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The opening to that article is wild. While there is deforestation in some places in the world, at least in the US, there are more trees today than there were 1

The opening to that article is wild. While there is deforestation in some places in the world, at least in the US, there are more trees today than there were 100 years ago. Forest harvest followed by replanting is not deforestation. I also find that most of these articles discount the value of using the sun. Most lab-grown resources require other forms of energy, almost all of which are decidedly worse for the environment. If somebody invented a machine that used the sun and rainwater to remove carbon dioxide from the air and produce renewable building products, they'd be hailed as some kind of genius/savior. Enter, the lowly tree.

Arrath 4y ago
> at least in the US, there are more trees today than there were 100 years ago. Perhaps so, but is 100 years the best metric? By 1922 a huge portion of the forests in the states had already been ravaged by harvesting, with most of the old-growth forests gone by the turn of the century.
- hcurtiss 4y ago
  Your dates are off. Mechanized logging didn’t even commence until the 1940s — I think the first cat was like 1945. See the graphic on page 7 of the linked article showing historic harvest in Oregon (with which I’m most familiar). The east coast was harvested before then (a lot by Gifford Pinchot’s family) but I think the point stands that the trend in the states is toward reforestation, and the article’s calculation of losing the world’s forests is preposterous. https://www.oregon.gov/odf/Documents/workingforests/oregonstimberharvests.pdf https://www.oregon.gov/odf/Documents/workingforests/oregonst...
  - jph 4y ago
    When gold was discovered in northwest California in 1850, speculators crowded the remote redwood region in search of riches and new lives, and companies harvested the trees for booming development. Mechanized logging was widespread there by the early 1900s, such as with steam winches and steam trains, and gang saws and rotary saws. Before the Gold Rush, estimates are redwood forest covered more than 2,000,000 acres of the California coast; today, the area has only 133,000 acres.
    - hcurtiss 4y ago
      Yes, steam-powered logging was earlier, and yes there was substantial harvest in northern California prior to 1900. But to say that "most of the old-growth forests gone by the turn of the century" is simply untrue. In Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, and most of the rest of the West, it had only just begun by that time. The big boom came with the world wars and the introduction of diesel powered machinery.
uoaei 4y ago
Not all trees are equal. One must consider ecology and ecosystem health, not gross quantifiers like "number of trees" (really "number of trunks").
yarg 4y ago
> there are more trees today than there were 100 years ago. Forest harvest followed by replanting is not deforestation. That depends on the biomass levels.
farnsworth 4y ago
Seems like in the 90s we all had the impression that paper bags came from chopping down rainforests, and we should use the "recyclable" plastic bags. Turns out we just swallowed the oil industries BS, and we should just be supporting responsible forest management and using paper.
- soperj 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure manufacturing paperbags causes more GHGs than manufacturing plastic ones. I think reusing bags would probably be best.
  - farnsworth 4y ago
    Agreed. I wonder whether that stat is per-bag though, because you end up with three times as many plastic bags
witnesser2 4y ago
I am surprised that the article did not hire any teenager or man or lady in their 20s.
heurist 4y ago
> Forest harvest followed by replanting is not deforestation. Nitpick on this point - economically, perhaps, but not environmentally when considering the biodiversity and volume of undergrowth destroyed in the harvesting process. Some of it may come back quickly but millennia of niche/microclimate adaptation is easily lost.
- hcurtiss 4y ago
  Stand replacement events are natural too, driven principally by fire, wind, and landslides. The mistake many make, I think, is to presume there is some static “natural” state —- some mythic Eden —- in which, absent man’s influence, everything persists in perfect harmony. To the contrary, these are dynamic systems attuned to periodic violent change over time. Industrial forest harvest may not perfectly replicate nature, but that’s not the end of the inquiry. The question, I think, is whether the trade-offs are worth it given society’s profound need for homes, and given the relative impact of alternatives. Particularly given modern forest practices, I am highly skeptical lab-grown wood would scale with lesser impacts than utilizing the forests we already have, many of which are on their third or fourth harvest rotation. But all of that is beside the point I made above. In the US, forests of all age classes are trending up, not down. Much of this is driven by our radical curtailment of federal land harvest in the nineties (which came at the profound cost of sacrificing many rural communities).
  - heurist 4y ago
    Yes, disaster happens. But usually not all at once. I discovered that all of the places I have lived so far were clearcut in the late 1800's/early 1900's. When I say clearcut, I'm not talking about the size of a neighborhood or city, I mean areas that are geographically significant - areas you can see from space, which encapsulated hundreds or thousands of distinct ecosystems. That's a much less frequent disaster and one that is very difficult if not impossible for an ecosystem to fully recover from. And homes could be built much more efficiently than they are (dense mixed use multifamily over single family residences), and at least in the US the claims of a housing shortage may not be entirely accurate. There are 140M housing units in the US and 120M families, according to the 2020 census. There's a difference between a lack of homes and lack of homes in places people want to live. I tend to agree that industrial production of lab-grown timber is not viable today. Hard to compete with the cost of soil and sun when relying on processed nutrients and energy for lighting and climate control. But it's an exciting development toward something that could someday be better than plastic.
markandrewj 4y ago
Where did you find this information? In most places modern technology has only increased the rate it is possible log, which has allowed for large scale clear cutting to occur. Although many trees are successfully planted each year, very little old growth forest remains. Most people are not aware of how much logging has actually occurred, because it is done away from the road. Secondary forests are also often monocultures, and planted essentially as bumper crops. Which means that they can not support the same biodiversity as the original trees that are being replaced. My experience with this comes from working in the Canadian Silviculture industry as a tree planter for several years. If it is possible to create timber in a lab faster then it is possible to grow a tree, this could be really exciting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_forest
- hcurtiss 4y ago
  What information? The fact that there are more trees today than 100 years ago? Lots of sources on that. [1][2][3] As for the rest, I think the magic of trees is self-evident, and though I work in the industry, I don't think the utility of trees is terribly controversial. Also, relative to your arguments around old growth, that strikes me as moving the goal posts (and not terribly relevant as there's very little old growth harvest ongoing in the US -- what's left has almost all been protected). But as for the article's argument that "At that rate, some scientists predict the world’s forests could disappear in 100 to 200 years." -- that's simply preposterous. [1] "Forest growth nationally has exceeded harvest since the 1940s. By 1997 forest growth exceeded harvest by 42 percent and the volume of forest growth was 380 percent greater than it had been in 1920." https://www.fao.org/3/x4995e/x4995e.htm https://www.fao.org/3/x4995e/x4995e.htm [2] https://www.treehugger.com/more-trees-than-there-were-years-ago-its-true-4864115 https://www.treehugger.com/more-trees-than-there-were-years-... [3] "The acreage of all private and public forests have remained the same over the last half-century. The area of productive unreserved forest and (timberland) has remained stable for the last 50 years. The reserved (timberlands where cutting is not allowed) are actually increasing." https://www.thoughtco.com/us-forest-facts-on-forestland-1343034 https://www.thoughtco.com/us-forest-facts-on-forestland-1343...
blululu 4y ago
There are more Forrests in the US now than there were in 1922. Technically, yes we have more trees now than the historic minimum... As per the Wikipedia[1]: The US reached its historic minimal forrest coverage around 1920 with ~720 M acres. We are currently at ~760 M acres a century later, down from a pre-European high of ~1020 M acres. So yes we are on a gradual path toward replacement, but also Wisconsin is still a lawn compared to what it once was. There are also broader ecological considerations in forrest management than the number of trees, but none of this is really relevant to the main article which is probably not going to change America's forestry in the slightest. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_St...
m0llusk 4y ago
Forests regrown after deforestation have greatly reduced biodiversity. Because solar power is inconsistent production processes making use of it have incentive to collect solar power and store it in batteries instead of only using solar power directly. The customization potential of this production process means that we may be able to duplicate the characteristics of rare and highly desirable trees that only grow in specific environmental conditions.

