BOSTON GLOBE • October 26, 2024
In New Hampshire, environmental activists are suing over a project to log within 3,000 acres of the White Mountain National Forest just northeast of Mt. Washington and south of Gorham. The Forest Service argues that logging and letting the forest regrow in these areas will eventually absorb as much carbon dioxide as leaving the standing trees to their own devices. Jamie Sayen, a historian, author, and long-time environmentalist in New Hampshire’s North Country, said the argument that logged trees would eventually regrow to hold the same carbon as before is “utterly absurd.” “The crisis is now,” Sayen said. “Releasing more carbon into the atmosphere now, because sometime in the next 100 years it’s going to be pulled back out, is not a good strategy.”