Is a treehugger still a tree hugger if he burns wood?

[Dakotas Dad]

I'm a treehugging wood burner and an animal loving hunter. Only in the last 40 years or so have we as a society begun to look at these things as mutually exclusive. Go back a bit further (around the turn of the century) and read Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, and Aldo Leopold and you'll see why they are not.

I was watching "The Presidents" last week and when on TR they pointed out that he was conflicted because he was a "conservationist" and a "hunter".

I had to go outside and split wood for a while to calm down. Who the heck has a MORE vested interest in conservation than hunters???

Crap.. 16 degrees out, and now I gotta go split wood.. all worked up again..

 

[woodchip]

Last night I had friends over and we sat around the stove, burning wood from my property, eating venison stew made from a deer taken on my property, with veggies grown in my garden. Part of that seems to be "tree hugger".

I reckon that's less than 1% Tree Hugger, more than 99% brilliant self sufficiency.

My definition of typical tree huggers are our last council. They turned the woodland at the back of our property into a nature reserve. The nature reserve was never funded properly, the trees never got coppiced again, and all that happens now is people dump rubbish over there. Woodland needs managing. Left alone it will go wild, be unproductive, and with no money coming in from logging or coppicing activities, no money will be available for woodland management. And I think that sums up all activist types, they never look at the unintended consequences of their actions.

From a personal point of view, I can wander out there and bring back almost unlimited dead wood from the trees that have been choked with ivy which is growing out of control everywhere.

But It would be better if it were pretty woodland with nicely spaced out trees to gaze at ;-)

 

[woodchip]

"Large amounts of carbon are stored in the trees and an even greater amount—80% of the total carbon in the boreal forest—is actually in the soils, stored as dead organic matter that results from decomposition." Simply put, not all the CO2 stored in a tree is released by biological decomposition. All of the CO2 is released by burning it, though.

It just shows how rubbish I am at understanding these things. I would have thought that when you cut a tree down, the root bit stays in the ground and the earth round it continues to store the carbon drawn down into the root system, which will just rot away as it would when it died anyway.

The only thing with rotting trees down on the ground is they do provide habitats for some insects and those insects are food for birds and things. There is a whole little ecosystem going on in a rotting log pile, and that is the reason I do have a little pile of rotting logs at the end of the garden next to the nature reserve there. Wildlife does not respect the man made boundaries, and I'm happy to have the little critters wandering into my patch. Bats, snakes, newts, and stag beetles and a whole host of birds live on our patch, others are welcome visitors.

Suddenly realises that last bit about wildlife might make me out to be a tree hugger to some......... ;-)

 

[woodchip]

.

 

[Jags]

Simply put, not all the CO2 stored in a tree is released by biological decomposition. All of the CO2 is released by burning it, though.

I are confus. :long:

If we are harvesting the portion above ground - we are consuming the part that would eventually release all the CO2 back to the air along with reducing the methane portion that happens during the decomposition.

The stump/root system will be treated no differently than what nature itself does. Unless we remove the stump/root system it is carbon neutral (organic, nature, natural, call it what you want).

So now, we are responsible for only the above ground portion of the tree. How is this not neutral? This is not an argument, I am looking for education. This could be a "learning moment" for ol Jags.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I'm a treehugging wood burner and an animal loving hunter. Only in the last 40 years or so have we as a society begun to look at these things as mutually exclusive. Go back a bit further (around the turn of the century) and read Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, and Aldo Leopold and you'll see why they are not.

I'm right there with you bud. Non-hunters sometimes don't understand the connection we have with the critters, the love and the conflict you sometimes feel after a kill.

 

[JustWood]

Check out your town's dump. There will be enough trees there to make you cry. THOUSANDS of trees get thrown in landfills in most big cities. Residential trees need to be taken down, new developments cut them down, and most often, they're too busy to try and process them into something useful.

