26 WESTERN PALLET
finding that has implications for forest managers, climate scientists, and policy makers.
Forests in the Northeast have recovered in a pretty dramatic way: During the 18th and 19th centuries, more than half the forestland was cleared, but during the 20th century, forests returned. Today about 80% of the Northeast is forested," he said, also noting the high value of the big trees of the Pacific Northwest.
Today, however, North American forests are getting close to the saturation point as older trees plateau; future growth is primarily limited to the pine forests of the East and Southeast.
"The future potential is pretty limited," said Zhu. "If mitigation depends on forests, this has implications for conservation that we have to think about."
Zhu's paper, "Limits to Growth of Forest Biomass Carbon Sink Under Climate Change," appears in the current issue of Nature Communications. The title, Zhu notes, alludes to The Limits to Growth, a breakthrough 1972 book about the interactions of human population, industrialization, food production, natural resources, and pollution.
In our view, this study underscores the importance of wood pallets and other timber products that utilize wood from mature trees, so that there are more actively growing forests to sequester more carbon.
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