Mr. Bill,
You made my point exactly. Considering that there is much that we do not know it is a bit presumptuous for either side in this debate to be making broad, sweeping statements.
Personally, I get more upset about the disappearance of the Southern Hardwood Forest in my home state of Arkansas. The state legislature has been in the hip pocket of the timber industry for more than 100 years. As a result there is almost no regulation of their timber cutting practices. After decades of cutting mature hardwood, spraying poison on the saplings, and then replacing the cut timber with pine, the southern half of the state has become a virtual pine plantation.
Mature stands of hardwood exist now almost exclusively on private lands. The timber companies are now paying local land-owners for the right to harvest these remnants.
People have to have timber for their homes and I do not wish to deprive timber employees of their jobs. They are, after all, only supplying a need. But pine is a second-rate building material at best, which means that the homes built with it will not last as long as those built with hardwood. The replacement of hardwood with pine creates a future market for the industry, which appears to have little concern for the environment.
It is a tragedy of the first magnitude. If you have never stood in one of those forests on a frosty morning late in October, with the sun on the edge of the horizon casting its pale light on the brilliant yellows and golds and reds of hickory and oak and beech, then you have not lived a full life.
Prosperity should not come at such a price.
Regards, Shuckins
