New campaign in mainstream media claim that forests are harmful to the climate

By Sofie Walker | May 17, 2025 https://indepnews.org/en/msm-claim-that-forests-are-harmful-to-our-climate/

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The absolute madness of the CO₂ hysteria, which serves solely to redistribute public wealth, is reaching new heights. It appears that new directives have been issued by globalist circles-now, our forests are being labeled as climate villains, supposedly emitting more CO₂ than they absorb. This notion is not only profoundly misguided and wrong but also reminiscent of Bill Gates’s plans to clear-cut and bury forests so they no longer produce CO₂. It paints a dark dystopian picture of total destruction, with mainstream media complicit in spreading this narrative.

During prime time on May 12, 2025, Austria’s ORF presented its contribution to the international campaign against the world’s forests on “Zeit im Bild 1.” According to the report, globalist billionaires, including Bill Gates, have declared that forests are harmful to the climate and contribute to CO₂ emissions, generating more CO₂ than they bind. As a result, Bill Gates is reportedly working on projects to clear entire forests and bury the wood underground, preventing it from returning CO₂ to the atmosphere. (See: Bill Gates’s new “world-saving” plan-he wants to clear-cut and bury forests.) The ORF’s report stated verbatim:

“Austrian forests, as we know them, have so far only had a positive effect on the world-calming, providing shade, naturally renewable, and binding CO₂-but that is now changing. The climate vacuum cleaner, which filters harmful greenhouse gases from the air, is no longer functioning as before due to global warming. Now, CO₂ is even being emitted. Twenty years ago, Austria’s trees were removing almost 15 million tons of greenhouse gases, having a positive effect. In 2018, for the first time, more CO₂ escaped from our forests than could be absorbed, and in 2023, this effect was particularly dramatic. More than 5 million tons of greenhouse gases were released on balance, about a quarter of what is produced annually by traffic.”

The ORF report attributes this to heat, less water, and the bark beetle plague. However, it fails to mention that the bark beetle problem is largely due to misguided forestry practices-greed led to the planting of non-native, fast-growing conifer monocultures. Healthy mixed forests do not have bark beetle problems. The fact that this is a broader campaign is evidenced by a 2024 report archived on YouTube from Germany’s ZDF, which made the same claim about German forests: that they produce more CO₂ than they absorb. (See link: ZDF: German Forests as CO₂ Emitters?)

All of this madness is based on false assumptions, ignorance, and deliberate lies. CO₂ is the foundation of life on our planet. Without CO₂, there would be no plant life, and thus no animal life. Earth has experienced many eras with much higher CO₂ concentrations than today. In the past 100–200 years, atmospheric CO₂ has been a mere 400 ppm. Climate activists claim, based on measurements from a station on an active volcano in Hawaii, that CO₂ levels are rising dramatically.

Analysis Part 1: The Historical Share of CO₂ in Earth’s Atmosphere

Until the first life appeared on Earth, atmospheric CO₂ is estimated to have been 100,000 ppm or more, primarily due to volcanic activity and the absence of photosynthesis. Volcanism continues today, but climate models rarely acknowledge that Earth itself emits vast amounts of CO₂, mostly from underwater volcanoes. (See also: 19,000 “new” volcanoes, but the climate lobby ignores the massive CO₂ released by eruptions.)

The absence of photosynthesis in early Earth history shows that only with the emergence of plant life did CO₂ begin to be transformed, disproving any current theory that forests could contribute to more CO₂. On the contrary, all biomass binds CO₂ and converts it into plant matter.

During the eras when the first simple life forms appeared (4.0–2.5 billion years ago), CO₂ levels are estimated at 50,000–10,000 ppm. During this period, photosynthesis developed, turning light and CO₂ into oxygen. This led to the “Great Oxidation Event,” enriching the atmosphere with oxygen.

The planet turned green. From 2.5 to 0.54 billion years ago, oxygen levels rose while CO₂ dropped to about 10,000–1,000 ppm. Ice ages occurred during this time, allegedly due to chemical CO₂ breakdown, which contradicts today’s claims, as rock weathering reduced CO₂ and triggered ice ages.

About 540 million years ago, life flourished. During the Cambrian explosion, CO₂ levels were between 4,000 and 1,000 ppm. In the Permian to Triassic periods (300–200 million years ago), levels were around 3,000 ppm, and during the Cretaceous, between 1,000 and 2,000 ppm. To support climate alarmism, it is claimed that in the last 2.6 million years (the Quaternary), CO₂ levels were only 180–300 ppm, allowing for panic about today’s 400 ppm. The 300 ppm figure is said to have occurred during warm periods.

However, these measurements are based on highly questionable analyses. The claim to know atmospheric CO₂ concentrations over the last 2.6 million years is based on air bubbles in ice cores. Yet, over time, all substances diffuse through container walls, even if seemingly airtight. The longer the period, the more diffusion occurs. In the case of ice cores, it is claimed that in 2,600,000 years, no diffusion has occurred, making the trapped air a supposedly perfect record of past atmospheres.

