A long time ago, when I was a college student in Eugene, Oregon, I was a choker setter for a summer for a local logging company.

Clearcutting puts skilled loggers out of work.

I heard you comment that “Americans still want wood”, suggesting the justification of continuing this culture’s dependence on wood. There are myriad alternatives, including reusing and recycling wood. The attitude seems to be similar to, well children want candy, so give it to them, as much as they want!
In the hour when the greater ecological health is in dire risk, we should be planting trees, not cutting them.

Make that, planting trees in an unprecedented way all over the planet. This is what humans can do immediately, and should, to naturally counteract all their collective destructive tendencies.

Tanya, et al: Big clearcutters plant trees, it’s not tree planting that’s the issue, it’s what large clear cuts do to their local ecosystems.

I worked for a large cable logging outfit for a number of summers but I also worked for the Hodads harvesting cones and planting seedlings.

RIchard, I used the word ecosystems. When ecosystems are destroyed by loggers, road builders and house/office/government/commercial builders, we all suffer.
The lack of awareness with regard to this destruction is mindboggling. We have to change these behaviors immediately.

I’d like to know whether this book addresses the way logging can affect Native American communities? Several years ago I spent some time at an Ojibwe reservation in Canada which was located near a forest where the local logging company was engaged in clear cutting. This greatly reduced the Ojibwe’s access to hunting, fishing, and medicinal plants. It was also an affront to their culture and spiritual beliefs. They were so angry with the logging company that they organized a nonviolent blockade to stop clear-cutting near their land.

Tanya: “I used the word ecosystems”

Really? Where?

The idea here is to step back and not paint all logging operations as evil. There are ways to harvest trees and replant them that work long term.

I wonder if you’ve considered how the manufacture of the microprocessor powering the computer you’re using to read here impacts the environment.

There are lots of areas that need rethinking but the kind of logging that this show is about is not one of them.

How has the increase in paper and cardboard recycling impacted the demand for pulp?

I heard that the city of Cambridge used to send its corregated recycling to Asia for a profit before the economy declined. Is there more of a demand now for the recycled paper than the new pulp? Thanks! Megan in Lexington, MA

Just heard your guest mention the International Paper biodiesel scam – it’s disgusting! They are a company that was already involved in a “virtuous” cycle (providing their own fuel) – and they are adding biodiesel to it in order to get the tax credit! So now they are being LESS responsible and getting highly rewarded with our tax dollars.

Paper companies are a big part of the problem, as are the other end-users rushing to the lowest-price resource (no matter what the cost). The guest got it right when he said we need fair trade, not free trade.

I’m curious to know the parameters of sample the population used to create the title “…most dangerous job…” because at the beginning of the show the author quickly mentioned that the statistics he used included both actual employees of the lumber industry as well as anyone cutting trees… In other words, he is making a claim about logging work, but he apparently is using a sample population that is larger than logging employee population to arrive at his findings. The author’s data includes any person doing yard/farm work, a group that may skew the results in that these people are not practicing logging on a daily bases and may be more prone to injury…
When I get a chance to comparing the size of the sample population used, I wager that commercial fishing is the most dangerous job.
I was hoping that Tom would question the statistical methods, because at the beginning of the show the author mentioned that the injuries logged, by the agency measuring the data, include anyone cutting trees, in addition to loggers, but the author did not mention if he culled his sample size to only loggers or anyone cutting a tree, so the title of his book could be in error… depending on how the data is consumed, if my suspicion is correct.

Richard, in my mind, the words ‘ecological health’ = ecosystems.
I never said logging was evil.

Thanks for mentioning wood burning stoves. We’ve used wood as the primary heat for our house in Connecticut for 12 years. Thermostats set to 60, never kick in.

House well insulated, wood managed correctly: only hardwood, cut two years out and split and stacked and kept dry, and we use less than 3 cords a year. The wood comes from a local arborist I run the web site for in exchange.

Stove is a Hearthstone soapstone and it’s worked well for 12 years. Very little fly ash or smoke.

Anyone here read Sometimes A Great Notion? Harry Stamper taught me everything I know about logging

Randy: The guy Stamper was modeled after lived in my area and Kesey was my neighbor in Springfield, Oregon. I’m a huge fan of that book and movie.

After reading the MANY Tanya postings … I just can’t resist commenting …Americans DO still want wood! (having a forester in our family) Select cutting is GOOD for everyone, after all, TREES do have a life cycle (like any living organism)! We too burn wood as a main source of heat in the cold months, backed up by alternative methods. Be it an EXTREMELY dangerous job…?… depends on your risk – sounds good for publicity/promotes interest to the NO FEAR generation.
Good news:

(con’t)…Earth Day and Arbor Day are right around the corner – so PLANT something!!

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For every complex environmental problem there is a solution that is elegant, simple, and wrong.

I listened to most of the program while eating lunch during a mature spruce cut on the coast of Maine. Brush Cats seems well written so I will have to read it. A couple of comments. Having worked mostly as a fisherman and a logger I sure doesn’t make much difference to me what the most dangerous job is. Both take paying full attention to the moment when doing the job. Must make a difference to the TV show producers who profit from myth.
Maine loggers were the first in the world to set up a system of independent 3rd party audits of our work. And, I can tell you to meet the more than one hundred standard criteria you better be doing a good job. There has for the most part been a shift in the culture of harvesting wood. As always there is more to do but the in the last two decades the 4 day training the Certified Logging Professionals have put on for Maine and New Brunswick loggers has been a lever to help make this change.
And lastly, I now log using a horse for the most part. Low impact forestry is a bit off the mark in my mind. Tom MacElvoy calls it Positive Impact Forestry in his thoughtful book. All forestry has an impact, its how we manage it. At 68 and still cutting wood I’m able to slow down a little and pick my jobs to some extent but I would find it hard to compete in a commodity driven extraction process.
It as a good show and very balanced. Thanks to the loggers who were on.