Perhaps I could suggest you read some environmental history John.  I don't
mean to appear arrogant or dismissive, but you make a mistake to think that
humans are somehow incompatible with resource use of forests.  You appear to
assume that any tree removed is an evil - and necessarily harmful to the
ecosystem.  Yet dynamism is the essential defining process of any
ecosystem - stasis is an urban myth.  Without change, diversity of structure
doesn't occur.  Believe it or not we as a species are part of this planet,
and we - like other animals - are part of the cause and effect pattern that
produces this dynamism, and hence the biological diversity.  We have become
destructive because of our numbers, our dominant environmental ethic and our
technology applied with perhaps a decreasing wisdom.  The decreasing wisdom
is due - I would argue - to our growing psychological DISCONNECTION from
nature and the hence the denial of that truth of our essential association
with it (disconnection is a premise of BOTH the dominant ECONOMIC paradigms
that sees all use as "full steam ahead" benign rationality [and never mind
the horses], and the apparently reactive PRESERVATION paradigm that sees any
human involvement [other than observation] as a necessarily destructive
evil).

But the best response is not to say - stop.  It is to learn to live within
the means of the planet.  Forests are the ultimate, low-human-energy-input,
provider of renewable products - the ultimate solar power is photosynthesis
through chlorophyll - still a far better single molecule than anything any
engineer has developed.  Some would say (and I would agree) that this
molecule is the source of most life on this planet through its production of
carbon based energy.  In a human world that relies on carbon forms of energy
to a large degree, any solution that seeks to replace a renewable energy
source with a non-renewable energy source (and I am not disparaging the uses
of soil, or bricks or solar power - though I am of metals, plastics and
concrete as substitutes) is doomed to failure.  If we want to survive as a
species we need to reduce resource use and learn to live with th environment
(through the development of a consumption and land ethic, as well as popn
control), we need to restore and protect ecosystem functions, and we need to
move from a reliance on non-renewable energy sources to renewable sources.
I cannot conceive of a workable solution that didn't involve our living
within the ecosystems on this planet - and those ecosystems include forests
as one of nature's greatest gifts to us all.  You can have your aesthetic
and spiritual values as well as humanity.  IF you choose to have ONLY the
aesthetic and the spiritual, then it is a slippery slope to not having
humanity represented at all.

Chris


> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask]
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of John Foster
> Sent: Saturday, 19 February 2000 08:30
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Should we use something besides Wood? was [RE: Ethics of
> immunocontraception?]
>
>
> There are many substitutes for wood that are both energy and economically
> efficient. One substitute is earth [cement, clay, sand]. Earth can replace
> wood for homes even here in a cold climate. The advantages of earth are
> numerous. One of the best building products on the market is autoclaved
> cement. This product has a high insulative capacity compared with wood and
> fiber glass. The product is fireproof, termite proof, sound proof and is
> easy to install. It is only one substitute for wood that is less
> costly from
> an environmental perspective. Other substitutes include ceramics, modern
> adobe, straw, steel, reinforced concrete forms, foam, and
> recycled plastics.
>
> Forestry is both an art and a science. That means that forestry is subject
> to both human valuation and facts derived from natural sciences. Facts and
> the meanings of those facts are what drives any discussion regarding the
> purpose and function of forests.
>
> Chris suggests that the alternatives to wood products are not energy
> efficient and are themselves cause of ecological degradation, citing only
> nuclear power. There are many forms now that are exploiting wind, small
> scale hydro, biomass, solar, and co-generation that not only are
> competitive
> with nuclear power, but have negligible impact on ecosystems.
>
> One alternative is wind power. In Denmark now over 10 % of domestic
> electricity consumption is derived from wind power. In Sweden
> there has been
> a decline in the use of coal due to the increase in the use of biomass for
> electrical generation, and recently in North America there has been an
> increase in the installation of heat pumps and heat exchangers that reduce
> energy consumption between 50 - 70 % in buildings.
>
> I would like to discuss values as this topic is relevant to environmental
> ethics.
>
> Forests provide many resource values. Wood for building materials is an
> instrumental value that has an assigned value, that is it is a
> product that
> has a market value.  The most important value of a forest is spiritual
> value.
>
> Take for instance the value of a forest as it is before any tree is cut
> down. Let us imagine what the forest is like in this case. Let us say that
> the forest is a rainforest in the west coast of British Columbia. Let us
> imagine a forest that is about 8000 years old or more. A forest with 1000
> year old trees where all the components of a forest are intact: arboreal
> lichens, arthropods, neotropical birds, and several thousand species of
> mychorrizae.
