[huuhee3]

Using concrete for building also causes massive emissions. Generally speaking, making long lasting buildings from wood is ecological compared to alternatives. Of course doing the harvesting in a sustainable way and replanting are necessary for this to be true.

IMO old growth forests should be protected, but at the same time we should plant new industrial forests as much as possible, and harvest them for building material. Old agricultural land that is no longer used for farming is ideal for that.

[hnbad]

I'm not saying using wood instead of concrete is bad. I'm just saying "build more houses and use wood" doesn't reduce emissions, it produces them. "Build more houses and don't use wood" of course produces more. But the distinguishing factor here is "use wood" not "build more houses".

Likewise planting trees to be used for industry instead of materials with worse emissions is good and planting forests is good but the two are largely unrelated as the kind of forest you want for restoration projects is different from the kind you can use for logging.

It's a bit like how there were news headlines about bees becoming endangered followed by tons of startups selling honey bees for greenwashing when honey bees are specifically the one species of bees that is nowhere near endangered because they are used at industrial scales.

We need to protect old growth forests but also expand them, because they're vital habitats that help protect biodiversity and maintain plant matter for sustainable carbon capture. We also need industrial wood plantations to produce wood we can use instead of more harmful building materials. We also need to reduce the overall need for building materials, e.g. by investing in long-term sustainable housing projects rather than McMansions with a lifespan of less than one generation.

[blagie]

One of the nice things about concrete -- if done right -- is that it produces emissions only once. We have Roman concrete structures which were still standing 1500 years later (and went down due to war, rather than wear).