March of the Ents: Using America's National Forests to Mitigate the Threat of Climate Change

"We Ents do not like being roused; and we never are roused unless it is clear to us that our trees and our lives are in great danger."1INTRODUCTIONIn 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began publishing Working Group contributions to the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report on the state of scientific knowledge regarding climate change.2 According to Working Group I, the need to significantly limit greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions has become imminent if international efforts to hold warming in check are to have any chance at success.3 Several months later, the IPCC's Working Group II issued a more dire warning, finding consensus that while the impacts of climate change may remain "moderate" under a- one-to-two degree Celsius warming scenario, "[a]ggregate economic damages accelerate with increasing temperature."4 At the same time, the risk of severe impacts to human health, food security, rural livelihoods, and biodiversity-especially in developing countries- increases as global average temperatures rise.5 As encapsulated by the New York Times, if GHG reductions are not achieved within a short timeframe, future generations may be faced with the expensive-and only theoretically possible-solution of mechanically removing GHGs from the atmosphere "to preserve the livability of the planet."6GHGs, such as carbon dioxide or methane, are chemical compounds in the Earth's atmosphere that absorb infrared radiation from the Sun after it has reflected off of the Earth's surface.7 Under ideal conditions, these GHGs help regulate the Earth's surface temperature by holding the temperature relatively constant.8 However, as concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere increase, so do their heat-trapping effects, leading to gradual warming of the Earth's surface temperature.9 Since industrialization began in the mid-eighteenth century, this type of gradual warming has been observed alongside rapidly increasing concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere.10 For example, in 2013 the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere surpassed 400 parts per million,11 a concentration not experienced on the Earth for at least 800,000 years.12This increasing concentration of atmospheric GHGs has been accompanied by more frequent and severe climatic events- including droughts, powerful storms, and extreme temperatures.13 It also has contributed to long-term challenges, such as rising sea levels and ocean acidification.14 In the United States alone, severe climatic events have already cost lives,15 put livelihoods at risk,16 and cost taxpayers billions of dollars.17Despite these observed and ongoing threats, the United States has been slow to react. Efforts by Congress to pass overarching climate legislation have been abandoned18 and state efforts to implement innovative legislation aimed at mitigating the climate change threat have been met with considerable industry and political resistance.19 Within this political and legal vacuum, President Obama directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to promulgate a number of new regulations under the Clean Air Act (CAA) to attempt to aggressively curtail emissions of GHGs.20 However, the tools available under the CAA are insufficient on their own to address the United States' contribution to climate change.21 In the absence of new legislation targeting climate change, the Administration should explore additional legally permissible and innovative options under other environmental statutes with the aim of mitigating the climate-change threat.This Note argues that an innovative application of existing law is available under the National Forest Management Act of 197622 (NFMA). While a regulatory regime that directly limits GHGs could lead to rapid short-term decreases in emissions, applying the NFMA to help slow the effects of climate change could result in two key, though longer term, benefits. First, forest management aimed at reducing land-use changes (i. …