WEBVTT - Timber! How Timber Works 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:04.519 This delightful program is brought to you by Squarespace. Beautiful 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:08.520 websites for beautiful beverages like kombucha dog dot com. I 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:11.800 guess kombucha means black mushroom tea, but it's much more 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.760 fun to say kombucha. Like chicken chimmy chonga. I never 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.360 really wanted chimmi chenga. I'd just like to ask, how's 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.799 the chicken chimmy chonga. There are two takeaways from what 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.599 Alec Baldwin just said. One, this show is brought to 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.520 you by Squarespace, and to Alec Baldwin called, are so delightful. 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:33.040 Welcome to you stuff you should know Groomhouse Stuff Works 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:41.720 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:46.200 There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there, post nasal 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.479 drip some sort, and that makes this stuff you should know. 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:55.360 It makes this room the infection zone. Oh, Jerry, are 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.440 you sick? No, she's not sick. Are you no good? 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:01.720 She's just snotty. That's fine as long as she's not sick. 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.600 Are you sick? No? Man? How are you feeling great? Good? 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:11.680 You're tired? Are you well? Your dad all dads are tired, 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.679 aren't they. That's nothing to do with it. Oh yeah, 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:20.600 why are you tiring? Just Uh, I didn't get enough 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:25.360 to sleep last night. Okay, but not because dad's We'll 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.120 leave it at that for building a wall. Let's back 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.360 away from that question, shall we instead? Chuck take my 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.520 hand and let's wander off into the forest. Uh this 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.160 is pretty neat. I gotta say. I was excited about 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:46.160 this because A it's dense like a forest. B it's 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:51.120 cool like a forest. And see, it provides a great 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.480 canopy over our heads. It does a canopy of knowledge. 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.160 I reverse engineered that last one. Oh yeah, man, he 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:01.240 is on a roll. We're gonna get a few. We're 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:03.120 gonna get some stuff wrong on this one. I don't 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.600 know that's correct. I feel like anytime we tackle something 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.240 that's in any industry like this, the people in the 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.200 industry are going to have way better current information than 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:13.959 we will. So I think it's funny because I picked 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:16.440 up on the same thing, not just with the industry, 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:22.080 but also with the battle over UM forestry rights. This 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.639 is a minefield, my friends. It really is. Because I 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.120 I this This UM article was written a number of 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:34.200 years back and it's very friendly to the forestry industry. Yeah, 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:39.040 it's not like extraordinarily conservation minded um, as far as 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.880 I'm concerned. Yeah, Well, I don't think I had to 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.120 drop a bombshell. No, I don't think I had a slant. 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:48.519 I saw it is pretty neutral. I don't know man 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.320 like um. But here's how confused I was. And we'll 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:55.880 get to this later. But these initiatives and certification programs, 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.800 we'll get to later. I didn't know like which one 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:00.880 I should like and not like. At the end, I 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.280 can tell you, well, save it all right? Does that 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:06.280 need somebody to tell me what to like and not? Like? 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.520 I can tell you just save it all right. I'm saving. 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:14.480 Let's talk about forests in general, Chuck, Yes, uh, well, 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.639 let's talk about our country a little bit in the 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:20.560 United States. Well, even more, let's talk about our continent, 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.800 North America. That's right. When settlers came over here, there 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.120 was a lot of trees. There were a lot of trees. 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.520 Do you remember in our pigeon episode, like the idea 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.720 that there are so many what was the passenger pigeons 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:38.400 that that died off that were just driven to extinction 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:42.720 because of humans. I'm pretty sure was pas I got 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.800 confused in the episode about which it was very confusing. Thing. 