~Rose

This is so true. I've brought home perfect, cut logs from the dump, including from apple trees, oak and other fine wood for burning. I can't imagine throwing wood away like trash, but people do. Fortunately, at our town dump it's separated into yard debris so at least it doesn't go into the landfill. I'm not sure how they process it.

Yard/wood waste going into landfills is a half truth.
Most if not all states have banned yard/wood waste from landfills in the last 10 years. Areas at or near landfills have been set aside for the storage of yard/wood wastes and is usually ground for mulch or boiler fuel when the need arises.

 

[Dune]

Yup, burning the wood will release the same CO2 as if the tree were to decay,

I've read/heard this claim enough times to suspect it is, like many truisms, not true. Indeed, it is not:

(broken link removed to http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/news/473)

"Large amounts of carbon are stored in the trees and an even greater amount—80% of the total carbon in the boreal forest—is actually in the soils, stored as dead organic matter that results from decomposition." Simply put, not all the CO2 stored in a tree is released by biological decomposition. All of the CO2 is released by burning it, though. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink

Burning wood for heat is said to be carbon neutral in virtue of the fact that the CO2 released is CO2 that was stored over the lilfe of the tree. True enough, but this is also true of fossil fuels -- the only difference is the time scale of the initial carbon sequestration.

It is also valuable to distinguish between a practice being 'carbon neutral' and a practice being mitigated by 'carbon offsetting'. Simply because a practice is mitigated by carbon offsetting (which is what I take to be happening when I cut a tree for fuel and allow another tree or trees to grow up in its place) does not make it carbon neutral. If this is carbon neutral, then so is burning fuel oil, NG or LPG as long as one plants trees. That is to say: if carbon offsets make a practice carbon neutral, then the whole issue of carbon neutrality reduces to carbon offsetting, and so (from the point of view of carbon neutrality), any fuel-use practice is as good as any other, so long as you plant enough trees.

Interesting question, Fast4wood.

Wow. Just wow. Did we both read the same article? Even if we did, have you ever heard of methane? Burning wood produces no methane. Rotting it does, and it is 24 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. Try again.

 

[Dune]

Burning wood for heat is said to be carbon neutral in virtue of the fact that the CO2 released is CO2 that was stored over the lilfe of the tree. True enough, but this is also true of fossil fuels -- the only difference is the time scale of the initial carbon sequestration.

Wrong again. If the coal or oil is left in the ground, the carbon remains sequestered forever. Every stick of firewood burned is less oil pumped or coal mined. Additionaly, burning coal releases serious poisons, not released by burning wood. Further, localy harvested wood combats trade imbalances and helps national security.

Your own link states than more than a fair percentage of carbon absorbed by trees is sequestered in the forest, and that removing wood (.05% of the forest in any given year) does not have a deleterious effect on said seguestration.

 

[Socratic Monologue]

I didn't make any claims about methane, nor about mercury released from coal burning, nor trade imbalances nor national security. Nor is it true that "every stick of firewood burned is less oil pumped or coal mined". The passage in quotes is a false dichotomy, since there are other options (solar, turning the heat down, building smaller homes, etc).

The point I was trying to make is that CO2 is sequestered in soil, which comes from (among other things) rotting trees. This is a point that falsifies the claim that the same amount of CO2 is released whether you burn a tree or leave it to rot. I'm not anti-wood burning -- I think it is great. I just don't think it is carbon neutral, or even close to it, and I don't think that as a matter of biological fact a rotting tree releases all its CO2.

 

[katwillny]

yes, most definetely. WE Treehugers really believe in woodburning. Especially nowadays with the very efficient stoves. Very little carbon footprint. We just plant 2 trees for everyone we cut. And not all of us were Birkenstock s and are dirty hippies by the way. LOL

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I didn't make any claims about methane, nor about mercury released from coal burning, nor trade imbalances nor national security. Nor is it true that "every stick of firewood burned is less oil pumped or coal mined". The passage in quotes is a false dichotomy, since there are other options (solar, turning the heat down, building smaller homes, etc).

