Dr. Mayfield asserts in the talk that forest thinning keeps forests as carbon sinks. In reality this has been questioned; see for instance: Bartowitz, K. J., Walsh, E. S., Stenzel, J. E., Kolden, C. A. & Hudiburg, T. W. Forest Carbon Emission Sources Are Not Equal: Putting Fire, Harvest, and Fossil Fuel Emissions in Context. Frontiers For Global Change 5, 867112 (2022). Furthermore, thinning alone may make forest fires worse (by drying out the forests) if there is not extensive prescribed burning to remove ground-level vegetation. The use of heavy machinery for thinning damages the forest floor and harms the ecosystem. A century of forest mismanagement by the federal government has shown that thinning and harvesting alone is ineffective, especially in the face of climate change. The suppression of cultural burning throughout California by the government has brought us to this critical point. I am disappointed that this aspect of climate justice was ignored in the talk. The talk also fails to raise the crucially important question of the moral hazard: Some will use CDR to claim that there is no longer a need to reduce carbon emissions from particular sectors. Keeping the moral hazard front-and-center should be an essential part of any discussion of CDR.
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