What a pile of half truths and spin. The equivalent of 5500t CO2/ha is only possible in the densest forests but Mooney abuses the perverted "Kyoto Ugly" accounting rule that deems all the carbon in a tree to be emitted at the moment the tree is cut.

Yet, the stump and major root systems can remain intact for more than 80 years. Stumps in my own forest date from 1923. And the wood in the old homestead is still storing that carbon in a stable form from the same period.

But not all the wood ends up in houses, I hear you say? Well, yes, but I also have fence posts of the same vintage and much of the harvest slash from that time was burned in cool, winter, fuel reduction burns that converted much of the wood carbon to charcoal. And provided the EPA doesn't burn us out with a hot fire, that carbon will remain stable for a thousand years.

And even the wood that goes to woodchip (the bent stems) is not emitted as Mooney would have us believe. Recent research on a Sydney landfill found newsprint that was essentially unchanged, carbon intact, after 60 years in the ground, and capable of lasting centuries.

So the claim that the carbon in a forest is all emitted at harvest time is ludicrous. As is the claim that the volume of the subsequent regrowth will never remedy the supposed emissions from the first harvest. This regrowth is generally taking place BEFORE most of the original carbon has broken down so it is clearly IN CARBON SURPLUS.

But even this is only part of the whole truth. For the original old growth forest was essentially in carbon balance. The growth rates of old trees are very low compared to young ones and what little carbon storage is taking place is offset by carbon emissions from the decay of those trees. So the act of harvesting a tree goes a long way to minimising these natural emissions, making room for human emissions.

The only thing certain with competing claims about lagged uptake and release of CO2 in forests is that a whole bunch of people all want to be paid. As far as I'm concerned what the forested countries are demanding is blackmail. The correct approach is a/ give them nothing b/confiscate timber from those countries.

I'll throw in another variable, namely that I'm convinced trees bring rain so that clear felling eventually brings local drought. Yet I'm not sure that a mature forest in carbon equilibrium can't be quickly replanted (without burning) by fast growing seedlings. Tough on critters though. Another curly one is global climate change so the presumed amounts of carbon capture may never happen.

It will be interesting to see how the next PM deals with all of this. I would err on the side of disbelief of extravagant claims.

Why, oh why, can't people listen! Unless you control world population, all these efforts to control global warming will be completely in vain. If you are a starving third world farmer faced with the need to burn some forest to feed his family, do you think he is going to be concerned about global warming? Unfortunately, the only issue that unites George Bush, the Pope, and the muslim world is that NOTHING must be done to limit world population.

Remember the famous latin aphorism:

Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit.

(A wise man does not urinate into the breeze.)

It is really quite tragic that the environmental movement's uncompromising drive to achieve total 'preservation' of forests (that is so evident in Will Mooney's article) is actually counterproductive to sensible environmental outcomes.

Perseus has adequately articulated the reality that sustainable timber harvesting creates a net surplus of carbon storage by putting evermore wood products into the community, whilst at the same time creating space in the forest to grow new trees that store more carbon.

The environmental damage done by reducing timber production is illustrated by what has occurred in WA. Where once its public Jarrah forests produced up to 250,000 railway sleepers per year, they now produce none. The state's rail infrastructure is being upgraded using steel and concrete sleepers. These store no carbon and have high carbon emissions in their manufacture - steel manufacture emits 350 times more carbon than wood, and concrete 6 - 8 times more - is this a good environmental outcome?

The central premise of Mooney's thesis is that Australia's old forests - if left alone - will store carbon forever. In reality the Australian landscape is naturally subject to periodic fire that will eventually release stored forest carbon. So, it is impossible to 'preserve' Australian forests as carbon stores. In fact, trying to do this by creating evermore parks devoid of human management is demonstrably increasing the severity and frequency of fire through inability to manage fuel loads. Biodiversity and water values are suffering tremendously as a result - something that most 'environmentalists' ignore by concentrating their efforts against logging.

The major 'crime' of the environmental movement is its ongoing campaign to portray managed harvesting and regeneration of forests as practiced in Australia as being akin to deforestation in developing countries where forests are converted to an agricultural land-use. If these campaigns bear fruit they will be tragically counterproductive.

All NSW 'old growth' is already 'protected' from logging, as is virtually all Victorian 'old growth' since November 2006. The objectivity of so-called 'expert' Prof. Brendan Mackey is also questionable given his Directorship of The Wilderness Society's Wild Country Reserach and Policy Hub.

In their rush to quickly dismiss this article Perseus and MWPOYNTER seem to have entirely missed the point which was that preservation of Australia's forests would be an act of good faith for global climate politics, not a total panacea.

Environmentalists do not seek to achieve "total preservation" of all forest. But they do seek to ensure useful preservation of ancient, bio-diverse forests which are very effective storehouses of carbon. These forests may not store carbon forever. But when climate scientists warn of immanent impacts from global warming, securing their carbon storage value now makes sense.

The author rightly, points out that when an old growth ecosystem is logged, and managed on subsequent 80 year rotations, the carbon storage CAPACITY of that area of forest is significantly reduced. There is plenty or research to back that up (see Dean, C. et al. Growth Modeling of E. regnans for Carbon Accounting at the Landscape Scale. 2003). There is also plenty of research to show that logging a natural mature forest and replacing it with managed forest, leads to massive carbon losses to the atmosphere (Tree farms won't halt climate change. New Scientist, October 2002. Schulze E. et al. Science, September, 2000).

American research also suggests that, even when carbon storage in wood products is factored in, conversion of mature forests to managed regrowth leads to accelerated carbon loss to the atmosphere (Harmon, M. et al. Science, February, 1990.).

The main reason for this loss of carbon storage is that the new managed forests is not allowed to grow as old as the original natural forest. This is a simple fact that the logging industry and its associates refuse to admit.

While Australia's old forests may not be threatened with "deforestation", they do face degradation from a woodchip oriented industry which is desperate to shield itself from the realities of global warming

Perhaps the reason that WA doesn't produce rilway sleepers any more is that they have chopped down all the Jarrah forests.