Forest Management Solutions for Mitigating Climate Change in the United States

Unique among all possible options for mitigating climate change, forests and forestry can both prevent and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and simultaneously provide essential environmental, social, and economic benefits-from clean water and wildlife habitat to outdoor recreation and forest products. This book lays out the possibilities: using energy from wood biomass and mill residuals instead of fossil fuels; substituting wood products for fossil fuel-intensive steel, concrete, brick, and aluminum building components; adjusting forest management practices to capture additional atmospheric carbon dioxide; retaining forest cover and its potential to mitigate climate change; capturing and storing atmospheric carbon in forest carbon "pools" and long-lived wood products; and developing markets for carbon trading and creating market-based incentives for forestry projects that offset emissions from industrial and other polluters. The technology exists now to conserve and manage forests both to prevent emissions and to reduce the carbon already in the atmosphere. Many of the other solutions to climate change are not ready for large-scale deployment, but managed forests provide solutions that can be adopted quickly and begin preventing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions today. Immediacy is critical: The forces of climate change are already at work. The forestry solution can and must be implemented now.