[at-l] Drilling & trees, etc...

[silas_wright@yahoo.com (Ben Wright)]

Let me state my formal qualifications...I have none
in the so-called production of wood products. What I
said and everyone seems to have danced right by in
all their technical discussion of wood harvests and
wood products is consumption and population. In any
system where population and consumption growth is
on a pace to outstrip any possible production, there
is no sustainability. And I repeat again, as long as
people conceptualize the forest as predominately
a resource or a crop and talk exclusively about
production and have no real discussion of consumption,
we're are in serious trouble. Other than this, I
have and had no real comment on the specifics of
production or the role of Forest Service.

--- Ronald Moak <ronm@fallingwater.com> wrote:

> Comment: 
> Trees are a renewable resource and can be grown on
> sustainable cuts.  A
> sustainable cut is one where a known volume of trees
> can be harvested from a
> given acreage indefinitely. 
> ...
> Will there always be enough trees to sustain our
> needs or will our
> population outstrip our resources? That's a fair
> question. I don't have the
> answer,

What I'm trying to say is that the 2 definitions of
sustainability offered here are mutually
contradictory.
It is not an issue of sustainability of any given
cut. The primary issue is at what point does the
consumptive demands of a human population override
the biological system that is the EARTH and its
ability to keep up?  We keep hearing about the
complexities of government, human needs, human
economics, politics, etc. Yet, we desire and try
real hard to look at the biological functioning of
this planet as OVERLY SIMPLIFIED AND SIMPLISTIC.
And let me clue everyone in on something, that doesn't
change a single law of Nature or its application to
every species including humans. Taking diversity
and reducing it to human-centered production has its
biological effects and these effects will be felt
/are being felt by humans as well.

> Also there are numerous estimates that the number of
> trees in the United
> States today is greater today than when Columbus
> landed. 

Who do these estimates come from and where do their
vested interests lie? 

> As to the size of trees harvested, you should take
> note that large piece of
> dimensional lumber is not nearly as strong as a well
> engineered piece of
> laminated lumber. A single laminated I beam is
> stronger, lighter, cheaper,
> span longer distances and use 50% less wood fiber
> than a piece of solid
> lumber the same size. There's no reason to believe
> we won't continue to make
> further advances in wood technology in the coming
> years.

This totally misses the point of what I was saying.
However, if these future advances are possible why
is it so hard for anyone in the mainstream to talk
about advancing the technology of alternative building
methods and reducing the impact of all of us on the
forests? If we are so technologically smart, why
is it so damn hard for anyone to talk about
redirecting that smartness?
 
> Crop rotation varies from species to species and
> region to region. 

As soon as I got to this sentence, I knew we were
talking apples and oranges. I don't conceptualize
the forests as crops.  An ancillary part of what I
am saying is that how we talk about the environment-
the concepts, the connotations, and the meanings that
we attach to words and nature is equally important
as all the talk of technical aspects of "production"
of "crops" and other "resources." I actually
conceptualize humans as a part of nature where all
species have an equal share in the pot. My idea of
sustainability is that the underlying biological
process of the Earth continues indefinitely with
humans sharing in the pot along with other species
according to their place in the system. I also
realize that SOME extinction and jockeying of
species is part of the biological process.

> Is it a just a crop? That sort of conjures up
> visions of a sterile
> environment surrounded by high electrified barbwire
> fences bearing signs
> reading "Keep Out - Trees Only Zone". 

Again not what I meant. But then again let's
extrapolate the whole process out, oh let's be
generous and say 100 years. Population has continued
to grow and so has consumption. Remember that both
population and consumption seem to be exponential
functions these days. Most of the forests
now look like the cornfields of Middle America
except our "crop" is trees. Sterile environment,
probably not, exponentially less diverse, most
definitely, biological effects on a large scale,
uninvestigated and unknown, signs up, maybe but
they would probably say "Keep Out - Humans Only
Zone."

Incidently, my "qualifications" are in the field of
human ecology within cultural anthropology. I studied
how human groupings or cultures conceptualize and
interact with nature. And when I say "interact" I
mean how their decisions, actions, and technology
(their tools to implement their decisions and actions)
are influenced by their frame of reference or
conceptualization of "nature."  I don't say this
to be snooty. I only took to this "education" because
I have interest in why certain human cultures
act the way they do towards nature.

In this email I have only 2 points:
1. talking production only is a deadend. Consumption
   (which is per capita consumption summed across
    a population) must be addressed. 

2. conceptualizations of "nature" are the driving
   forces behind "production" and "consumption."

Finally, my conceptualizations and beliefs (getting
back to the original subject of this thread) are
going to continue to direct my stance and voting
on "production" and "conservation" as long as I
see no real discussions of consumption and production
alternatives. In the meantime, I try to reduce my
own impact because that's the only real realm I have
control of.

Ben

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