The point I was trying to make is that CO2 is sequestered in soil, which comes from (among other things) rotting trees. This is a point that falsifies the claim that the same amount of CO2 is released whether you burn a tree or leave it to rot. I'm not anti-wood burning -- I think it is great. I just don't think it is carbon neutral, or even close to it, and I don't think that as a matter of biological fact a rotting tree releases all its CO2.

Carbon may be stored as humus, humic acids, buried in sediment, etc. I leave some trees and brush piles to rot and restore the carbon base where I can in my woods.

However, a claim that using fossil fuels is carbon neutral because it's the result of carbon sequestration is not strictly accurate, as fossil fuels would not result in carbon release otherwise. Their conversion is, in fact, at a higher rate than for decomposition of organic matter so you have a net gain- even if you consider the long-term cycle. Plus, on the scale we're talking- oil formation is probably too long-term, damage is done and will not be remediated for many generations.

In fact- a lot of people argue that wood burning, while almost carbon neutral, has a cycle time too long to be helpful in replacing fossil fuels, and we should focus on fossil fuel use reduction/efficiency and other alternate energies. (too much impact now).

Sort of ironic.

 

[Socratic Monologue]

a claim that using fossil fuels is carbon neutral because it's the result of carbon sequestration is not strictly accurate

Just to clarify, I myself was making that claim as a reductio ad absurdum (that is, to make the point that an analogous claim about wood burning is inaccurate in the same way if not to the same degree). Although those of you who think my entire point is absurd, well...

I'm not trying to knock anyone here -- I have a lot of respect for wood-burning and those consumed by it.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

SocrMon- I took you somewhat out of context. Well stated, and welcome aboard here.

I love your sig line. Can interpret that so many ways- all of which are true.

 

[Dune]

a claim that using fossil fuels is carbon neutral because it's the result of carbon sequestration is not strictly accurate

Just to clarify, I myself was making that claim as a reductio ad absurdum (that is, to make the point that an analogous claim about wood burning is inaccurate in the same way if not to the same degree). Although those of you who think my entire point is absurd, well...

I'm not trying to knock anyone here -- I have a lot of respect for wood-burning and those consumed by it.

Too tired to play semantics with a sophist, however, I know some who practice carbon negative wood heating, and yes, not all the CO2 leaves the wood, (by CO2 I asume you mean carbon since wood doesn't contain CO2), but much leaves as CH4 on the forest floor as well. Unfortunately, from a greenhouse gas perspective CH4 is much more of a probem than CO2. As to the rest, sorry, I am self described rabid wood burner after all.

 

[spencer186]

Carbon neutral or not, something I bet we can all agree on is wood burning will and could never replace oil, no matter how much more environmentally friendly it is. Trees simply don't grow fast enough. And one point I'm surprised no one has brought up yet is the environmental impact oil can have other than its carbon releasewhen burnt. Remember the Gulf of Mexicoil or the Exxon Valdez? No amount of spilled wood could compare to that.

 

[partybob99]

Isn't the particulate matter released by burning wood the main issue here?

This taken from Wikipedia:
Smoke, containing water vapor, carbon dioxide and other chemicals and aerosol particulates, can be an irritating (and potentially dangerous) by-product of partially burnt wood fuel. A major component of wood smoke is fine particles that may account for a large portion of particulate air pollution in some regions. During cooler months, wood heating accounts for as much as 60% of fine particles in Melbourne, Australia.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_fuel

 

[Fast4wood]

You and Jane Fonda

Jane is still HOT!

