What is the worth of a 400-year old tree?
To me, that’s a key philosophical question raised by this post from the environmentalist blog Gristmill:
Sickening. Kevin John Moran of Camano Island, Wash., was just convicted of illegally cutting down 27 old-growth cedars on public land. They were between 400 and 700 years old. And they were dry-side trees, even rarer than the Northwest’s west-slope titans. . . .
The blogger, Eric de Place, notes that the maximum penalty Moran faces is 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. The charge is “theft of Government property,” there being no specialized penalty — so far as I know — for egregious damage to an ecosystem or the country’s natural heritage.
Now, there are plenty of folks who will read “10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000″ and think that it’s more than enough for cutting down some trees. But at some point, doesn’t a thing stop being a thing that can be valued strictly in economic terms? Outraged or no, de Place seems to be making the point that there ought to be some charge worse than theft — maybe something like “wanton destruction” — to cover offenses like this one.
Economics would say that the oldness of the trees, their magnificience, their role in their ecosystem, or what have you are “externalities” from a financial perspective. The point is that Moran took public property that didn’t belong to him, and that property was in the form of trees. Period.
Yet if the threat of global warming is as bad as many scientists fear, and if deforestation continues around the world as it has done lately, I expect that at some point penalties for wrongfully cutting down trees — especially big and old ones — will run much stiffer.
Category: Economics, Green & Clean, Legal5 Comments so far
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They were trees. I appreciate nature and love old things, but trees are not the result of intensive labor–like a building–or rare–like the Buddhist statues that the Taliban destroyed in Pakistan. You are conflating the relatively short life-span of humans with the enormously-long life of the earth. What are the consequences that we feel today from the extensive logging of old-growth forests in the 19th and early 20th centuries? None. There are more trees in the United States today than there have been since Colonial times.
The Green/environmental movement should properly be called the “-Mental Movement,” because all logic and thought is removed from their delicious dramatization of the effects of modern life on the earth. We are not, Malthus be damned, anywhere near critical mass. You can weep for the rainforest, wimper about the loss of Nile valley verdant lands (although that was eons ago…whither the CO2 demons back then?), or inveigle for more recycling that further pollutes the ecosphere. None of these things will mitigate the relatively small effect that humans have on this planet. Seriously, go Google a schematic of the earth…core, mantle, crust, and the various atmospheric laminates. It would take faith surpassing all of the religions in history to fervently believe that we humans can alter this massive system. And, indeed, the data prove that to be true, if you abstain from drinking the Kool-Aid of Al Goracle and his minions. The climate-predicting models are flawed, and the science is rotten.
This is a business blog. Being a business person, I hope to read more of your insightful writing. This tortured, rhetorical post is not helpful or informative. It does serve to make one think, but not in a positive manner. “Positive” meaning, “logical and supported by the evidence, instead of emotion and propaganda.”
The price of a tree is what somebody is willing to pay for it. Presumably, this criminal did not burn the trees, so sell them on the open market, fine him whatever the trees bring, and be done with it. Institutionalize him for mental illness, rehabilitate him, and let him loose on society. Truth be told, he’s probably a Greenie moonbat who wants to stir the pudding. Those types of liberals are the most violent, anarchist folks in the US. The evidence abounds.
Okay, skh.pcola, I’ve let you have your say. Before I reply to specifics, let me say that I hope you will read more of my writing, and I hope you will find it insightful. If you don’t find this post helpful or informative, that’s too bad — but you’re also free to skip it. There are hundreds of other posts here from which you might choose.
So now let’s note a few specifics:
1. I’m not conflating the life span of anything with anything. I’m pointing out how things are valued now, and venturing a guess as to how they’ll be valued in the future. Whether Eric de Place is making this conflation is a separate question.
2. The fact that there are more trees in the U.S. today than for 200 years (I assume you have proof) in itself says nothing about the full range of possible consequences of logging in previous centuries — which, by the way, is not an issue I brought up in the first place. (There *is* widespread deforestation around the world, e.g. in Brazil, Central America, Indonesia, Congo, etc.)
3. I always love statements like “all logic and thought is removed from their delicious dramatization of the effects of modern life on the earth” — and especially when they’re applied to a large and heterogenous group. It’s particularly neat when the same paragraph itself contains assertions that do not, shall we say, adhere to the highest standards of “logic and thought.” Witness:
–CO2 concerns in the Nile Valley? Do you mean in the days before people even knew what CO2 was?
–Recycling pollutes the ecosphere? Really? All of it? Is all recycling worse than the alternative? Only some? Which parts?
–Is it your view that climate scientists who assert anthropogenic effects on the global climate system remotely concern themselves with what goes on in the core and mantle of the earth? Looking at a schematic of the core, mantle, and crust would be a nice way to falsely marginalize the (real or potential) impacts of humans on the climate by including an enormous amount of information that is totally extraneous to the questions at hand.
–”Al Goracle and his minions”? You are just hilarious — and so logical!
–It’s an easy trick to dismiss out of hand one of the largest scientific projects in history as “rotten” . . . but it’s much harder to back it up with proof. Do you have anything besides an assertion that would serve to actually discredit the work of many hundreds of scientists?
4. The first part of your final paragraph gets at what I was talking about by mentioning economic externalities. My prediction is that, in the future, the *worth* of a big tree will be pegged somewhat above the market *price* of the tree. It’s just a guess, and I could be wrong.
5. The last part of your last paragraph is interesting, especially for someone beating the drum of “logic and thought.” Do you have ANY evidence of Mr. Moran’s social or political proclivities? Any at all? Because I don’t know any more about him beyond this criminal conviction. I would never feel comfortable taking that basis of evidence and inferring, say, Mr. Moran’s height, or his political affiliation, or his place of birth, or the make of car he drives. So I find it interesting that you could infer that he’s “probably a Greenie moonbat.” I mean, it just doesn’t seem to hold logically, does it?
6. I’d also be interested to see some of the abundant evidence that those types are the most violent, anarchist folks in the US. Myself, I would have guessed members of drug gangs or the like. So if you could relieve my ignorance on this point, I would be grateful.
Then again, this IS a business blog, so maybe that’s a bit far afield.
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