When I first moved back to the West Coast in 2003, I looked for condos in cities within driving distance of my family’s forest in Toledo. In one home I toured, the real estate agent proudly pointed to beams made of steel, but imprinted with wood grain, explaining that no trees had been cut to construct the building.
I just shook my head.
I’m not sure the understanding of renewable versus nonrenewable resources has improved in the last 20 years. In the July 30 edition of The Chronicle, the article “Mass timber’s sustainability promise: Does it stack up?”quoted Beverly Law, a retired forestry professor at Oregon State University: “Protecting the surviving trees and new growth from logging is more important to the environment than any emission mitigation mass timber could provide.”
It’s enough to make me bang my head on the ground. Or on the largest Douglas fir in our forest. Wood from a sustainable managed forest is the key to a healthy earth and a healthy society. Some facts:
What makes wood? Photosynthesis.
What makes steel? Mined iron ore plus mined coke cooked at high temperatures.
What makes concrete? Cement (itself a mixture of mined lime, silica, alumina, etc., cooked to initiate a chemical release of carbon dioxide) plus mined sand, gravel and stone.
What do you hear when wood is being made? Bird calls, owl screeches, deer hooves.
What do you see and hear when steel is being made? Clanging, scraping, smoke.
What do you see and hear when concrete is being made? Dust, grinding, holes in the ground.
How much carbon does a tree absorb as it grows? Lots.
How much carbon do concrete and steel absorb as they are processed? None. Less than none — the processes put lots of carbon into the air.
Of course, all building products must be brought to the construction site in trucks, and must be shaped into buildable shapes in mills or factories, but wood is almost magic; it is made from sun and air. Wood is a most basic example of the overused adjective “natural.” Wood isn’t “produced;” it is grown in a forest. Steel and concrete are ultra-processed products, with pollution and irreversible extraction all along the way.
And lest we get “carbon tunnel vision,” let’s remember all the other benefits a forest brings. As wood grows, it shades streams, it provides a home for squirrels, owls and elk, and leaves or needles add nutrients to the forest floor. At the same time, trees provide solitude and solace for the humans who walk among them. When harvest time comes, the cycle begins again. New trees are planted, trailing blackberries get sunshine, bears eat the berries, deer munch on young vine maple. In a few years, saw whet owls will make their homes in thickets of adolescent Douglas fir and cedar, and thimble berries will delight a young child.
None of this happens at a steel mill or concrete factory. Wood is the answer.
Ann Stinson
Cowlitz Ridge Tree Farm
President, Washington Farm Forestry Association
