Particle board and other lumber products are a lot more expensive than pre-pandemic, but that’s not why I’m posting about this.
California has a wildfire problem, and the world has a climate change problem. A partial — and I emphasize only partial — contribution toward solving both is to cull young trees that provide wildfire fuel from California’s managed forests and turn them into building materials.
That forest growth captures carbon. Burning the brush, a common practice, releases it back into the atmosphere. Converting saplings and brush into building materials locks it inside those materials — and, ultimately, in housing that America desperately needs.
It seems like an obvious thing to do, except for one glitch: Forest clearing is labor intensive, and processing forest waste into building materials costs more than the market value of the materials, even at today’s elevated lumber prices. So, any such effort would have to be subsidized. Where would the money come from? And who would pay?
Obviously, there are high firefighting costs, and high property losses, when wildfires rage. Culling burn fuel from forests would produce costs savings. So, it makes senses to divert some money from firefighting to fire prevention. Selling the materials at below costs, when necessitated by wood prices, would still produce some revenue to help pay for the forest grooming efforts.
That likely wouldn’t pay all the costs, and the California legislature likely would have to make up the difference from tax revenues. California burns every year, and climate change is making the fires worse. It seems worth experimenting with, at least on a pilot project basis.
Read story here.
Photo below: Should government subsidize turning flammable brush into carbon capture and affordable housing?