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.760 And they think that ultimately the pigeons had been managed 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.840 by Native Americans who were wiped out by disease, so 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:55.280 that when the first Europeans really came along they saw 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.080 tons of pigeons. Places over roam with pigeons because there 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.480 was no one there to hunt anymore. Right, same thing 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:03.440 with the forest. They think there was so much forest 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.320 cover that it was because the Native Americans who had 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.240 managed the forest four had all died off, largely died off, 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:14.000 and then what we thought was just this crazy stretch 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.240 of forest that had always been there. It was actually 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:20.200 fairly new. But it's probably not the case. Well at 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.760 any rate. Way back in the six Dreds, about of 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:30.200 land north of Mexico was trees. Yeah, not too bad. No, 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:32.880 that's a lot of trees. Uh. And trees are great 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.040 because they give us wood. I mean they led to uh, 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.760 you know, pre metal. It was all about wood. Yeah, 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:44.840 you know, ships, buildings, houses, wagons. William Harris, who wrote 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:47.880 this article, Yeah, it makes the very smart point that 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.600 we came and cut down trees and basically built a 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.520 new nation, certainly a new economy, settle new nations out 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.840 of what definitely for sure like literally out of wood. 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:05.080 If you're talking the world and Planet Earth about is 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.920 forest land and Russia and Brazil lead the way because 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:15.479 they have huge tracts of land. Yeah, but as a continent, 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.279 actually Europe is the most. They have the most forest 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.479 of any the most dense. I believe that they have 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.960 one thousand and one million, which is a little over 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:29.800 a billion hectares hectars point four acres. Right, the total 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.359 number of acreage if you're in the US of forest 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.560 land throughout the world one point five eight billion acres 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:40.919 of forests. Is that the most broad definition of the 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:45.400 forest that includes everything, And that's in the US. No, no, no, 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.719 that's the world one billions in the world. Yeah, because 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.359 in the US there if you if you talk to 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:56.680 a forester, they will say, everyone thinks that you see 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:58.840 a bunch of trees and that's a forest. But they 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.040 would narrow down that death finition to at least one 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:06.960 acre of land which has at least ten percent tree cover. 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:09.920 That's a pretty that's a good definition for a forest. 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.800 I'm on board with that. Well, if you're talking that definition, 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.480 then the US has about seven hundred and fifty million 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:21.599 acres uh, seven sixty six in Canada. And uh, that's 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.800 that's forest, my friend. Boom, we're done. Yeah, it was 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.000 a minefield, but we navigate it. But this is about 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:30.279 timber and that's different than for us. It is different 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.839 than for us. So a forest is that definition that 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:34.960 you just said. It's an acre of land with ten 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:39.280 percent tree cover. Right. Timberland is a type of forest land, 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:43.599 but it has to have a certain amount of usable 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:48.920 um trees on it or timber to make it timberland. Right. 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:50.760 I grew up in a forest actually, now that I 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.520 think about it, Oh yeah, by that definition. Nice. What 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:58.520 was it called. It's called Chuck's House Chuck's House forest? Yeah, 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.080 I mean it was. I think we had We had 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:03.279 like an acre and a half and most of it 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:05.839 was trees, so more than ten percent. Oh yeah, easy. 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.200 So you had a dense forest. It was pretty dense. 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.640 That's awesome. Did you learn to climb trees out there? No? 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:13.280 But I used to get poked fun at because it 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.800 didn't grow up in a neighborhood like most kids. It 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:19.120 was just a street with like six houses in the forests. 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:21.440 Who would make fun of you for that. What were 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:23.720 they saying, Well, you know, it's cool to grow up 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.280 in a neighborhood when in the eighties. Hey man, I 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:28.440 grew up in a neighborhood in the eighties. It wasn't 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.120 that great. I was jealous, man, because everyone else would 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.320 sneak out at night and then go to their friend's house. 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.560 And they were swimming pools and tennis courts and communist 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.040 centers and it was just like me and my brother 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:41.600 in woods. But I guess I can. I got older 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.240 and everyone was like, dude, your house is awesome. You 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:46.520 live out in the middle of the woods. Yeah. Well, 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.280 plus you're lucky to have your brother to hang out with. 