Inside America's mass timber movement
Mass timber is a type of wood being used to build large buildings, like high-rises and airports. Jeff Glor traveled to Oregon to understand more about the material, its safety, and whether it's sustainable to use long-term.
"CBS Saturday Morning" co-hosts Jeff Glor, Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson deliver two hours of original reporting and breaking news, as well as profiles of leading figures in culture and the arts. Watch "CBS Saturday Morning" at 7 a.m. ET on CBS and 8 a.m. ET on the CBS News app.
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Timber producers now mainly harvest non-native monoculture forests in 10 - 20 years. It takes 20 - 30 years for mono-culture forests to become net zero carbon emitting. This creates net carbon emitting plantations that have single height overstories. The understories of monoculture forests are virtual dead zones for understory growth and inhibit soil's ability to absorb massive amounts of carbon. Soils and understories of perma-culture forests (modeled on naturally occurring forest) rapidly become carbon banks because soils and understory growth in natural and perma-culture forests do the bulk of the work absorbing large amounts quickly until trees grow to sufficient size to absorb large amounts of carbon.
Got a source, or are you just going to hurl buzzwords at me? In response, I challenge you to use a single comma.🤣
Old growth forests sequester more carbon and this idea does not seem to address the need for allowing more forested land to become old growth. This a greenwashing and it is unsustainable considering our human population is growing. I live in Oregon and I see clearcutting as suicidal.
A lot of land was mostly covered in softwood. We need to reforest land that had hardwoods and leave them alone. But it it was mostly pine and poplar, this allows more storage of CO2
Wrong. The american population is dropping. Do your research.
@@nathanpullen5568 Our sustainable population peaked in the 1900. Take your own advice and do YOUR research.
You literally speak in radical talking points. Get a job.
@@NunYa953 Once you grow a brain.
I'd rather look at a beautiful forest rather than a phkn building.
I see the destruction of land for fast growing pine monocultures.
That isn't what we grow in Oregon.
Compression forces in a 25 story wood frame high rise have to be enormous, I’m curious how that is handled? They’re looking at several inches of vertical compression of the wood structure.
Ask the 4OO foot - 2 million pound California Giant Sequoia's how they do it. 😂
@@BradThePitts a Giant Sequoia is a living plant not a dead piece of wood that dry’s and shrinks.
Never trust a "good idea" from anyone from Portland! Look at their city as an example of good ideas and how to run things !
It's super cool how they give zero credit to half of Europe's countries where this type of construction has been dominant for decades. It's beautiful, but "the future"? No, sir.
Those clearcut sites are not forest, they are farms. Tree farms. This is a great way to capture carbon. Currently we are growing more trees than cutting down.
Sad asf
Mass timber construction is not new in the U.S., I've seen it used in northern Michigan in the 70's for gymnasiums. NMU has the Superior Dome, their football stadium.
Awesome, real journalism! Very mixed feelings though about propping up an industry with a sketchy environmental track record. Old growth forests will surely be affected, despite the reassurances of industry insiders. A boom in this sector will absolutely lead to more deforestation in developing countries. In a time when we need to keep as many trees as possible intact while planting even more, this feels counter intuitive to fighting climate change and preserving wilderness.
No…this is not environmentally sound. There’s the one project they let you look at and meanwhile there’s 10 over there that are clear cutting and destroying the environment.
Of course the timber guy says it isn't green washing. If not done right, which in most cases it isn't, it is green washing. I would have had more respect for him and his company if he was honest.
Yeah, if this keeps up -- THERE WILL BE NO MORE FORESTS!!+- JUST LIKE HOW THEY ARE DESTROYING THE AMAZON RAIN FOREST THE SAME DAMM WAY!!!-- ITS A BUNCH OF B.S.-- This makes me SICK!!😤😱👎
Oregon is cutting below sustained yield levels. Meaning we are growing trees faster than we log them. So its not just like the Amazon, where it is burned down to grow crops.
THIS IS NUTS!!! Gods poor animals. They barely have anything left!😢😢😢😢😢😢
Save Bigfoot.
