Recently, government regulators and the Canadian forest products industry have been denying that logging in the Boreal Forest contributes to global warming, primarily by arguing that when forests are logged, the carbon within them is stored for long periods of time in forest products. This argument does not live up to scientific scrutiny.

Not only is it based on a number of false assumptions (for example, that most or all of the trees logged end up in long-lasting products like dimensional lumber), but it paints a simplistic picture of logging that fails to account for important factors such as the carbon lost from soils during logging, the carbon emitted for years after logging ends, the areas permanently deforested through the building of roads and landings, and the carbon dioxide and methane emitted as permafrost melts and as products decompose in landfills. This argument also fails to account for the many consequences of fragmentation on the health of the forest as a whole, including increased vulnerability to global warming impacts, and reduced ability of animals and trees to migrate, adapt, and survive under warming conditions.

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