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:53.880 He's a great guy. True, yeah, good point. So you 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.000 know I had a door that led out to the 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.600 back porch. Was growing up. It's like, there's no sneaking out. 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.560 I just opened the door and went out from my room, 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.840 just like, go ahead, come and go as you please. No, 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:09.800 I wasn't supposed to, but there wasn't a lot of 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.040 sneaking involved. It was opening the door and quietly closing it. 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:15.200 You didn't have to. I always wanted to shimmy up 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.280 a drain pipe to my room. Have you shimmying up 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.000 or down? Down is a lot easier than not that 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:23.120 I could have shimmied when I was ten or twelve, though, 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:28.040 ain't no shimmy in anymore. We're so people have sent 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:32.160 in that guide posts cover. Is that you know? It's 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.440 just some other playing the trumpet? Yeah? I never played 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:39.760 the trumpet. It doesn't look like you, but I was 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.240 like now, and it may not have been a four 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.120 piece picture, but I think it was. Someone will find it, 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.719 I hope. So okay, so let's get back to timberland. 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.360 Timberland is a forest that's capable of growing something like 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:57.560 twenty cubic feet of commercial wood per acre per year. 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.960 That's right, that's it. Uh And um, people estimate two 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:06.760 thirds of our nation is forest land. Uh and five 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.960 hundred and two million acres of that is timberland. Yeah, 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.560 that's not bad, not bad at all. Now. So the 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:14.720 key here, though is, and this is where the big 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:16.480 debate comes up. We're not going to get into it 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.840 necessarily now, but the key is that, yes, you can 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.760 have a forest that is capable of growing twenty cubic 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:29.280 feet of commercial grade lumber timber a year. Um. But 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:33.640 you also wanted to be able to regrow sustainable harvesting. Right, 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:36.800 So what you're after is what's called the net annual increase. 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.559 This article calls it an annual gain. That's wrong. It's 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.920 a net annual increase, which means that the amount of 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.960 stuff you're growing in a given year is more than 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.240 what you're harvesting. Difference between the gain and an increase, 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.679 I'm just saying the industry term. Yeah. I looked up 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.080 net industry gain or yeah, net annual gain and they 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:02.080 said you must be city folk, right, it increase. Uh, 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.320 so that you just basically it's pretty simple. You just 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.679 want to take less trees than you're growing in a 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.400 particular year, or that you have than you have in reserve. 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:16.640 And um, actually, the United States is has been in 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.560 an annual gain for for decades now. Like it's a 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:22.880 it's a real concern and to cause for worry that 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:26.720 we over over harvest trees, well, we used to man 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.880 that we DeForest, but if you look at the historical data, 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:35.280 we are growing more trees than we're taking, um every year. Yeah, 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.320 I think the stat was since the nineteen Since nineteen 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:43.280 we haven't made anything worse, right, And apparently, and since 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:45.760 the fifties we've gotten way better. I think those four 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.320 times the seventies were like kind of bad, but I 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:52.960 think that was like the the transition decade. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:58.520 what this made me really appreciate we're early conservationist. Yeah, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.679 because postal of a war and during prefous civil war 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:06.120 even people just sort of took what they wanted and 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.360 did what they wanted with the land. There was a 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:12.160 lot of foresight, and so early conservationists were really fighting 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:13.840 an uphill battle back then. I think. So I just 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:15.880 have a lot of respect for them to say, you 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:17.640 know what, I don't know if this is smart, what's 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.360 gonna happen in a hundred years. It's like, I know, 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.560 you need your log cabin, Jebediah. What's mind boggling to 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.640 me is that that debate still goes on. Yeah, that's true, 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.800 you know, but even just with timber, with like climate 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.640 in general, climate change things like that. Agreed. All right, 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:37.320 So if you're a scientist, you're gonna classify forest usually 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.199 by what kind of trees are there. Um, for instance, 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.319 a tropical