A simple solution to the albedo effect of forests vs grasslands would be to mandate all roof tops world wide be light, not dark.  Then, when things get too cool during, say, a maunder minimum, mandate them to be dark, not light. Same with roads and parking lots. Ta dah!  

From some years back - "Water evaporated from trees cools global climate"

https://carnegiescience.edu/news/water-evaporated-trees-cools-globa...

and

http://www.windtaskforce.org/page/nrcm-s-co2-analysis

Forest CO2 Sequestration and The Meaning of Sustainability

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/vermont-is-harvesting-w...

Whole-Tree Harvesting:

Whole-tree harvesting removes trunks, branches and foliage. However, the nutrient content of branches and foliage, gram of nutrient/100 gram of dry wood, is significantly greater than of the stems.

It would be better practice to harvest only the trunks, which have about 65% of the biomass, and leave the remainder (branches and foliage) on the forest floor to provide nutrients to regrow the forest, and to promote flora and fauna quantity and diversity.

About 50% of Vermont harvests is used for heating and electricity, the other 50% is used for all other purposes. To increase the stored carbon in forests, we must minimize using forest biomass for heating and electricity, plus we must greatly increase forest protection from human intrusions, such as energy-intensive, environmentally destructive ski resorts, roads and power lines.

If we would take ambitious steps to protect our forests from logging for heating and electricity, we would avoid CO2 emissions while also absorbing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in forests.

Sustainable:

The word “sustainable” is bandied about by lay people who likely do not understand the implications. For decades various government and private entities have claimed, without proof, harvests about equal to gross annual growth of aboveground live biomass is “sustainable”. Pro-logging government forest departments and the logging industry are quite comfortable with that statement and repeat it as a standard mantra to inform the lay public.

Research of the past 15 – 20 years has proven this “sustainable” definition is inadequate, because repeated harvests causes damage to belowground biomass and soils (leaching of nutrients, due to logging on slopes, and removing of nutrients, due to harvests, and emitting CO2, due to belowground biomass decay). The main nutrients are Nitrogen, Phosphor, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium.

This ultimately leads to depleted forest soils, i.e., less robust growth, and weak/sickly/misshapen trees, and increased tree mortality. Taking from the forest year after year and not adequately restoring nutrients is not sustainable, ever. No farmer would treat cropland that way, if robust harvests were desired year after year.

Overharvesting at Present and in the Future:

In Vermont, VT-FPR estimates gross annual growth of aboveground live biomass at about 5 million ton for all forestland, about 4.5 million acres; this is a high estimate. Other estimates, based on historic annual biomass growth rates and annual CO2 absorption rates, are less. Vermont annual harvests are about 2.5 million ton. See URL.

VT-FPR and the logging industry would be claiming harvesting is “sustainable” because gross annual growth is 5/2.5 = 2 times annual harvests. However, in reality, the ratio is about 2.78/2.5 = 1.11, because gross annual growth on the about 2.5 million acres harvested on a 30 to 40-year rotation basis is about 2.78 million ton, i.e., barely sustainable at present levels of harvesting. See note.

NOTE: It is common practice to use net growth of aboveground live biomass = gross growth – mortality, as the basis for sustainability. The above ratios of 2 times and 1.11 times would be significantly less, if mortality had been subtracted. Not subtracting mortality is either ignorance or just another way to mislead the lay public.

NOTE: The goals of the VT-Comprehensive Energy Plan are to increase heat from biomass to buildings, i.e., after combustion, by about 35% by 2050, which would mean a major increase of harvesting on about 2.5 million acres by 2050, and/or a major increase of imports from NY, NH and Quebec, and/or a major increase in combustion efficiency.

Logging Damage and Harvest Depletion:

The logging industry claims removals obtained from 1) light clearcutting, up to about 50%, 2) selective thinning, and 3) weak/sickly/misshapen/dead trees are required to ensure adequate profits from harvesting the forestland of an owner. They claim removals will promote new biomass growth, because more sunlight reaches forest floors. However, that growth would be less robust, as it would take place on depleted soils due to repeated harvesting. See Note.

Offsetting logging damage and nutrient depletion since about 1800, and ongoing logging damage and nutrient depletion would require:

1) Spreading various fertilizers on forest floors, especially on areas subjected to clearcutting.
2) Chipping low value live and dead trees and spreading the chips on forest floors, especially on areas subjected to clearcutting.
3) Planting a variety of 10-y old saplings on areas subjected to clearcutting.

Loggers would be compensated for performing these extra services.

This would increase the cost of woodchips for burning. However, that cost had been kept artificially low due to the unsustainable practice of removing and not replenishing.

NOTE: Those forest soils were already damaged/depleted due to the clearcutting holocaust of the 1800s and early 1900s, and due to acid rain and air pollution starting about the 1950s. NE forests are still recovering from the clearcutting holocaust, plus dealing with acid rain and air pollution effects, plus dealing with repeated harvesting and not replacing, i.e., NE forests are overstressed.

I'll stand with the forest, any day.  Personally I couldn't live without it, and up here in northern Maine they are waging industrial scale war against it.  Dear Audubon, take into account the fact that every spring and summer entire populations of young songbirds in large areas of forest up here in the northeast are being systematically wiped out when hundreds, thousands of acres of trees are felled during nesting season.  Habitat is lost.  Territories are lost.  Songbird populations plummet.  Habitat loss is the biggest threat to your birds, not two degrees of climate warming.  Protect the forests.  Protect habitat.  Sorry, I'm venting now.

Penny,

we need to stop harvesting for burning trees

we should only be harvesting for other purposes.

how much do you estimate is clear cutting in your neighborhood?

Willem, I living in Irving Land.  Irving owns the top half of the state of Maine.  The harvesting is continual and they spray herbicides that target hardwood species to favor softwood.  Their helicopters with the spray arms sometimes go right over my farm.  Looking at google earth gives a good picture of the network of main roads and skidder roads.  Much of the timber goes right across the border into Canada.

For 28 years I lived in western Maine in a small rural town populated by old timers who still remembered how "proper logging" was done.  Proper logging was done only in winter, and the trees were limbed out in the forest and trunks hauled to the logging yards.  Now, nothing is left behind.  Branches are chipped, trees that could be baled for hay are harvested and chipped.  A forestry studen from UMaine approached me about cutting my land here in northern Maine.  She said, "We take everything, so you don't have to worry about the mess."  Is this what they're teaching???

Penny,

Pro loggers claim clearcutting in Maine is only 1% of all logging, which likely is not true, based on my own observations near my house during the past 30 years.

Google maps shows two adjacent clearcut areas near my house that are carefully hidden by leaving about 50 ft of trees standing between the road and the clearcut.

From the road you cannot tell, but if you take a walk through the 50-ft barrier, you can see about 30 acres of clearcuts. In Vermont up to 45 acres can be clearcut without a permit.

You should take photos of clearcuts and keep an album and correlate clearcuts with dates and

coordinates.