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Re: GBlist: I'd rather hug a tree than give up my OSB





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> From: Lugano@ix.netcom.com
> Please understand, I love a good rant. I like to be around people who
> are passionate about their beliefs. And I dearly appreciate the
> education you folks have given me about the politics of big time timber
> harvesting. So let me return the favor.
> 
> In Vermont, 70% of our land is forested. Lucky us? Not really. A hundred
> years ago, the state was 70% pasture. This does not represent a
> beautiful environmental turn around. It is the result of depopulation
> and the extreme poverty that lingers today. And the bottom line-poverty
> does not foster environmental conservation. Something else fun to know
> about ecological change-the State Fossil was found in my back yard. It's
> a whale and I'm a long way from the ocean.

I'm not quite sure what your point is here. That we can damage the
environment and that it can recover? This much is obvious. What is equally
obvious is that the global and local environment has a limited amount of
resiliency. We could cut down a third of the trees in the world and hope
that 100 years would repair the damage. But I think we can both agree that
if we chopped down all of them, the climate would never recover.

So it's always a question of how much. If we are working within budget, we
are building sustainably, if we exceed our budget, we are not. It's a bit
tricky to establish exactly what this environmental budget should be in
every case, but it's not hard to see we are exceeding it!

Just because there have been climate changes in the past, like the one that
turned your backyard from ocean into forest, does not mean that we should
be casual about causing them! Realize that if we triggered something that
turned your forest back into ocean, the cost in human life and property
would be tremendous. Not something we want to do, is it?

> 
> I object to the personification of plants. Trees are wonderful, a
> stagering gift of creation, but they are not people. Brutally slashing
> them is ugly business, but it is not a holocaust. Chipping old growth
> timber is a wasteful and ignorant thing to do, but it is not rape. You
> just don't have to diminish the value of people to accentuate the
> grandeur of the silva.

Trees are not people, people are not trees. But please note that the rest
of the species could get by without humans, but none of us O2 breathers
could get by without trees. We need them, they don't need us.

And we're not talking about people vs. trees, because we don't NEED to
build all these giant wooden houses to survive! It's a question of trees
vs. people's egos!

I'll pick trees every time. How about you?

> 
> I am convinced that the lumber industry does not bring prosperity to the
> world, and I don't own the stock of L-P. But I'm not ashamed to use
> their InnerSeal OSB panels. I think they are a fabulous
> product-stucturally and environmentally. Not free from impact, but an
> order of magnitude better than the alternatives. And their insulation is
> cellulose which I do get emotional about. When I saw their OSB
> clapboard, it was clear to me that the product was a looser. So I didn't
> buy it. 
> 
> But my customers demand that I buy a lot of stuff. So the timber
> industry does what I want it to do. What they want it to do. What we
> want it to do.

Speak for yourself, it's not what I want it to do.

I would like the timber industry and users such as yourself to pay the true
costs of your wood, instead of passing them on to the rest of the country
through tax subsidies, free or cheap timber rights, and environmental
destruction. If you are willing to pay for these things, then fine. But
you're not. You want to buy your wood and if the harvesting causes runoff
problems that wipe out a local fishing industry, that's just tough luck,
right?

What I want to know is this. If timber is so renewable etc., then why do
the timber companies still want to harvest old-growth? Surely they can get
everything they need from tree farms, rigtht?

If the timber companies harvested their own trees from their own
tree-farms, I have little problem with that. (Although they should have to
meet environmental laws like everyone else).

For my (strawbale) construction I will need wood of course. I plan on using
light structural lumber and engineered wood I-beams (made from particles
mostly).

Wood is beautiful as a building material, but it is more beautiful as a
tree.

> 
> I just try to get them the most conservative and durable stuff. Because
> even if a timber comes from a certified forest, if it rots or makes
> someone sick from mold spores, the whole thing was still a waste. When
> you complain about large private houses, I can't tell if I'm hearing
> environmental concern or class envy. You're an American. That means that
> 90% of the population sees you and me as gluttonous pigs. So judge not,
> 'less you be judged.

Judge away! Unless we start to judge ourselves we're all doomed. Just
because all my neighbors are gluttonous pigs, and because I have my own
porkine gluttony on record, is no reason to shut down my brain on the
issue. I've said it before and I'll say it again, these hugh stick-frame
houses are simply comspicuous consumption and they are WRONG!!!

Lot's of people just sloppily think "Oh well, probably the environment will
recover from my stupidity so I won't worry about it too much." I think
that's wrong too!

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