rainforest you're gonna have broad leaf evergreens, a 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.280 boreal forest you're gonna have needle leaf evergreens. Then there's 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:49.480 a temperate forest, which is like what we have here 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.640 in the southeast. Yeah. And and the US are five 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:56.600 major regions specific Coast, Rocky Mountain, North, South, and I 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.760 love it. Alaska has its own region, yes, just because 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:02.520 it's it deserves it, and there's a lot of trees 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:04.760 up there. Yeah. And in fact, there's been a little 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.240 bit of a scandal recently as far as Alaska and 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.600 trees go. Are you gonna is that a tease? It's 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.680 a tease, Okay. But we're gonna consider a couple of 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.000 regions here, and we're gonna mainly be talking about the 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.400 United States because that's where we live. Yeah, but there 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.319 are trees everywhere. Yeah, and you can apply this to 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.079 a lot of places. But east of the Old Mississippi 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:31.520 is the hardwood region and west is softwood. And if 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:40.640 you're talking hardwood, gums, maples, oaks, walnut, very hardwood walnut there. Actually, 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.520 now I think about I think mahogany is a tropical 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.360 rainforest tree, is it? Yeah? I'm an idiot, all right, No, 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:49.760 you know that's what I get for coming up with 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:56.480 something on my own. Uh, soft woods you're talking pine, um, spruce, hemlock, 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:01.400 douglas for redwoods. Those are soft woods. And we're just 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:03.960 getting started. There's a lot of information coming your way. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.440 Should we take a break here? Should be? I don't know. 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:09.400 It sounded like you were working out towards that. That 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:11.320 was a break he set up, wouldn't it? All right, 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:13.199 let's take a break. We'll come back and we'll talk 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:33.439 about why wood is good? All right? What is good? 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.360 Because you can use it for lots of stuff, which 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:37.800 we'll talk about. And I didn't realize this that we've 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.600 been using it for a very long time, one at 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.320 least one and a half million years, right, starting with 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.840 fire and like clubs, and yeah, did you realize that 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:51.080 we'd harnessed fire that many years ago? I don't know 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.160 if I ever really thought about it. It has a 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.120 long time for people to be building fires a million 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.160 and a half years ago. That that completely reche It's 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.079 my ideas of hominids from one point five million years ago. 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:05.600 What do you think about them before? Not that they 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.320 could create fire. They're a bunch of cold dopes a 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:10.920 little bit so maybe that they just kind of may 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.839 do with what came their way rather than actually making fire. 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:16.719 You know. Yeah, we should do a podcast on the 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.600 origins of fire. We did, you went on fire? Yeah, 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.200 but I don't think we covered like the first fires, 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.160 did we? Or did we? Probably not? Yeah, I think 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.720 I've since seen Quest for Fire, which we've talked about. Yeah, 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.240 good movie. I kind of want to talk about my 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.160 favorite part, but this is a family podcast, so I won't. Yeah. 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.960 There's it's pretty brutal in a lot of ways, isn't it? 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.240 All right? So why is wood good? Um? Like I said, 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:44.960 you can make stuff out of it. Another big thing 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:49.280 is carbon sequestration, which is why you hear a lot 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:53.640 of people battling clear cutting for us because carbon sequestration 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:56.040 is great. It traps carbon, so the build up of 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.520 CEO two is reduced. As a matter of fact, trees 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:05.480 count for se of the organic carbon locked in the earth. Yeah, 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:09.440 that's why that canopy is is important, right. Uh. They 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:13.960 also provide habitats for all our animals and birds and 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:17.760 insects and all the plants and good things that we love. 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:23.600 And uh the hydrologic cycle, souh. A forest will help 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:27.520 soak up rainfall and filter the water as it becomes groundwater. 