What is "sustainable " about building something that will deteriorate more rapidly than stone, steel, or concrete? Built from responsible forestry? American forest are producing more than we use? That's because of huge importation. We need to be looking for ways to produce aesthically pleasing non-wood architecture. We don't wear real fur "sustainable" coats do we? I sure don't. Now wool is cool, cool as in good. That's sustainable. Perhaps we should just top trees for wood and make massive beams from particle board and industrial glue? Well, maybe not, ha. But let's save the forests!!!
Remember that a government that doesn't understand a single thing about land conservation is making the laws that govern it.
Hemp can be pressed into timber but they will not allow it.
There is no mention of rot or decay over time. Isn't this bound to happen?
It is GREENWASHING.
OMG the carbon footprint!
It looks like a waste of wood and forestry resources. Extravagant waste of wood and dangerous fire hazard.
Ya after Covid ..... we know that we need that wood for Toilet Paper .... thats what really matters.... and French fry pouches ... thats what America needs...
it is true that wood is currently being wasted on aesthetics, but cross laminated timber is much safer than steel with fire and using wood instead of steel and concrete is much better for the environment since steel and concrete produce a lot of CO2.
@@miles5600more safe with fire? Why is my wood burning fire place made of steel
@@bfw523 because metal is better at radiating heat. There are stone fireplaces, wood fireplaces, you name it. And also a fireplace has nothing to do with how fire resistant cross laminated timber is, you also don’t have a fireplace made from heat resistant glass do you? Only maybe the door.
I live on a small river. I watched what clear cutting really does that most never see or seem to care about. Floods and deuteriation of the river's water quality. Trees forest in their natural state allow rain snow etc. to slowly saturate to slowly move it's way to the river it cleans and nourishes. Clear cutting allows that same water to rush over ground into the river carrying with it dirt mud debris chemicals from ditches fields etc. Once a river is destroyed none of us will live long enough to ever see it thrive again... I've seen the past 26 years go from clear running river eater to brown nasty muddy river water...
As a concerned Oregonian, the jury is still out. Mass timber may be green washing, maybe not. I'm concerned as I have seen the forest harvest schedule drop from high value timber of 75+ years to 40 years fiber production. Fiber rotation schedules do NOT deli ver a forest, a forest of diverse species supporting each other as both flora and fauna. A non-monoculture forest is alive, interconnected and resembles the beginning of a real forest about 80 years of age here west of the Cascade mountains. Rotations of 140 years was shown by Oregon State U work over thirty years again to produce forests of 2x timber volume with 3x value due to its higher quality. The problem of course was corporate ownership won't wait. Timber harvested from burns for this purpose of mass timber building is a great way to sequester carbon. The BS in Oregon is the industry advertising campaign of, "for every tree we cut, we plant three". Its BS because there is simply no compare of three seedlings vs a mature or old growth tree. Let forests grow old with a thinning, maybe two, a prescribed burn etc. Harvest wildfire burned and/or diseased, bug attacked stands. Move forests back to patient investors and out of corporate money changers' hands.
I mean… we could just keep using concrete!
Concrete also has an environmental impact. They lead to large open rock quarry’s that require clear cutting land. Decommissioned sites, decades later, are often turned back to forest or lakes, but they don’t reduce carbon in our atmosphere like mass timber does and permanently alter the landscape. Is that better? I don’t know.
It takes massive amounts of energy to produce concrete on an industrial scale - the term for that is embodied carbon. Mass timber is carbon negative because as trees grow the sequester carbon, they don’t require factories and fossil fuel energy to grow.
It looks so lovely.
I'm reading the comments and I understand what everybody is saying and it's nice and beautiful and cool and everything but is anybody thinking about where the animals are going these are animals homes and they just taken the Holmes how would you feel if somebody kicked you out of your home??? Does anybody think about where these animals go once they start tearing down their homes? They're going into neighborhoods.... They're finding their way you take their home you take their food they're going to find something to eat😮😮😮
Industrial hemp anybody
All wood is a vision of the future? Not the past? Lmaoooooo
They should have waaay more recycled wood shaving and saw dust in plywood. Then 2x4. Or just have a metal frame with panels. Totally inefficient way to
Guess wood isn't being price gouged anymore then, like 4 years ago.
