We've always known that trees are harmful. Didn't Tiger hit one with his car?

This foolishness has to end soon.

America gets soaked again, this time in a bottomless carbon sink set up by Wall Streeters to parlay their Cap & Charade scams. Mercy, mercy, mercy....

With climategate out there the whole cap and trade thing is going to collapse. Whether you believe in AGW or not the whole thing will have to be reviewed from top to bottom now by people from both sides.

There are 4 ways that forest biomass (trees, grass, shrubs, etc.) release carbon into the atmosphere.
1. Fire - Leaves, stems, twigs, bole (trunk) burn releasing carbon dioxide.
2. Annual leaf fall and self pruning. Coniferous species shed approximately 1/4 of all needles each year. They also shed a significant quantity of stems, and limbs in wind storms. All of this material is subject to microbial respiration. As the material "rots" it is consumed by microbes which consume oxygen and release carbon dioxide (just like us!). Hardwood trees (not evergreen) lose all their leaves in the fall creating an even greater source of carbon dioxide emission.
3. Death of Biomass - Insect kill, disease, fungal attack, wind storms, drought etc. all contribute to the total biomass which dies each year. This material rots (respired by aforesaid micro-organisms) and gives up the CO2.
4. Maturation of individuals - Old growth trees or shrubs for that matter have ceased to add biomass but are actually shedding more material than they are growing.

In conclusion, if you subtract all the biomass which dies in a forest on an annual basis from that which is being "sequestered" I suspect that the quantity of CO2 reserved will be considerably less than that touted by the craven "cap n trade" traders would have us believe.