Reposted from UC Merced News

Yosemite Valley in the western Sierra Nevada Mountains.

What if nature were to become a polluter, discharging millions of tons of planet-warming carbon into the atmosphere in much the same way as diesel-fueled trucks or coal-fired power plants?

This nature-as-polluter scenario might seem far-fetched, but it's well on its way to becoming reality, according to a recent study co-authored by UC Merced 

Making estimates of the life cycle benefits of harvested sawlogs are now required as part of every timber harvest plan in California. While forest managers are intimately familiar with what happens in the forest and at the landing, we are dependent on others to synthesize current and historical data to come up with accurate estimates of the ‘carbon footprint’ of sawlogs after they have left our control. Unfortunately, a number of the common calculators used in California to estimate the life cycle benefits from sawlogs depend on historic and poorly documented estimates that significantly undercount the climate benefits of harvested products. This post highlights some noticeable differences between accounting systems...