 

[btuser]

No doubt that burning wood is better than burning oil. Its just not practical unless you can get it for free. Scrounging is great, but if stuff really hit the fan there would be no scrounging. In fact, it would be closer to stealing as we started pulling off pieces of the house to keep ourselves warm. We're not going to save the world by buring wood. We're not even going to slow it down. Everything I've read tells me there's at most 10 years worth of wood before its gone. What then? A REDUCTION in the need for a specific number of BTUs/WATTS/gallons of energy is what is going to help. I'm starting to wonder how much of my house I could re-use in the "new, modern" structure I would be forced to build. This is only going to happen when it really hurts, untill then I'll keep doing the weekend warrior thing.

How much will "junk" wood be worth when heating oil is $10/gallon? My guess is $1,000/cord won't be unheard of if the price of diesel is $11/gallon. We'll see some serious tree-hugging then, in fact maybe I'll just chain my trees to the house so they don't get stolen.

 

[Badfish740]

No doubt that burning wood is better than burning oil. Its just not practical unless you can get it for free. Scrounging is great, but if stuff really hit the fan there would be no scrounging. In fact, it would be closer to stealing as we started pulling off pieces of the house to keep ourselves warm. We're not going to save the world by buring wood. We're not even going to slow it down. Everything I've read tells me there's at most 10 years worth of wood before its gone. What then? A REDUCTION in the need for a specific number of BTUs/WATTS/gallons of energy is what is going to help. I'm starting to wonder how much of my house I could re-use in the "new, modern" structure I would be forced to build. This is only going to happen when it really hurts, untill then I'll keep doing the weekend warrior thing.

How much will "junk" wood be worth when heating oil is $10/gallon? My guess is $1,000/cord won't be unheard of if the price of diesel is $11/gallon. We'll see some serious tree-hugging then, in fact maybe I'll just chain my trees to the house so they don't get stolen.

This is why my long term plan involves a reasonably sized super-insulated house, a gasification boiler/solar hot water collectors, and at least a 20 acre woodlot. The way I figure it, culled trees (as part of a forestry management plan) and deadfall should supply me with enough heating fuel every year.

 

[partybob99]

One major plus for word burning is trees are a renewable resource and can be replanted.

 

[Fast4wood]

Yup, burning the wood will release the same CO2 as if the tree were to decay,

I've read/heard this claim enough times to suspect it is, like many truisms, not true. Indeed, it is not:

(broken link removed to http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/news/473)

"Large amounts of carbon are stored in the trees and an even greater amount�80% of the total carbon in the boreal forest�is actually in the soils, stored as dead organic matter that results from decomposition." Simply put, not all the CO2 stored in a tree is released by biological decomposition. All of the CO2 is released by burning it, though. See also (broken link removed)

Burning wood for heat is said to be carbon neutral in virtue of the fact that the CO2 released is CO2 that was stored over the lilfe of the tree. True enough, but this is also true of fossil fuels -- the only difference is the time scale of the initial carbon sequestration.

It is also valuable to distinguish between a practice being 'carbon neutral' and a practice being mitigated by 'carbon offsetting'. Simply because a practice is mitigated by carbon offsetting (which is what I take to be happening when I cut a tree for fuel and allow another tree or trees to grow up in its place) does not make it carbon neutral. If this is carbon neutral, then so is burning fuel oil, NG or LPG as long as one plants trees. That is to say: if carbon offsets make a practice carbon neutral, then the whole issue of carbon neutrality reduces to carbon offsetting, and so (from the point of view of carbon neutrality), any fuel-use practice is as good as any other, so long as you plant enough trees.

Interesting question, Fast4wood.

Thank you, what started out as a simple thought really blossomed out to be a complicated answer.

 

[Dune]

Yup, burning the wood will release the same CO2 as if the tree were to decay,

I've read/heard this claim enough times to suspect it is, like many truisms, not true. Indeed, it is not:

(broken link removed to http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/news/473)

"Large amounts of carbon are stored in the trees and an even greater amount�80% of the total carbon in the boreal forest�is actually in the soils, stored as dead organic matter that results from decomposition." Simply put, not all the CO2 stored in a tree is released by biological decomposition. All of the CO2 is released by burning it, though. See also (broken link removed)

Burning wood for heat is said to be carbon neutral in virtue of the fact that the CO2 released is CO2 that was stored over the lilfe of the tree. True enough, but this is also true of fossil fuels -- the only difference is the time scale of the initial carbon sequestration.