Arrath 4y ago

> at least in the US, there are more trees today than there were 100 years ago. Perhaps so, but is 100 years the best metric? By 1922 a huge portion of the forests in the states had already been ravaged by harvesting, with most of the old-growth forests gone by the turn of the century.

hcurtiss 4y ago
Your dates are off. Mechanized logging didn’t even commence until the 1940s — I think the first cat was like 1945. See the graphic on page 7 of the linked article showing historic harvest in Oregon (with which I’m most familiar). The east coast was harvested before then (a lot by Gifford Pinchot’s family) but I think the point stands that the trend in the states is toward reforestation, and the article’s calculation of losing the world’s forests is preposterous. https://www.oregon.gov/odf/Documents/workingforests/oregonstimberharvests.pdf https://www.oregon.gov/odf/Documents/workingforests/oregonst...
- jph 4y ago
  When gold was discovered in northwest California in 1850, speculators crowded the remote redwood region in search of riches and new lives, and companies harvested the trees for booming development. Mechanized logging was widespread there by the early 1900s, such as with steam winches and steam trains, and gang saws and rotary saws. Before the Gold Rush, estimates are redwood forest covered more than 2,000,000 acres of the California coast; today, the area has only 133,000 acres.
  - hcurtiss 4y ago
    Yes, steam-powered logging was earlier, and yes there was substantial harvest in northern California prior to 1900. But to say that "most of the old-growth forests gone by the turn of the century" is simply untrue. In Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, and most of the rest of the West, it had only just begun by that time. The big boom came with the world wars and the introduction of diesel powered machinery.

uoaei 4y ago

Not all trees are equal. One must consider ecology and ecosystem health, not gross quantifiers like "number of trees" (really "number of trunks").

yarg 4y ago

> there are more trees today than there were 100 years ago. Forest harvest followed by replanting is not deforestation. That depends on the biomass levels.

farnsworth 4y ago

Seems like in the 90s we all had the impression that paper bags came from chopping down rainforests, and we should use the "recyclable" plastic bags. Turns out we just swallowed the oil industries BS, and we should just be supporting responsible forest management and using paper.