>
> Now imagine that this was the original forest that existed prior to the
> arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas, a forest that was much
> larger than today. Now imagine the forest as it is today on Vancouver
> Island.
>
> Just begin to imagine a forest today that is mostly cutover, consisting of
> clearcuts with one a few of the species actively managed for on a
> commercial
> basis, and imagine stream banks devoid of old trees for thousands
> of linear
> kilometers. Imagine a forested island with only remnants of intact antique
> forests. Imagine the streams like Carnation Creek without their
> abundance of
> riparian and aquatic habitats, and a declining commercial fisheries caused
> by continuous clearcutting, roadbuilding, and slashburning.
>
> Now continue to imagine what has happened again in terms of a
> time frame. In
> 1900 Vancouver Island was still largely wilderness, and over 95 percent of
> the forest on the Island was antique or primary forest. Now
> imagine what the
> forest is now like on the Island after 100 years. Imagine what
> the wood was
> used for. That wood was used for paper products which largely are now in
> landfills around the world, some libraries, and consumed by fires
> in stoves.
> Now continue to imagine that of the remainder of the wood that was cut on
> Vancouver Island was used to construct homes. Most of that wood is still
> functioning in the homes that were built over the last one hundred years.
> These homes have on average a life span of 60 years. In 60 years from now
> all that wood from one of the most biodiverse regions of the world will be
> be torn down and burned or burried with none of it going back to the site
> where it came from. In 60 years from now the trees that replaced
> the primary
> wood will be cut down again and made into homes. However the
> amount of wood
> that will be harvested will be half of the original amount as a
> result of a
> much shorter rotation. On Vancouver Island the average harvest of antique
> forest consists of the very best wood: structurally sound, clear grained,
> few knots. Also consider that the volume per hectare was 1000 cubic meters
> or more on most sites. Now consider the future harvest. The future harvest
> will be half what it was, and it will consist of poorer quality wood, high
> in knot content, weaker wood.
>
> The need for sustitutes for wood is a pressing concern from both a
> humanitarian perspective and also from a biocentric perspective. It is a
> fact that the young forests that replace the antique forests are not
> biologically diverse. In North America the average wood
> consumption rate per
> year is over 1000 times that of the average Peruvian and perhaps
> 3000 times
> the rate of the average person living in Chad [Can. Pulp and Paper Inst.,
> 1999]. Now consider the growth in incomes in places like China, India, and
> other developing nations. If we consider that consumption of wood on an
> average North American basis, then we would actually need 5 planets to
> supply the world's demand for wood.
>
> What that means is that in the future, with the increase in economic
> purchasing power, and an increase in demand resulting from a
> population that
> is expected to be at least 8 billion people, the forests will be exhausted
> of all antique and primary forests. The average rate of growth of
> forests in
> the boreal forest is no greater than 4 cubic meters per hectare
> per year. At
> this rate of growth approximately 6 million hectares of forest is required
> for cutting each year in North America. In British Columbia there
> are about
> 25 million hectares capable of growing timber for commercial use, but only
> about 250,000 hectares are cut each year. That means that just to
> supply the
> North American  market we would need about 600 million hectares of forest
> for commercial use. If we were to reduce the cutting rate to once every 50
> years in North America, then we would need about 30 % more
> forest, or about
> 780 million hectares of forest. Canada has about 450 million hectares of
> forest, but only half that is commercial forest, leaving about 200 million
> hectares. In the US and central America there are an additional
> 200 million
> hectares of commercial forests perhaps. That results in a grand total of
> about 400 million hectares of forest. Clearly there is a shortage of
> commercial forests to meet future demands for wood by as much as
> 380 million
> hectares.
>
> We still have not factored in 2-6 billion more people in the world by the
> year 2100, and we have not factored in increased incomes in developing
> nations like China and India which do not have commercial forests of any
> extent. In fact China has banned commercial logging since it has less than
> ten percent of it's forests left, and less than 5 percent of those forest
> are primary or frontier forests.
>
> We still have not considered the impact to ecosystem health resulting from
> the clearcutting of all remaining primary or frontier forests left in the
> world for homes and paper. There is the addition of approximately
> 40 percent
> more C02 that will fuel climate change; currently 40 percent of existing
> green house gases are derived from forest destruction, and the
> accumulation
> of wood biomass from older homes being burned, C02 from landfills where
> paper and wood waste is desposited. We still have to consider the loss of
> ecosystem integrity and resilience in the forests that were clearcut, and
> replaced with 2 or 3 commercial species. We need to consider the
> total cost
> to water quality, soil productivity, recreation and other
> non-timber forest
> values.
