Finding Ways To More Efficiently Produce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The State of Washington has passed legislation to the effect that by the year 2020 greenhouse gas emissions in the state will be reduced to 1990 levels.  As usual, most of the efforts aimed at achieving that ambitious goal revolve around big, dramatic and socially disrupting projects that, in the end, will have little impact.  Almost no attention is paid to easily implemented changes that, taken in total, can significantly reduce emissions with little cost or need for bureaucracy involved.

An artifical "forest" lines a freeway off ramp in Washington State

One example is the widespread use of concrete to build sound barriers along the nation’s roads.

By all accounts, concrete manufacture, from the creation of the cement needed to create the concrete to the end use, is responsible for about 5% of annual greenhouse gas emissions influenced by the actions of humankind. 

On the other side of the equation, trees are one of the primary storage units for carbon.  Trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breath out oxygen; in comes the bad air, out goes the good air.  In the process the carbon is sequestered (trapped for the life of the wood) in the woody parts of the tree until the wood decomposes or is burned.

Using wood for lumber and other products  is considered to be an important greenhouse reduction strategy.  While in place, the wood retains the carbon it contains in isolation from the atmosphere and, where substituted for more carbon intensive uses, substantial reductions in emissions are achieved.

Over the past decade the U.S. Forest Service through its Forest Products Laboratory research arm has conducted extensive investigations into the impact on greenhouse gas emissions substituting wood for other materials might have.  A recent study indicates the potential to reduce emissions by substituting wood for concrete or steel in, especially, construction is very large.

Regarding noise barriers, the Forest Products Laboratory, more than a decade ago, released papers demonstrating that wood could effectively substitute for concrete in terms of effectiveness, cost and durability.

Maybe the tree can be removed to preserve the view of the "forest."

So, the question needing to be asked is; why are transportation departments like the State of Washington’s not changing over to wood as a primary material for sound barriers if that change would help the State meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals?

The answer is, for much the same reason most easily implemented environmental strategies go unattended to in favor of large scale, expensive and bureaucratically intensive approaches to environmental issues:  What is sexy about switching from concrete to wood when one can talk about high speed rail or tearing down dams that have produced low cost power for decades with little environmental downside once they were built?  Will the press flock to the governor’s office to hear about using lumber to build sound barriers or is the press more likely to be there regarding a big announcement regarding closing down a power plant?

Unfortunately, publicity drives the actions of too much of the environmental movement to the detriment of actual environmental enhancements.

Efforts like those proposed in the State of Washington’s grandiose proclamations regarding greenhouse gas reductions are doomed to failure when “feel good” becomes more important than good results.