Green

Wood: Key Weapon in the War Against Climate Change

By Mike Botta

With depressed housing still likely to weigh heavily on the economic recovery of America’s woodworking industry, some leaders are pushing hard to spread word of the global benefits of using wood. 

Urs Buehlmann, the respected associate professor of the Department of Wood Science & Forest Products at Virginia Tech, recently noted a campaign going on for some time in Europe that shows how wood is an effective weapon against global warming.

In a recent letter to members of the Wood Products and Furniture Steering Committee outlining the state of the industry and the challenges ahead, Buehlmann included a link to a short video by the Brussels-based EI-Bois, the European Confederation of Woodworking Industries.

Simple Way to Reduce CO₂

The video and related book titled simply, “Tackle Climate Change: Use Wood,” claim that the increased use of wood and wood products provides “a simple way to reduce the CO₂emissions that are the main cause of climate change, through the carbon sink effect of the forests; the carbon storage effect of wood products, and substitution for carbon-intensive materials.”

The goal of the European group is two-fold: To explain the environmental benefits of using wood to reduce climate change and to help boost the industry’s economic picture.

It’s a message that Buehlmann would like to spread to the American public, especially with the abundance of forest land in North America and a wood industry still reeling from the overall decline in housing, among other factors.

Key Objectives

In a nutshell, the EI-Bois book explains how:

·       The use of wood reduces CO₂ in the atmosphere

·       Most forests are sustainable

·       Wood products help slow global warming

·       Recycling of wood-based products aid energy recovery

On that last point, the book claims that the energy used to create the materials that make up a building is typically 22 percent of the total energy expended over the lifetime of the building and that, besides wood, there is no other commonly used building material that requires so little energy to produce.

It further points out that because of photosynthesis, trees are able to capture CO₂in the air and to combine it with the water they get from the soil to produce the organic material, wood. The photosynthesis process also produces oxygen in the air we breathe.

Wood Versus Other Materials

The European group cites the overall benefits of wood versus other building materials, noting it significantly reduces the carbon footprint of a structure. Specific materials singled out include steel, aluminum, concrete and plastics, which the group states “require large amounts of energy to produce.”

Certainly people responsible for the competing products would likely counter with a host of advantages of their own products, such as steel in housing construction as a hedge against events like hurricanes, earthquakes and fire.

But, nonetheless, the European group makes a convincing argument for the benefit of using wood to combat climate change, something that may play well in America’s increasing environmental consciousness, especially as it concerns global warming.

Now, Buehlmann and the Steering Committee need to figure out a way to spread that message beyond the wood industry and into the minds of the American public.

In the meantime, to view the 6-minute European video, click this link … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0EnQLQLDg0

For the book, click this one … http://www.cei-bois.org/files/b03500-p01-84-ENG.pdf