Pacific Northwest forests: Carbon sink or carbon source?

As Sustainable Northwest’s Andrew Spaeth writes, poor planning and development pressures are increasing the risk of wildfire to human populations and causing dramatic increases in the cost of fire suppression.

Forests are critical in our efforts to stem the effects of climate change.

Yet, in the Pacific Northwest, uncharacteristic megafires are emitting large amounts of greenhouse gasses. In 2015, wildfires were the second largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions in Washington State, only behind the transportation sector.

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