Our Daily Wood  

Every day, each of Earth’s 6 billion inhabitants uses this much wood – about four pounds on average. But the average American uses 3.5 times as much. Should America use less wood? Steel, aluminum and concrete are touted as substitutes whose use will help “save forests.” But wood is the only resource on Earth that is renewable, recyclable and biodegradable. What’s more, the only energy needed to grow wood fiber is the free, non-polluting energy of the sun. Most of the energy consumed in the manufacture of steel, aluminum and concrete comes from fossil fuel – petroleum. And when fossil fuel burns, it releases carbon dioxide, the compound most often linked to global warming. But growing trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, adding oxygen to the air we breathe. Moreover, about half the dry weight of wood is carbon - meaning that the carbon dioxide trees absorb from the atmosphere becomes part of the wood we use. The formula describing this miraculous exchange is beautiful in its simplicity: to produce one pound of wood, a tree takes in 1.47 pounds of carbon dioxide and returns 1.07 pounds of oxygen to the air we breathe. As our civilization searches for ways to contain its insatiable appetite for Earth’s raw materials, these questions beg for answers: Where will we get our daily wood and why are we unnecessarily using products that pollute the air we breathe?