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.120 All very important stuff. Yeah, if you like drinking water, 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.480 you can thank trees for helping keep the soil in 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:40.560 tip top shape to uh filter out all that nasty stuff. So, yes, 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.240 forests are extraordinarily important, right, what is good? But you 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.400 also can make pretty good use of it too, Like 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.760 if you're a clever primate like we humans are, who 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.360 you cannot only use it for fire, which a lot 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.800 of people still do around the world. Fire wood is 0:15:55.840 --> 0:16:01.400 still of um huge um use of wood of timber 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.720 around the world. Nothing beats a natural wood fire in 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:06.960 a fireplace in your home. No, it's true, you know, 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.560 but um do you remember when we were when we 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:16.320 shot those Toyota, those Toyota videos that Carnegie melon, And 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.120 one of the innovation things was like a filter, like 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:23.520 an easy, cheap portable filter for cooking fires, indoor cooking fires, 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:25.520 remember that, because that was a big problem people were 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.200 like making using wood fires to cook with, but they 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.720 were doing it indoors and like suffering all sorts of 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.600 lung problems. And that still happens in uh, you know, 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.080 non industrialized nations. Yes, is that what we call things? 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.760 It's the it says, it's the prime, it's the primary 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:45.359 fuel for cooking and heating and developing countries non industrialized, 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.080 I think that's even better. All right. So, uh here 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:49.920 in the U. S. O. And and a lot of 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:55.160 countries these days, only seven percent of timber is used 0:16:55.320 --> 0:17:00.080 for um, I guess heating and cooking. Yeah, there's a 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.360 big push against even that seven percent to Really it's 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.639 just such a I agree with you that firefires, but 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.240 it's wasteful. Yes, okay, Well I don't have a working fireplace, 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.920 so I just like them, you just like the idea 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:14.800 of it. Well, I want one, but I have one 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.600 of those old, you know houses from the nineteen thirties 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.359 that it's expensive to get it retrofitted. Have you ever 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.960 gotten an estimate on it? Yeah, I need chimney work. 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.640 I need a bigger firebox. They said something like eight 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:28.600 or ten grand. The guy like tried to talk me 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:32.200 out of it. The dude, I was like, you don't 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.080 want to make money like I want to fire And 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:37.280 you're like, I don't know, it's pretty expensive. I wouldn't. 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:41.960 All right, it's wasteful. Uh So seven percent goes toward 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.399 that lumber, which we'll get to in a minute, is 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:49.160 about fifty three in the u S. September. Yeah, and 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.960 most of that goes to new house construction. It turns 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:57.520 out that makes sense pulp and paper or and then uh, 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:01.000 composites like ap plywooden veneer the other seven. Right, Although 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.399 I think we're missing one percentage point, aren't we? Or 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:10.000 are we? Yeah? I wonder what that is. It's the 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:12.960 mystery percent, the mystery percent. God knows what they're doing 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.680 to that one percent of wood. All right? So I 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:21.879 said the word lumber, and lumber isn't just cut wood. No, 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:28.480 just like timberland isn't just forest. Forest isn't just timberland. Right, 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:33.080 Lumber is actually a specific thing. It is wood that 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.879 is squared or rectangular. So when you go to the 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.200 hardware store and you see all the two by fours 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.040 and two by sixes and all that stuff, that is lumber. 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.360 Because it's sure if you point to a post around 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:52.800 post and go give me three of the lumbers, we'll say, boy, 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:54.679 where did you come from? Yeah, you're wrong on a 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.880 couple of points here. So that's called roundwood. Actually, yeah, 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.600 that doesn't mean that that's not included in lumber. That's 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.200 at nitpicky if you're outside the industry. I think say, 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.360 I agree with you wholeheartedly, but if someone points that out, 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:08.359 then I don't know, punch him in the face with 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.400 the two by four. That's not that's not lumber, that's 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:15.200 round with Remember hack saw Jim Duggan, didn't he attack 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:17.760 people with the two by four and the w WF 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.160 I didn't want a ton of wrestling. I'm pretty sure 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.000 he had like a two by four. That makes sense. 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:28.320 It's violent. Uh, construction, it's about a fifty fifty split 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.359 with lumber. Um in the US, about half goes to 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:37.480 construction and about half goes to palettes, crates and furniture. Yeah, 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:39.200 you know what. I didn't know it would be that high. 