, like the,
the truth, the truth, the facts that the, uh, the scientific conditions that we, that we write about.

(01:00:03):
As I was reading this book, there were a number of times where, uh, I turned to my wife and I was
like, did you know this? Like, did you, did you know about this? And one of those moments
was about redwoods and how they can survive intense fires because of their thick bark,

(01:00:24):
you know, lack, lack of flammable resins and their ability to resprout.
What does that resilience tell us about how fire has historically functioned in these forests?
I mean, our, our book does not really focus too much on fire and, uh,
uh, there will probably be a sequel that does that we're working on, but, um,

(01:00:49):
you know, trees need fire. Trees evolve with fire, especially in this part of the world.
Some species of trees, the conifers, the, the redwoods, the sequoia, the Douglas fir,
the Douglas fir, they need fire to help, um, this, the seeds to, to germinate. And, uh, um,

(01:01:11):
so there's a, there's a need for fire. There's been, of course, a policy from the foresters to,
to put out every fire, uh, as soon as they can. It's been going on for hundreds of years.
And as a result, um, these forests have not had the fire that they've evolved with. And, uh,
that's a problem. We, the problem is that we, I mean, people complain about fire and they,

(01:01:35):
and they're, and they're scary. I mean, they, they cause damage. They,
they take lives and, uh, and they need to be taken seriously. But by the same token,
these forests need fire. And there's many times, not enough fire, not too much fire. There's not
enough. Um, people also say that, well, you know, forest, forest that burns is going to

(01:02:00):
release all of its carbon into the air. And eventually it will, but immediately during the
fire, you know, during that event, a forest will probably lose two to 5% of the carbon. Um,
rest of it is, you know, trees, the trees don't burn thoroughly. They don't crumble completely

(01:02:21):
into ash. Um, the outside of a tree will burn, will turn to ash, but inside the tree, there's a
lot of really dense hardwood that still remains. And, uh, so far as they're not as bad for the
climate as some people think. Um, and that's one of the things we learned from this book is that,

(01:02:44):
um, in researching the book is that we need fire. We're not, we're not denigrating fire at all. And
even though they're scary and, you know, we need to be aware, but we also need to have fire in
these forests for them to survive, for them to thrive. If Redwoods evolved to endure fire,

(01:03:08):
how does today's hotter, more frequent human driven fire cycle challenge these
fire adapted forests? Well, you know, the federal government has a program to thin the forest to
the way they think will, will reduce fire severity, stop the threat and stop the spread

(01:03:34):
and protect communities. And, uh, uh, the research I'm looking at shows that, uh, thinning, uh, a
forest will not protect property, will not, will not save life, will not protect communities. Um,
it's a very misguided policy. Um, people think that if you reduce the fuel in the forest,

(01:04:01):
it'll burn, uh, less hot. The problem with forest fires is that they are spread not by fuel,
but by wind. The, the most dangerous fires are the, and the ones that do the most damage. Almost
all the damage is being done by wind driven fires. Some of these fires are driven by winds that go,
uh, at gusts of 50, 60, 70 miles per hour, uh, consistently. And the, there's one fire that,

(01:04:28):
uh, that's reading it in one day,
about 70 football fields of forest burned per hour. Very fast moving and
no amount of thinning for us can stop that kind of a fire.

(01:04:49):
Mm-hmm. At what point does fire shift from being a natural,
necessary part of a forest life cycle to something destabilizing and destructive? And
I think you touched on it with wind and with the climate change.

(01:05:11):
Yeah. Climate change dries out the forest, you know, it causes drought and
in some cases it also increases the wind. But wind is, is the, is the primary factor.
You know, if you could stop the wind with a chainsaw, you would do it, but you can't.
You can't stop the wind by cutting down a forest. I mean, a, a wind driven forest will,

(01:05:33):
will leak canyons and, and freeways and rivers and, you know, parking lots and whatever else
is in its way. There's one fire that I was looking at a study that showed that the flames of the
fire were four miles from the town of Paradise when the town began to burn. What happened was

(01:05:55):
the, what they call firebrands or embers blown by the wind, traveled that far and then landed
on rooftops and the town went up in flames almost immediately. So again, the threat,
the chief threat with fire is wind. And, and the, the ability of wind to, to pick up these

(01:06:19):
burning embers and, and, and scatter them across the countryside recklessly.
When future generations look back, what do you think they'll judge us most harshly for
getting wrong about forests and climate?

(01:06:40):
Well, I think that they will not be too happy if they, if they come into a world that doesn't have
any trees, doesn't have any forests. So we, we, you know, obviously they'll be very unhappy if
the climate is completely unlivable. So we need to, we need to protect forests. We also need to,
to ensure that the climate is, is not going to do us in. And with protecting forest, we can do both,

(01:07:06):
right? We can have our forests and a climate that's livable. And that's the point of the book,
that, you know, forests have to be part of that equation.

(01:07:29):
Well, Paul, those are all the questions I have for you. I want to thank you for your time
and for your thoughtful, thorough reporting on forests and climate change.
Well, I hope you can clean up some of my rambling and, and, and pauses and, you know,

(01:07:52):
losing my, losing my place, losing my way through your excellent questions, but it's
been a real pleasure. I guess we've been at it for like an hour. Wow. It went fast. It always does.

(01:08:15):
You can support this podcast at patreon.com crude magazine. You can also support this podcast
with a one-time payment at buymeacoffee.com crude magazine.
Crude Conversations is written, hosted, and produced by me, Cody Liska for Crude Magazine.

(01:08:40):
Music was produced by Elkota Beats.
Thank you.