'Climate Change' and the coming 'Climate Lockdown'

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The Whispering Monk said:
Define 'really nice timber' for me and why we need it please.
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Ignoring other factors than age?

Ok.

Humans, animals in general, work on a setup where they grow up for a while, then decline from there. Once your dog is a full adult, that's the peak. It's all down hill from there.

Trees don't work like that. Not even close. There are a number of factors, but.... A tree might have a 300 year lifespan. And for most of that time, it becomes more along that time. Example: Teak.


Teak's the best external timber in the world. Boat building, external furniture, anything outside. It's got natural oils that repel moisture so well, you can't just glue it. It'll repel the glue if you're not careful. But, that requires time for the tree in question to properly grow those oils. To firm up it's material. To stabilise.

There's two types of Teak avalable in the world. One grows in Burma/Myanmar, and is managed in traditional style, for top quality. (Mostly, that means wandering through the forest once a year looking for invasive stuff, and doing something about it if it turns up.) Not a single tree under 80 years old is cut down. The other is plantation, quick growing. Say, 15 years.


The plantation stuff is lucky to last a third as long outside, is less stable, less strong, just not as good at all.
 
Simonbob said:
There's two types of Teak avalable in the world. One grows in Burma/Myanmar, and is managed in traditional style, for top quality. (Mostly, that means wandering through the forest once a year looking for invasive stuff, and doing something about it if it turns up.) Not a single tree under 80 years old is cut down. The other is plantation, quick growing. Say, 15 years.


The plantation stuff is lucky to last a third as long outside, is less stable, less strong, just not as good at all.
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The thing is that you're getting it in nearly a fifth the time, so a third the lifespan and some additional amount needed is still economical. That, more than anything else, is why fast bulk plantation lumber dominates the market, because it's still good enough for architecture and construction logistics, even if it's a massive pain in the ass for small-time owners to replace large chunks of the building in their own lifetime.
 
The Whispering Monk said:
I'm going to have to see if I can find an article/study I read a while back. Basically looked at total land area in the US over history to see how much actual forest we have here. It stated that we have more forest in the US today than we did in the 1800's. The answer: timber companies PLANT TREES in order to make more money. Article was done to directly address the, "OH MY GOD! All the old-growth forests are dying and we won't have any trees left in the USA!" claim.
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In the USA. Yes.
Most of the world is deforesting though.
 
There is still the ecosystem to worry about.

It's pretty much better in everyway to have a large, old, and diverse forest than to have a huge area with just one kind of tree for lumber or a orchard or whatever.

We can do both but old growth is definitely something we should preserve if we can.
 
Bigking321 said:
There is still the ecosystem to worry about.

It's pretty much better in everyway to have a large, old, and diverse forest than to have a huge area with just one kind of tree for lumber or a orchard or whatever.

We can do both but old growth is definitely something we should preserve if we can.
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Agreed.

However, they only persist when they pay for themselves. As such, when you can profit from it, it's worth protecting. The timber industry wants those forests, wants sustainable logging for permanant profit.


When the Greens lock them up, they aren't being protected and maintained. So, they get worse.



Morphic Tide said:
The thing is that you're getting it in nearly a fifth the time, so a third the lifespan and some additional amount needed is still economical. That, more than anything else, is why fast bulk plantation lumber dominates the market, because it's still good enough for architecture and construction logistics, even if it's a massive pain in the ass for small-time owners to replace large chunks of the building in their own lifetime.
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.


Sort of, but it's not that simple. Plantations cost more to run, requires more time and effort, and has terrible envriomental side effects. The quality of timber being produced being lower also means it's harder to use, on top of being shorter in life span. You get about the same amount of timber from managed forests for the same money, but you need vastly less space for a plantation. More people and chemicals, though.


Generally, as far as I can tell? Plantations are only better economiclly with the better option of managed forests being screwed over by Govenment. As pretty much all western Govenments are doing so. They are much quicker to profit from, though.

When the rules are so erratic, people go for the quick money.



Over all, it's hard to say what really the most profitable. We'd need a much less broken system to know for sure.
 
Simonbob said:
When the rules are so erratic, people go for the quick money.
Over all, it's hard to say what really the most profitable. We'd need a much less broken system to know for sure.
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I think that sums up the problem. Long-term investment requires a degree of predictability, and of security of property, to be worth doing.
When an industry that good people spent years building up can be put out of business overnight at the whim of some imbecile politician, one can hardly blame rational actors for instead looking for "quick money".
 
Scottty said:
I think that sums up the problem. Long-term investment requires a degree of predictability, and of security of property, to be worth doing.
When an industry that good people spent years building up can be put out of business overnight at the whim of some imbecile politician, one can hardly blame rational actors for instead looking for "quick money".
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It's even worse when the end result is pretty much always the opposite of why they say they want to shut it down.

"Helping workers" has the effect of hurting workers. "Protecting the Enviroment" hurts it.


I could stand the schemes a lot better if they worked at least a bit.
 
Simonbob said:
It's even worse when the end result is pretty much always the opposite of why they say they want to shut it down.

"Helping workers" has the effect of hurting workers. "Protecting the Enviroment" hurts it.


I could stand the schemes a lot better if they worked at least a bit.
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Any Sufficiently Advanced Stupidity Is Indistinguishable From Malice.
 
Cherico said:
13-globalwindsolarpotential-cutaways-vi-01-scaled.jpg


Renewables are limited by geography.

Everything in blue great for wind power, every thing in green great for solar, if its dark blue its good for both. The fact is solar is improving as a means to create energy and wind is decent enough at providing auxulry power. But if your truely serious about cutting emessions then nuclear is the way to go.
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And yet the lefts greens near universally oppose nuclear,which means they are full of shit and untrustworthy
 
Marduk said:
They would be wasting money if they did. The coal spike price is petering out. There is hardly a difference anymore between market and existing mine coal price. Reopening mines would just make the EU mad, and in a year the coal would be a problem because it would be more expensive than market price and so no one would want it and then miners would be mad again.
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I mean making the EU mad is a pretty decent reason to do basically anything...
 
mandragon said:
No clue I just don't like the EU and wish the Euros would withdraw from it enmass. Just as I wish my country would withdraw from the UN,national governments are already bad supra national ones are worse.
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I think the UN has a legit role as a forum for international debate. But it should not be trying to become some sort of world government.
 
Jormungandr said:
Yeah. :( After all, people rip on environmentalists/greens for being ignorant for many valid reasons.

How an environmentalist sees nuclear waste, minus the demons, guns, and blood. Er, unless they see pro-nuclear people as demons. shrug
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The proabably do see pro-nuclear people as demons.

‘ Do you want another Chernobyl/Three Mile Island/Fukushima?! How dare you not embrace the saving gospel of Solar and Wind Power!’

:p
 
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