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The idea of banning logging of any kind to the average American might seem stupid, their thought process being "well, what else are we going to get wood to build new houses??". However, steel / aluminum construction is dropping in price every year and although concrete isn't much better, buildings constructed from it last one hell of a lot longer. IMO forests are far too precious to humanity to just cut down for housing materials. DISCLAIMER - I'm going to come off as some hippie-dippie tree hugger here, but I am NOT. Just your average developer with some weird hobbies, maybe I happen to like plants a bit more than some since I got into plant science / algae while doing research at UT Austin's plant science dept. in high school? I digress... My biggest reason to support this kind of legislation comes from an experience I had while taking time off from college to work in the Bay Area. One weekend I decided to take a day trip to Big Basin National Park. This was in 2017 after almost two weeks of heavy rain, I was lucky I didn't get my shrimpy VW Jetta stuck in a washed out part of the road during the drive over the foothills on my way to the park. When I arrived, the forest floor was surging with life, trees had fallen but new rivers had formed. I saw endangered species of mushroom, salamander and all kinds of other life that otherwise wouldn't have emerged from the duff covering the forest floor. I spent 7 hours in that park, eventually realizing a deer had been silently following me. For a while I was actually lost and although I'm not a religious person consider this three hour period taking in the forest as the closest thing to a "religious experience" I've ever had. In simply terms I though, "how on earth could anyone experience this incredible place, trees higher than I could see, life surging from every orifice and think 'we should cut this down to build housing complexes'??" I had a long reflective drive back, feeling refreshed in a way I'd never experienced going to any other national park. It killed me to pass logging trucks and signs for "active logging" as I made my way back over the foothills and actually almost ran out of gas because my expected route had washed out while I was hiking that day. Forests are sacred. Why we cut them down is beyond me, if you're in the Bay Area please join a reforestation cause! I'm going to get back to programming now... |
I'm not sure this is any better. Steel and aluminum production are both incredibly stressful on the environment. Brazil, for example, mines massive amounts of iron ore (for steel) and bauxite (for aluminum) in the Amazon, contributing significantly to the deforestation there. I don't know much about the process for steel production, but aluminum smelting is incredibly energy intensive. The result is large energy projects which themselves impact the environment. Hydroelectric dams are commonly used to supply the energy needs and can result in massive environmental side effects in places like Brazil. A common alternative to smelting near mining operations is shipping to countries like Iceland, which has exceptional energy production capacity thanks to its many renewable sources (like hydro) and offers cheap energy. While dams in Iceland have significantly less flora and fauna to disrupt, you're adding the emissions cost of shipping.