soperj 4y ago
I'm pretty sure manufacturing paperbags causes more GHGs than manufacturing plastic ones. I think reusing bags would probably be best.
- farnsworth 4y ago
  Agreed. I wonder whether that stat is per-bag though, because you end up with three times as many plastic bags

witnesser2 4y ago

I am surprised that the article did not hire any teenager or man or lady in their 20s.

heurist 4y ago

> Forest harvest followed by replanting is not deforestation. Nitpick on this point - economically, perhaps, but not environmentally when considering the biodiversity and volume of undergrowth destroyed in the harvesting process. Some of it may come back quickly but millennia of niche/microclimate adaptation is easily lost.

hcurtiss 4y ago
Stand replacement events are natural too, driven principally by fire, wind, and landslides. The mistake many make, I think, is to presume there is some static “natural” state —- some mythic Eden —- in which, absent man’s influence, everything persists in perfect harmony. To the contrary, these are dynamic systems attuned to periodic violent change over time. Industrial forest harvest may not perfectly replicate nature, but that’s not the end of the inquiry. The question, I think, is whether the trade-offs are worth it given society’s profound need for homes, and given the relative impact of alternatives. Particularly given modern forest practices, I am highly skeptical lab-grown wood would scale with lesser impacts than utilizing the forests we already have, many of which are on their third or fourth harvest rotation. But all of that is beside the point I made above. In the US, forests of all age classes are trending up, not down. Much of this is driven by our radical curtailment of federal land harvest in the nineties (which came at the profound cost of sacrificing many rural communities).
- heurist 4y ago
  Yes, disaster happens. But usually not all at once. I discovered that all of the places I have lived so far were clearcut in the late 1800's/early 1900's. When I say clearcut, I'm not talking about the size of a neighborhood or city, I mean areas that are geographically significant - areas you can see from space, which encapsulated hundreds or thousands of distinct ecosystems. That's a much less frequent disaster and one that is very difficult if not impossible for an ecosystem to fully recover from. And homes could be built much more efficiently than they are (dense mixed use multifamily over single family residences), and at least in the US the claims of a housing shortage may not be entirely accurate. There are 140M housing units in the US and 120M families, according to the 2020 census. There's a difference between a lack of homes and lack of homes in places people want to live. I tend to agree that industrial production of lab-grown timber is not viable today. Hard to compete with the cost of soil and sun when relying on processed nutrients and energy for lighting and climate control. But it's an exciting development toward something that could someday be better than plastic.

markandrewj 4y ago

Where did you find this information? In most places modern technology has only increased the rate it is possible log, which has allowed for large scale clear cutting to occur. Although many trees are successfully planted each year, very little old growth forest remains. Most people are not aware of how much logging has actually occurred, because it is done away from the road. Secondary forests are also often monocultures, and planted essentially as bumper crops. Which means that they can not support the same biodiversity as the original trees that are being replaced. My experience with this comes from working in the Canadian Silviculture industry as a tree planter for several years. If it is possible to create timber in a lab faster then it is possible to grow a tree, this could be really exciting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_forest

hcurtiss 4y ago
What information? The fact that there are more trees today than 100 years ago? Lots of sources on that. [1][2][3] As for the rest, I think the magic of trees is self-evident, and though I work in the industry, I don't think the utility of trees is terribly controversial. Also, relative to your arguments around old growth, that strikes me as moving the goal posts (and not terribly relevant as there's very little old growth harvest ongoing in the US -- what's left has almost all been protected). But as for the article's argument that "At that rate, some scientists predict the world’s forests could disappear in 100 to 200 years." -- that's simply preposterous. [1] "Forest growth nationally has exceeded harvest since the 1940s. By 1997 forest growth exceeded harvest by 42 percent and the volume of forest growth was 380 percent greater than it had been in 1920." https://www.fao.org/3/x4995e/x4995e.htm https://www.fao.org/3/x4995e/x4995e.htm [2] https://www.treehugger.com/more-trees-than-there-were-years-ago-its-true-4864115 https://www.treehugger.com/more-trees-than-there-were-years-... [3] "The acreage of all private and public forests have remained the same over the last half-century. The area of productive unreserved forest and (timberland) has remained stable for the last 50 years. The reserved (timberlands where cutting is not allowed) are actually increasing." https://www.thoughtco.com/us-forest-facts-on-forestland-1343034 https://www.thoughtco.com/us-forest-facts-on-forestland-1343...

blululu 4y ago

There are more Forrests in the US now than there were in 1922. Technically, yes we have more trees now than the historic minimum... As per the Wikipedia[1]: The US reached its historic minimal forrest coverage around 1920 with ~720 M acres. We are currently at ~760 M acres a century later, down from a pre-European high of ~1020 M acres. So yes we are on a gradual path toward replacement, but also Wisconsin is still a lawn compared to what it once was. There are also broader ecological considerations in forrest management than the number of trees, but none of this is really relevant to the main article which is probably not going to change America's forestry in the slightest. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_St...

m0llusk 4y ago

Forests regrown after deforestation have greatly reduced biodiversity. Because solar power is inconsistent production processes making use of it have incentive to collect solar power and store it in batteries instead of only using solar power directly. The customization potential of this production process means that we may be able to duplicate the characteristics of rare and highly desirable trees that only grow in specific environmental conditions.