Ringside: The Case for Carbon Sequestration via Forestry and Mass Timber

There are at least two massive opportunities to engage in cost-effective carbon sequestration. Neither would require subsidies and both could be performed exclusively by the private sector. They are controversial, but for different reasons.

This week, building on last week’s report on the topic, we focus on the opportunity to responsibly manage every degraded forest on earth, starting with America’s neglected nearly 800 million acres of forest (not including Alaska). The mistake that was made, perhaps in California more than in other states but everywhere nonetheless, was to engage in increasingly effective suppression of wildfires at the same time as we put a stop to sustainable logging.

The reasons for this made sense at the time. Logging was not always practiced sustainably, and in the interests of species and habitat preservation, a multi-decadal, massive slowdown in timber harvests was enforced by the federal government. Now we have a situation that is even more unsustainable: forests that are either massively overgrown with tree densities that ensure poor overall tree health, or forests that were so overgrown with stressed and dried out trees that massive wildfires have burned them down to the dirt.

There is only one solution: a revival of responsible logging that employs the latest techniques: uneven age management (once simply called “selective logging”), judicious use of monocultures and clear cuts where appropriate, along with prescribed burns, brush clearing, and grazing. This requires replacing single species management with a total ecosystem approach, which is a proven innovation. Forests that are logged and managed in this way are restored, with higher species counts and healthier trees.

The upside as well, for those millions who put stock in such metrics, is the perpetual and sustainable extraction of sequestered carbon in the form of lumber. The potential is gigantic. For example, why aren’t we replacing concrete – a stupendous carbon culprit – with mass timber?

Mass timber (also called “cross laminated timber”) is where strips of wood are pressed together into large beams and panels, with each layer of grain running perpendicular to the layer above and below it. Able to replace reinforced concrete as a building material, it is economically competitive and aesthetically superior. It is perhaps the most profound innovation in building materials since the invention of reinforced concrete over 150 years ago. Why isn’t California at the forefront of mainstreaming this magnificent new construction product?

In the United States in 2020, about 370 million cubic yards of concrete were produced. About 40 percent of that went for commercial real estate construction. Meanwhile, throughout the Western United States, rates of forest mortality have risen in direct proportion to the enforced reduction in timber harvests, and now actually exceed rates of growth. It’s time to try a new approach. We can harvest more lumber while saving our forests. If we grow the market for mass timber, not only will our lumber sequester carbon, but it will reduce demand to produce carbon spewing concrete.

America’s forests sequester an estimated 866 million metric tons per year. If our nation’s forests were restored and managed, a significant percentage of that carbon could be removed each year in the form of wood products that would decay over centuries. As for concrete, estimates vary, but according to the International Energy Agency, 0.6 tons of CO2 are emitted for every ton of manufactured concrete. Offsetting 74 million cubic yards of concrete (at 1 ton per cubic yard) with mass timber would take another 44 million tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere each year. For comparison, the United States emitted 4.8 billion tons of CO2 in 2022.

The appeal of reviving the logging industry and exploding the market for mass timber goes well beyond the potential for carbon sequestration or carbon offsets. Even individuals who view the climate “emergency” with hardened skepticism must acknowledge that logging and mass timber offer appeal for a completely unrelated set of variables that are unambiguously positive. Save our forests. Stop cataclysmic wildfires and nurture wildlife populations. Create jobs and tax revenue. Introduce an aesthetically superior and economically competitive product into the construction market.

It’s a win, with or without the carbon sequestration argument, and when it comes to carbon sequestration schemes, it is therefore the best in class. Next week, we will consider another carbon sequestration opportunity, somewhat more controversial, but with equally promising economic benefits.