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>>> Across the road from my cabin was a huge clear-cut--hundreds of acres of massive spruce stumps interspersed with tiny Douglas firs--products of what they ca

>>> Across the road from my cabin was a huge clear-cut--hundreds of acres of massive spruce stumps interspersed with tiny Douglas firs--products of what they call "Reforestation," which I guess makes the spindly firs en masse a "Reforest," which makes an individual spindly fir a "Refir," which means you could say that Weyerhauser, who owns the joint, has Refir Madness, since they think that sawing down 200-foot-tall spruces and replacing them with puling 2-foot Refirs is no different from farming beans or corn or alfalfa. They even call the towering spires they wipe from the Earth's face forever a "crop"--as if they'd planted the virgin forest! But I'm just a fisherman and may be missing some deeper significance in their nomenclature and stranger treatment of primordial trees. from The River Why

14 2y ago
Can’t even have toilet paper without the logging industry. Housing would be pretty savage if we had to build everything out of rocks and mud. I strongly believe that any currently old growth forests should be protected but everything else really is just a crop.
- samarthr1 2y ago
  If you consider concrete and cement to be rocks and mud, no, outside of NA, most of the world uses stones and mud just fine. ~~atleast an angry drunk can't punch through my wall~~
  - xvector 2y ago
    Having lived in both constructions, for the American environs, wood-built houses are vastly superior to cement ones. Wood construction is better insulating, easier to repair, easier overhaul as the times inevitably change, naturally regulates temperature, adapts better to different weathers, flexes more and thus adapts to stress better, requires fewer and less stringent inspections, fails less catastrophically, has a smaller carbon footprint, is cheaper and easier to source, and is easier to transport.
    - adrianN 2y ago
      That's interesting, can you elaborate? I was under the impression that the main benefit of wood+sheetrock was cost and speed of construction.
      - xvector 2y ago
        Updated my comment with details
    - katbyte 2y ago
      Tl;dr, basically it’s just real cheap.
    - abenga 2y ago
      I've been watching a lot of real estate videos on YouTube, and it boggles my mind that people pay seven, even eight digit figures for houses made of wood. It's obviously rational (or so many people wouldn't do it), but it is really, really hard to drop the prejudice coming from my part of the world that Wooden = Flimsy & Cheap.
    - f3b5 2y ago
      Wood constructed houses have one of the arguably worst thermal profiles because of their extremely low thermal mass. Basically, they heat up quickly and cool down quickly. In most of Europe and North America you want the opposite: a structure that evens out high temperature throughout the day, and radiates warmth at night. Brick, stone, or clay do that very successfully. Think of an old stone church at a warm summer day: it's comfortably cool inside, completely without AC
      - trimethylpurine 2y ago
        >Wood constructed houses have one of the arguably worst thermal profiles I can't find any research backing this claim. The exact opposite appears to be true. Stone remains cold all winter and hot all summer. And it's expensive to heat and cool. In addition, wood can be renewable and has a much smaller carbon footprint than mining and quarrying.

14 2y ago

Can’t even have toilet paper without the logging industry. Housing would be pretty savage if we had to build everything out of rocks and mud. I strongly believe that any currently old growth forests should be protected but everything else really is just a crop.

samarthr1 2y ago
If you consider concrete and cement to be rocks and mud, no, outside of NA, most of the world uses stones and mud just fine. ~~atleast an angry drunk can't punch through my wall~~
- xvector 2y ago
  Having lived in both constructions, for the American environs, wood-built houses are vastly superior to cement ones. Wood construction is better insulating, easier to repair, easier overhaul as the times inevitably change, naturally regulates temperature, adapts better to different weathers, flexes more and thus adapts to stress better, requires fewer and less stringent inspections, fails less catastrophically, has a smaller carbon footprint, is cheaper and easier to source, and is easier to transport.
  - adrianN 2y ago
    That's interesting, can you elaborate? I was under the impression that the main benefit of wood+sheetrock was cost and speed of construction.
    - xvector 2y ago
      Updated my comment with details
  - katbyte 2y ago
    Tl;dr, basically it’s just real cheap.
  - abenga 2y ago
    I've been watching a lot of real estate videos on YouTube, and it boggles my mind that people pay seven, even eight digit figures for houses made of wood. It's obviously rational (or so many people wouldn't do it), but it is really, really hard to drop the prejudice coming from my part of the world that Wooden = Flimsy & Cheap.
  - f3b5 2y ago
    Wood constructed houses have one of the arguably worst thermal profiles because of their extremely low thermal mass. Basically, they heat up quickly and cool down quickly. In most of Europe and North America you want the opposite: a structure that evens out high temperature throughout the day, and radiates warmth at night. Brick, stone, or clay do that very successfully. Think of an old stone church at a warm summer day: it's comfortably cool inside, completely without AC
    - trimethylpurine 2y ago
      >Wood constructed houses have one of the arguably worst thermal profiles I can't find any research backing this claim. The exact opposite appears to be true. Stone remains cold all winter and hot all summer. And it's expensive to heat and cool. In addition, wood can be renewable and has a much smaller carbon footprint than mining and quarrying.