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:43.679 I read an extraordinarily interesting article on the pallette trade. 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.680 I'm sure it's there's like a whole cartel controlling palelettes 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:51.840 that people rebel against and um there's like palette thieves 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.840 and counterfeitters and its like just it's a really interesting art. 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:57.399 I'll see if I can find it. I'll post it 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.160 in the podcast page for this. Well, pallettes, you and um, 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:02.920 you can make a lot of cool things out of pallets, 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:05.040 and a lot of people are finding other uses. So 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.320 they think you can just go behind the grocery store 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.399 and take them. So now a lot of places have 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.119 big signs that are like, do not take these pallets. No, 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:16.920 especially if they're blue, Like, that's stealing. If they're blue paletts, 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:20.040 you you can get the place where you stole them 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.760 from sued. Yeah, that's the saying. If the palette is blue, 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:29.679 it's not for you because you'll get sued. Uh. Furniture. 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.800 If you make furniture, you're gonna like hardwood like oak 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:37.159 and maple, because it's durable and it has that lovely 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:42.000 grain that we all love so much. The softwood is 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.679 no slouch either. No, but palletts are used in hardwood 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.639 too because it's sturdy, right, But yeah, softwood is a 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.760 different deal. Now. They usually use softwood for construction lumber 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:55.359 to because it contains fewer knots and things like that. 0:20:55.560 --> 0:21:00.359 And actually softwood is used chuck more form construction lumber 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:04.359 because you can make it long and straight, which is 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:06.960 that's how you want your construction lumber, long and straight. 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.199 Nobody wants like kind of a topsy turvy house. It 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.120 could be a crazy person, but most people don't. They 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:16.480 want straight, plumb houses. Yeah, although it's tough. If you've 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.800 ever done a home reno project to find straight lumber 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.080 these days, is that right? Yeah? You go in there 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:24.680 and they're they all seem like they're warped and bent. 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:28.480 And if you're yeah, and if you're a amateur like me, 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:31.280 it doesn't help you out any if your lumber is 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:33.200 not straight. Now you want straight? M Like, I don't 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:35.240 know how to make up for that. Like my buddy 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.360 Isaac in Kansas help me do my house. He would 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:40.119 go pick out stuff and I would say, this is curved. 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:43.240 He'd be like, I can account for that, huh, But 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:47.920 I can't. He's got like a special organ in his brain. Yeah, 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:55.480 it's called smarts, construction carpentery smarts. Okay, so that's lumber, right, Yeah. Um. 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:58.920 You can also make paper out of wood. This might 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:00.760 be the fact of the podcast. If you're ready for this, 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:05.200 paper is made out of wood. I thought you had 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:08.199 something else you got me. Have we done one on 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.119 paper before? Because this seems awfully familiar. No, but I 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.520 will say this touched off like five different topics that 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.600 we should cover, paper being one of them all the 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:25.160 origin ifier paper? What else? Um? Deforestation in earnest we're 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:26.679 gonna touch on it. But and then there was a 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:34.119 couple of more I think pornography just kidding. Um, So 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:38.639 let's talk about the uh cellular structure of wood because 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:42.359 it's very important. Well, especially when you're talking about paper 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:44.879 like that was not just a non sequitor, it actually 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:49.160 makes sense exactly. So trees like everything else, are made 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:52.000 of cells, correct, And when you take enough of these 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:55.480 cells and stack them together, you can create something as 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:58.800 strong and tall and rigid as a tree. But it 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:02.160 takes a certain kind cell to make a tree. Uh yeah, 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:04.560 the cells. If you think of the walls of the cells, 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:07.600 they make the tree strong. And there are a couple 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:11.560 of chemicals that make up these walls, cellulose and lignant. 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:16.600 And cellulose is flexible and bindy, and lignan says no, no, 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:20.800 I'm your glue. Cellulos I'm gonna keep you, um more 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:23.159 rigid because I don't want you to bend. So they 0:23:23.200 --> 0:23:27.360 work together to make whether cellulus likes it or not. Yeah, 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:30.439 I always wondered about that. It has to go along 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:32.400