Dr. James Hansen, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and former Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, doesn’t like the Fix Our Forests Act. A Boston Globe op-ed coauthored by Hansen and attorney Dan Galpern questions basic premises of the proposed legislation and calls fuel-reduction logging a “Trojan horse.”
“The pretense of the legislation is that deep forest logging will reduce fire intensity, risk to downwind communities, and climate-damaging carbon emissions.”
As the authors indicate, “considerable evidence” demonstrates that the conditions created by fire-mitigation logging can lead to increased fire intensity.
“Moreover, thinning may increase forest-derived carbon emissions ‘by three to five times relative to fire alone,’ in part because only a fraction of the carbon in felled trees ends up stored as lumber.”
Since this article was published, key provisions of the Fix Our Forests Act have been attached to the must-pass 2026 Farm Bill, H.R. 7567.
Photo: Ecological damage, including soil compaction, is evident as a result of this fuel-reduction project in Arizona’s Kaibab National Forest (Forest Service photo).
