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Forests can be a carbon sink if managed properly. Lumber is a carbon sink. If you build a structure with lumber, you are locking that carbon up. Smoke from a wi

Forests can be a carbon sink if managed properly. Lumber is a carbon sink. If you build a structure with lumber, you are locking that carbon up. Smoke from a wildfire is a carbon creator. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Environmentalists preventing California forests becoming lumber are actually producing more CO2 in the atmosphere. I'm all for building more structures with lumber, locking carbon up.

joe_the_user 5y ago
(writing from Nevada City, between two major forest fires, btw) The California timber industry is dead. It's dead because global lumber demand is shrinking, the world lumber industry is competitive, California cut down the big trees a while back and because the exurbanites don't like trucks driving by their mansions. Lumber isn't a solution to fire because companies only want to cut the big tree that would survive the fires and aren't interested in the small, spindly trees and brush that are burning. Lumber isn't a solution to overall carbon capture because humans hold a fixed amount of wood at a time and cutting more trees in a given location isn't going change that amount. And fantasies that you can open the flood gates and restart logging are ridiculous and reprehensible imo. Stopping CO2 production global is really the only solution but biochar is the only meaningful carbon capture form if we need to go there also (this would reverse coal mining, essentially - that would capture the substance). California and the North West US have too much forest (of spindly trees and brush), that and global warming is why things are burning. California mountains would be a good site for biochar but this isn't going to be a profitable venture, the government will have to pay. The present mess really can only be solved by state intervention and the OP gives further evidence that "market based solutions" are a despicable sham.
- fasteddie31003 5y ago
  Have you heard of modern day engineered lumber that does not care about the size of the tree it comes form? Modern structures are built from glulams, osb and lvl beams which the size of the tree dose not matter.
  - joe_the_user 5y ago
    "Have you heard of modern day engineered lumber that does not care about the size of the tree it comes form?" Yep, that's a significant factor in reducing the demand for trees overall since every bit of each cut tree can used. But big and medium sized trees are still going to be more profitable to cut and with total demand shrinking, you won't get to the small trees even if you have the technology to use them. The thing is, clear cuts are fire hazards since they allow underbrush to build up. A fire safe approach is clearing undergrowth and leaving large trees. Modest fires do that but there's no free way to do that. You'd need to pay people - that would be a good thing near towns and cities but beyond that, we need controlled burns or we get uncontrolled burns, as we see today.
ErikVandeWater 5y ago
The biodiversity of forests that are clear cut periodically is practically nil. Environmentalists oppose the most common kind of logging for good reason. If logging was done selectively there wouldn't be a problem.

joe_the_user 5y ago

(writing from Nevada City, between two major forest fires, btw) The California timber industry is dead. It's dead because global lumber demand is shrinking, the world lumber industry is competitive, California cut down the big trees a while back and because the exurbanites don't like trucks driving by their mansions. Lumber isn't a solution to fire because companies only want to cut the big tree that would survive the fires and aren't interested in the small, spindly trees and brush that are burning. Lumber isn't a solution to overall carbon capture because humans hold a fixed amount of wood at a time and cutting more trees in a given location isn't going change that amount. And fantasies that you can open the flood gates and restart logging are ridiculous and reprehensible imo. Stopping CO2 production global is really the only solution but biochar is the only meaningful carbon capture form if we need to go there also (this would reverse coal mining, essentially - that would capture the substance). California and the North West US have too much forest (of spindly trees and brush), that and global warming is why things are burning. California mountains would be a good site for biochar but this isn't going to be a profitable venture, the government will have to pay. The present mess really can only be solved by state intervention and the OP gives further evidence that "market based solutions" are a despicable sham.

fasteddie31003 5y ago
Have you heard of modern day engineered lumber that does not care about the size of the tree it comes form? Modern structures are built from glulams, osb and lvl beams which the size of the tree dose not matter.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  "Have you heard of modern day engineered lumber that does not care about the size of the tree it comes form?" Yep, that's a significant factor in reducing the demand for trees overall since every bit of each cut tree can used. But big and medium sized trees are still going to be more profitable to cut and with total demand shrinking, you won't get to the small trees even if you have the technology to use them. The thing is, clear cuts are fire hazards since they allow underbrush to build up. A fire safe approach is clearing undergrowth and leaving large trees. Modest fires do that but there's no free way to do that. You'd need to pay people - that would be a good thing near towns and cities but beyond that, we need controlled burns or we get uncontrolled burns, as we see today.

ErikVandeWater 5y ago

The biodiversity of forests that are clear cut periodically is practically nil. Environmentalists oppose the most common kind of logging for good reason. If logging was done selectively there wouldn't be a problem.