Thread by @eleanormharris

I try to avoid the news (because I think too much), but the #ClimateEmergency #COP25 headlines yesterday gave me my first proper climate anxiety for years.

Time to get out my old apocalyptic #ClimateEmergency blogs from 2012? eleanormharris.co.uk/2012/07/26/put…

Or plant trees? [Thread]

I escaped apocalyptic anxiety because I found hope, a very down-to-earth practical hope. We can decarbonise the atmosphere, and decarbonise our economy, by growing trees. Yep commercial trees.

Commercial trees are specially-bred to soak carbon from the air at super-speeds, store it in wood products, and drive the four horsemen of the climate apocalypse from our lives: cement, iron, oil, illegal logging. bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…

But my climate anxiety is coming back now because of the breadth and depth of opposition to commercial forestry in our society, which prevents us deploying that solution.

Forestry’s ecology, silviculture and economics is invalidated in one phrase (‘barren monocultures for tax-breaks’), repeated by people who trust the authority of the person they heard it from, who trusts the… etc and do not consider it further.

But (do you trust me at all?) the phrase is wrong; you need to consider forestry further. The ecology, silviculture and economics of forestry is not just valid but sophisticated, and its #ClimateEmergency-battling power is astounding.

How do you find out? The next few tweets are my suggested reading. This presentation I recently gave to students is a good, short and pictorial introduction: confor.org.uk/media/247568/f…

Explore the publications page on the Confor website: we have lots of straightforward introductions to forestry policy, economics, carbon and silviculture: confor.org.uk/resources/publ…

Two long but well-written and essential reads are:

1) the UK Forestry Standard (which regulates all forestry activity) assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

2) Forestry Statistics (which describes all forestry activity) - I recommending downloading the pdf’s of individual chapters on this page: forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-reso…

I and my colleagues have written a lot of consultation responses for Confor recently. Dry in their presentation, but their content is rich in evidence on UK forestry and timber and how it works: confor.org.uk/resources/cons…

On biodiversity, there is no full literature review on this (because I’m writing it now, watch this space in the new year!), meanwhile check out these three papers: link.springer.com/article/10.100…, researchgate.net/publication/22…, sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Get your critical brain on; don’t trust my evidence except on its merits (I’m paid by the industry!); use what you read here as starting-points to google round the subject; ask me questions.

We are in a climate emergency: you know we need to think differently. What I say here is so different it’s heresy to many people. Open your minds, and have a think; and discuss it with your trusted colleagues.

And in #GE2019, there’s ONE issue to vote on, and it isn’t Brexit. I know which parties I think understand the climate solutions and take them seriously enough; and you need to decide the same. #ClimateEmergency #COP25 confor.org.uk/media/247586/c…

Maybe you could tweet this thread at your candidates, see what they think? Spread the heresy... like forest mychorriza... 🍄

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