Alternative analyses, such as fossil leaf stomata and boron isotope studies in marine sediments, have yielded higher CO₂ concentrations than ice cores. These methods suggest values between 260 and 330 ppm, with uncertainties of +/- 30 to 50 ppm, meaning a lower bound of 210 and an upper bound of 380, which is close to today’s levels.

Analysis Part 2: How Photosynthesis Works

The more CO₂ is available in the atmosphere, the more biomass grows. This is well documented by satellite data. (See also: Another study shows increased CO₂ makes plants transpire more and greens the world.) In reality, no satellites are needed-just common sense and perhaps a green thumb. Every gardener with a greenhouse knows how much yield increases when plants are given extra CO₂.

Our world has adapted to atmospheric conditions over billions of years, and plant life has learned to use all available CO₂ efficiently. Photosynthesis is the biochemical process by which plants, algae, and certain bacteria convert light energy into chemical energy, using CO₂ from the air and water from the soil to produce glucose and oxygen.

CO₂ is not just converted into oxygen; it is directly used for plant growth as the carbon source for building sugars and other organic molecules. The carbon fixed during photosynthesis forms the basis for all plant structures, from leaves to roots.

Analysis Part 3: CO₂ Is Not Responsible for Global Warming, and Certainly Not for a Progressive Effect

Alternative newsoutlets have published numerous articles on this topic, consulting with academic experts. The result has been many texts that do not align with the mainstream media narrative, which, as with COVID-19, never reports dissenting opinions. Instead, a “well-established scientific consensus” is claimed. This assertion itself contradicts scientific practice. Even if all scientists agree and one can prove the facts are otherwise, that individual is correct and the others are wrong. Science is not a democratic process, but a constant search for truth.

For example:

Surprise-It’s the Sun, Not CO₂, That Heats the Earth

Study: More CO₂ and Higher Temperatures Would Benefit Agriculture

Climate Change Decoupled from CO₂? New Study Questions Climate Activist Assumptions

A Geological Truth: We Live in an Extremely CO₂-Poor Era

“Global Greening”: Another Study Shows CO₂’s Positive Effect

Decades of Deception About CO₂ Exposed

More Studies Show: More CO₂ Does Not Lead to Higher Temperatures, links below:

Hydrological Sciences Journal 

Climate change during 1985–1999: Cloud interactions determined from satellite measurements

1979: Questions Concerning the Possible Influence of Anthropogenic CO₂ on Atmospheric Temperature

1981: The Role of Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions in the CO₂ Climate Problem

Professor Murry L. Salby: Of the Physics Atmosphere and Climate

Conclusion: Adventurous “Model Calculations”

The claims made by public broadcasters in Germany and Austria are adventurous. They are not based on scientific measurements but on assumptions, some of which are entirely erroneous. For example, there has been no significant drought in recent years. And even if there had been, over the past hundred thousand years there have always been periods of heat and cold, rain and drought. The planet’s biomass has survived and adapted.

In Germany, as of 2022, 32.3 percent of the land is covered by forests. The claims and models suggest that of about 100 billion trees with a trunk diameter over 20 cm, four-fifths are “sick.” You should judge for yourself during regular walks in nature whether this claim holds up. It is true, as mentioned at the beginning, that the historical mistake of conifer monocultures is not sustainable. Today, 21.8 percent of German forests are pine and 20.9 percent spruce. So, the claim that “four-fifths of trees are sick” is questionable.

It will be interesting to see whether, in the future, left-wing activists will chain themselves to trees to save them from being cut down, or whether they will demand deforestation themselves, since they heard it on TV and must conform to that opinion without independent thought.

Satellites have measured a significant increase in biomass, especially in Europe and China, over the past twenty years. In the future, another satellite will monitor biomass and document changes. On April 29, 2025, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the “Biomass” satellite, which will create the first global, high-resolution 3D maps of forest biomass. Here, too, caution is needed when hearing “since records began,” as these only start in 2025.

Finally, a quote from the ORF “Zeit im Bild” report:

“Our domestic forests can now absorb less climate-damaging greenhouse gases and are increasingly becoming CO₂ emitters, or CO₂ sources. This is shown by figures from the Environment Agency and research by the newspaper Der Standard. Dr. Peter Weiss, forest expert at the Environment Agency: ‘Climate research expects an increase in extreme events, and that will not be good for the forest. So, we must continue to expect that there will be years when the forest is a net source.’ It is important to adapt our forests to climate change, for example by planting more robust tree species that can withstand heat and drought.”

It is astonishing how certain the usual left-leaning media are that forests and thus the country’s biomass produce more CO₂ than they absorb. The fact that these reports are coming from various countries is suspicious and points to a coordinated campaign. The next logical step would be to follow Bill Gates’s recommendation and clear-cut forests, burying the trunks deep underground. Every child intuitively knows this is madness, but public broadcasters see it differently. Serving big capital must be more appealing to these “journalists” than doing their own research and seeking the truth.