Absolutely, yeah without a doubt (while shaking head no)
5:04 I’m not saying the timber industry is perfect however before humans were around to cut trees many forests in the west would burn down every 20 years. That’s how nature does clear cutting. When you cut a tree down to build something permanent it locks up that carbon. If you let it burn it just all goes back in the atmosphere. We need properly managed forests.
No it’s not sustainable, its just a ceiling in an airport- one that will be remodeled and removed
Truly engineered lumber is better
That airport roof is by definition not Mass Timber !! (I am a German timber construction engineer). Mass Timber stands for large dimension elements - with flat surfaces - so that a fire is not possible (on the flat surface) That airport roof consists of regular-size timber profiles. Do a better job CBS and ask the experts to check your content before you publish... This is the first time in 20 years of Mass Timber that I see a wrong depiction.
This makes so much common sense, all around win.
Q - Environmental IMPACT ????? Speaking of the future: What of HEMP ??????
Office Space sure made an impact. That’s my takeaway
The real issue is, there is simply no substitute for moderation in life. Nothing in life can possibly be sustainable without moderation. Greed will make anything we try fail. We could build everything out of mud, for goodness' sake, and it still wouldn't matter if we don't change our wasteful and overconsuming habits, more so than just what materials we use.
It is a waste of forest resources. !
In china, bamboo is often used in ways Americans never think of doing.
I remember seeing something about that, it was really amazing. I think it was in Thailand, what I read or saw.
Japan does it better, they cycle their cedar and pine farms and harvest them every 3 years while always planting for the next generation of harvest
Love the technology but don't like sustainable vagueness. I've seen the nuked mountain tops. Miles and miles and miles and miles. We'll make it work, or we won't till then stoke the stove and stock up on firewood.
The poor animals. I'm sure they've greased a lot of palms to allow all that "sustainable" clearcutting.
Obviously you don't spend much time in the forest. What do the animals think of a clear cut? Also look at sustained yield forestry.
Fire resistant? Not.
Mass timber is actually quite fire resistant. Do a little research.
Congratulations CBS. You achieved your goal of making a wonderful and climate considered airport project into a controversial topic by shoving all of these mass timber projects into one story and then using generalized rhetoric There are a lot of folks working on the PDX project that have put planet first in their endeavors, but you managed to not explain that at all. Gotta have controversy to get people to watch trash news these days. 👏👏👏 If you want to talk about greenwashing, let's just keep building the same old carbon intensive concrete and steel buildings. 🙄
lol this is a gross puff piece
Deforestation
Clear cuts are no different than if the forest burned down, with far less carbon released
I see what you did there😏
Antifa will love that place. Thanks for building it for them.
I hope the homeless like it.
You will work in whatever color cubicle I see you work in because you're the employee. The quicker you understand that the better. Now get back to work before I fire you. You're not here to how about the architecture. I don't care what the building looks like as long as it makes me money.
This is Greenwashing... plain and simple...
WELL! Portlands Homeless Is Going To Have A GREAT and Beautiful Place to "HANG OUT" with the rest of the "COMMUNITY" Portlands Ability To Govern IS THE WORSE In The US! OMG! Beautiful Building. With A VERY CLEAR INVITATION For Disaster! ...AGAIN
One word ... "Termites"
The fire retardant used in mass timber also prohibits insects from attacking the wood
Greenwashing and not even an original design idea. Barajas T4 was the first airport terminal with a wood ceiling. Everything else looks like a poor copy.
Mass timber equals Massive fires!
Poor journalism here,softball questions and then an on air endorsement. Journalism is short supply.
They need to switch to concrete or steel this is value of peoples money not flimsy wood which gets affected by water, moisture, insects, extremely poor tensile and compression strength this is a bad idea stop cutting the trees
Can the homeless come over and hang out at that airport?
That's a death trap.🔥 And extremely unfortunate for nature.
👎👎👎👎
It’s shocking that the solutions presented to us in the modern world are this stupid. Every single solution to everything is stupid
"community space" in a f'ing airport... yeah I want to go to an airport terminal to hang out with strangers... these people are a joke