It is also valuable to distinguish between a practice being 'carbon neutral' and a practice being mitigated by 'carbon offsetting'. Simply because a practice is mitigated by carbon offsetting (which is what I take to be happening when I cut a tree for fuel and allow another tree or trees to grow up in its place) does not make it carbon neutral. If this is carbon neutral, then so is burning fuel oil, NG or LPG as long as one plants trees. That is to say: if carbon offsets make a practice carbon neutral, then the whole issue of carbon neutrality reduces to carbon offsetting, and so (from the point of view of carbon neutrality), any fuel-use practice is as good as any other, so long as you plant enough trees.

Interesting question, Fast4wood.

Thank you, what started out as a simple thought really blossomed out to be a complicated answer.

Problem with that answer; Your question is not about carbon neutral, it is about tree-hugging, generaly taken to mean enviromentaly sound.

Therefore, whether it is carbon-neutal or not is not the complete question. The difference is simple, Co2 is NOT the only gas released by a decomposing tree. CH4 (methane) is also released by decomposing vegatable matter, CH4 is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. Though I have mentioned this four (4) times now, Socrates has ignored it each time.

As to throwing fossil fuels into the equation, this is truly dis-ingenuos. The carbon collected over millions of years can stay sequestered if not burned. If burned, it adds to the carbon in the atmosphere NOW. Burning wood, does not.

 

[Fast4wood]

Well so far it looks like the the yes have it, or at least 51 tree-hugger think so. the 7 that said no and the other 7 who didn't think he really was a tree-hugger presented some good arguments as to why not, but I think in the end being a tree-hugger isn't so bad.

I never thought that what seemed to be such a simple question would bring such a broad range of opinions about the subject.

 

[Dune]

No doubt that burning wood is better than burning oil. Its just not practical unless you can get it for free. Scrounging is great, but if stuff really hit the fan there would be no scrounging. In fact, it would be closer to stealing as we started pulling off pieces of the house to keep ourselves warm. We're not going to save the world by buring wood. We're not even going to slow it down. Everything I've read tells me there's at most 10 years worth of wood before its gone. What then? A REDUCTION in the need for a specific number of BTUs/WATTS/gallons of energy is what is going to help. I'm starting to wonder how much of my house I could re-use in the "new, modern" structure I would be forced to build. This is only going to happen when it really hurts, untill then I'll keep doing the weekend warrior thing.

How much will "junk" wood be worth when heating oil is $10/gallon? My guess is $1,000/cord won't be unheard of if the price of diesel is $11/gallon. We'll see some serious tree-hugging then, in fact maybe I'll just chain my trees to the house so they don't get stolen.

Black or white, day or night. Not much room for gray in there. Every year I burn less wood. Every year I make my house more airtight, more well insulated. Yes, it would have been easier to start from scratch, with SIPS and a spray foam truck, and a square two story house, rather than a long narrow single story house, $400 windows and a 5 ton masonry furnace.

For a while it felt hopeless, too large a task. Incremetaly, slowly the task becomes done. Even my old 2x4 walls will some day be upgraded, after I finish everything else on my list. At that time, I will remove the siding, install 2" r-15 foam and a vapor barrier.

At some point, I will add a second story to the house, incorperating super-insulating and solar gain.

Perhaps by then, I will not burn any wood at all, my heat may be provided entirely as waste from an algae-oil burning Co-generation system, already being installed as we speak.

And then, when gentrification is complete, and I simply can't pay the taxes on my paid for, energy-cost free home, some banker or insurance agent will bulldoze down my 10,000 to 20,000 man hours of labor, and scrounged/cheap materials and install an $11/gal oil burner in a new Mcmansion.