treesource

Forest Journalism for a Sustainable Future

With engineered wood buildings, cities can become carbon sinks, not sources

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Albina Yard was Lever Architecture’s second mass timber project, and is now home to its downtown Portland, Oregon, offices. Photo: Lever Architecture

Architects, engineers, developers and urban planners have a vision of cities as carbon sinks rather than sources. In addition to solar panels, rainwater collection, better design to limit heat gain and loss so buildings don’t use as much energy, the use of wood in constructing buildings can help store carbon in the built environment.

In addition, the manufacture and use of wood emits much less carbon dioxide than does concrete, steel or aluminum. There is a substitution benefit, the negawatt; less energy needs to be generated at the outset. As with electric vehicles, there is less energy used compared to the internal combustion engine.

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Urban forests, and their rural cousins, help cities mitigate climate change

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Besides their many economic and biological benefits, urban forests just make their human neighbors feel better. Photo: ncufc.org

Can innovative wood products and humans’ innate need to interact with nature help cities across the country achieve their commitments under the Paris climate accord?

More than 400 U.S. mayors and cities have signed the Paris Accords, but do they have a plan for how to accomplish the attendant goals?

Forests in their own cities and wood products from these enclaves and their rural brethren could help in a significant way.

The 2007 International Panel on Climate Change report recognized the importance of forest management: “In the long-term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.”

From the trees out your office and kitchen window to the rural forest totaling around 850 million acres, or one-third of the country, the answer is a loud yes they can help.

Already, some cities are taking advantage of their backyard and boulevard forests. [Read more…]

Publisher’s Notebook: The link between mass timber, forest management & carbon

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The 2017 International Mass Timber Conference included a tour of mass timber buildings in Portland, Oregon. Photo: Marcus Kauffman, Oregon Division of Forestry.

Forest management has been a hot-button topic for decades. Sadly, it continues today.

The divisiveness seems to come from the belief that there is a “right” way to manage forests, which of course leads to an us vs. them mentality. “If you’re not with me, you’re against me.”

Fortunately, more and more citizens seem to be re-examining this approach, recognizing that the sustainable growth of forests and the use of wood rather than fossil carbon-intensive materials is a better way to achieve a sustainable society. [Read more…]

Fighting fire with finance: Unique financing approach can restore ailing forests

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Forests provide many different services to people, most of which we don’t pay for and therefore tend not to be aware of or to take them for granted.

Wildfires burning in important municipal and farm irrigation watersheds have awakened many to the true cost of unhealthy forests, when tens of millions of dollars must be invested to filter the water that nature previously filtered for us, rehabilitate a watershed to stabilize the soil, and clear sediment from reservoirs that filled after a wildfire.

This TedX presentation by Leigh Madeira demonstrates how using financial markets and private investment, water districts, cities and other entities can accelerate the restoration of watersheds after 100 years of fire suppression has created overly dense forests. [Read more…]

Publisher’s Notebook: Happy holidays from Treesource!

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Dave Atkins and grandson Emerson

The smell of a fresh-cut tree is a wonderful thing. A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I took our 3½-year-old and 10-month-old grandsons, Emerson and Rowan, out to our forest land to collect a couple of Christmas trees. Emerson cut down his own 3-footer to take home and decorate.

A homegrown tree is a great thing to enjoy for the holidays. And, of course, by removing excess trees from our land, we create more space for those remaining and make them healthier. After the holidays, the trees can be composted for further benefits to the environment, the essence of renewability and sustainability.

The end of the year, shortening days and gatherings with family are cause for reflection on the past year and looking forward to the year to come. We hope you have appreciated and enjoyed the stories Treesource has gathered and produced for you this past year, showing the wide array of wonderful things trees and forests do for us. We’ve also tried to shed light on the choices society faces in the wake of ever-larger wildfires and the mounting consequences of climate change. There are also many positive things we have learned and shared in 2018, and next year is full of possibilities. [Read more…]