Next week, the Sierra-Cascade Logging Conference will take place at the Shasta District Fairgrounds to the theme of “Forest Energy Empowers People.” Along with the equipment displays and Tommy 2x4 greeting conference-goers, I see a focus on a related theme — people partnering with trees to address the global warming problem.

It appears that environmentally-focused groups have recently shifted their thinking based on new evidence that, in a nutshell, trees can help us from killing ourselves and our planet. Harvesting trees is no longer a negative, destructive activity, but a desireable, even critical practice.

As human activities pump carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, intensifying the greenhouse effect and warming the planet, trees take a good part of that carbon right back out through sequestration. They sequester, or absorb and store, carbon from the air and put back oxygen.

The carbon stays in the trees, which eventually become buildings, furniture and more. Even more exciting is some evidence showing that wood-frame structures outperform those with steel or concrete frames in terms of environmental indicators such as energy use and greenhouse gasses produced. I think more studies need to be done to show reproducible results, but this is a start.

The logging industry certainly must be hopeful regarding this new trend. More jobs and a revival of business are a distinct possibility. Of course, loggers in California still have to factor in the diesel emission regulations in business forecasts, but that’s a whole other tangled web.

Another debate that has been raging for years, is managed versus unmanaged forests. Again, thinking is shifting from advocating no human intervention to seeing the benefits of thinning forests and removing debris and dead trees. Massive wildfires can be minimized and what’s removed can be used in the construction and biomass industries. One has to wonder, though, how did things get so out of balance in the first place that we have to “manage” forests?

So, are trees our saviors? It seems that they can play a much larger role than used to be believed. But they’re only part of a much grander equation, which includes us. The danger may lie in thinking trees can just keep inhaling our carbon ad infinitum. Their human partners contribute their fair share to the common cause. Easier said than done. Someone will still need to figure out how to get a planet of people to think like-mindedly while the trees go on quietly about their business.