>
> It is pretty clear that we need to find alternatives to the use
> of wood for
> all uses. We need electronic paper, recycled paper, and we need to develop
> markets for wood substitutes. Those people who build homes when they use
> 'autoclaved cement' [weighs 75 % of normal concrete, the blocks are 12
> inches wide] or other substitue are creating new jobs in their
> own regions.
> Why should would the consumer of a new home care about the job of
> someone in
> BC when they buy a block made from sand and cement that was made locally?
> They would not care. But if they wanted to go salmon fishing, or if they
> wanted to see an antique forest, and knowing that they care about antique
> forests, they would care about the choice of building product.
>
>
> As soon as we can get better substitutes for wood the better off
> all life on
> earth will be. I hate my rottin deck. I am ready to take it apart and
> recycle it. I will replace it with bricks that last 10 times
> longer. I have
> a metal roof on my house. It will last longer them myself. The folks just
> replace their cedar shingles last year after only twenty years of use. And
> the fires hazard is no longer there since the new roof consists
> of fireproof
> materials with a life time warranty [no wood] and they have bricks on the
> outside that do not need maintenance and are better at insulation, and
> fireproof.
>
> We call those frame houses made of wood around here: 'stick and mache'
> houses.
>
> Chao,
>
> John Foster
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Perley <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Friday, February 18, 2000 3:36 AM
> Subject: Should we use something besides Wood? was [RE: Ethics of
> immunocontraception?]
>
>
> >I'll keep this brief John.  As a forester (like Leopold) I am
> perhaps a bit
> >sensitive to people suggesting that we need to substitute wood for
> something
> >else.  Implicit in the suggestion is that other substitutes will be
> >environmentally better, and that we cannot have use and ecological
> >protection on the same land.  I reject both premises.  Forests can be
> >managed to provide for human needs WHILE maintaining ecological
> health, and
> >the alternatives to wood are simply awful.  They are such things as
> >non-renewable or energy intensive products - metals, petroleum products,
> >concrete or even the much touted agricultural fibre crops (that need
> >fertiliser and chemical inputs).  Aluminium uses 16 times the
> energy to get
> >a comparable product to timber.  That is a lot of nuclear power, burnt
> >fossil fuel and dammed vales.  Wood, by comparison is largely cellulose,
> >hemicellulose and lignin - i.e. C, H & O - from the only free lunch we
> >have - photosynthesis - where the forest sucks up CO2 and H2O
> and defecates
> >O2.  Real foresters (as compared with the short rotation fibre croppers)
> >don't use fertiliser, etc.  They don't need to.  The nutrients
> of a forest
> >are largely in the litter layer, the crown, and in the cambium
> layer under
> >the bark.  Removing just the stem and leaving both the litter
> and crown on
> >site removes very few nutrients - and provided the rotations are long
> enough
> >and the practices are good - then any forest can be managed in perpetuity
> >WITH a vibrant and complex ecosystem.  The science is there, and
> the ethics
> >are there - IF you can keep the spreadsheet worshipping accountants with
> >their high discount rates out of the decision making.
> >
> >The solution to our environmental problems is not less forest in
> preference
> >to more agriculture or non-renewable resource use - it is MORE forest.
> >Nature's gift - and renowned for the multiple benefits they
> provide - from
> >clean water, food, aesthetics AND ......timber.
> >
> >There is a continuum of forestry management - as there is in fishing and
> >farming etc.  Just because some exploitation does occur - from largely
> those
> >run by purely commercial rather than ecological interests - does not mean
> >that the answer is then to reject the whole continuum.
> >
> >Regards
> >
> >Chris Perley
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: [log in to unmask]
> >> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of John Foster
> >> Sent: Friday, 18 February 2000 15:34
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: Re: [RE: Ethics of immunocontraception?]
> >>
> >>
> >> Reproductive 'rights' are assigned. Then the question can only be 'who'
> >> assigns those rights?
> >>
> >> In Bhutan all animals have 'reproductive rights' and as such they are
> free
> >> to reproduce. If you want to go there, then it will cost you $200 (US)
> per
> >> day. If you don't have the money to go there, then you will
> have to work
> >> harder to obtain the funds. Incidentally the country of Bhutan is
> >> Bhuddist.
> >> Should you ask: does this country conserve forests?
> >>
> >> The answer is yes. It conserves forests, and most of the forests in
> Bhutan
> >> are protected from commercial exploitation. Ask me about Bhurma?
> >>
> >> Do we need substitutes for wood for newspapers and homes?
> >>
> >> The answer is yes.
> >>
> >> Only pursuing the right questions.
> >>
> >> John Foster
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >>
>
>



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