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Greenhouse Gases and Storing Carbon

Greenhouse gases, carbon and wood are three elements in a complex story of how climate change can be addressed, in part, by using more wood. It starts with an understanding of what climate change is and why increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2)- one of the most common greenhouse gases-is causing the atmosphere to warm up.

The story continues with how plants and in particular trees help to mitigate climate change by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere, utilizing the carbon (C) to produce sugars for tree growth and releasing the oxygen (O2) back into the air. As a tree grows, the carbon is stored in its leaves, twigs and solid woody stem, and in the soil around it.

This is where the story diverges into two paths. If it's an unmanaged forest, the carbon will once again be converted into greenhouse gases and released when the trees decompose (methane is the main decomposition gas with a global warming potential 21 times that of CO2) or when the forest is subject to wildfire, insects or disease. If the forest is managed and harvested, the mature trees are made into solid wood products like the lumber for your home, where the carbon is stored indefinitely.
As the forest regenerates, the new trees continue the cycle of CO2 absorption and, once they're mature, will once again be converted into lumber and other long-lived wood-carbon products. The more wood we use in place of fossil fuel-intensive materials such as steel and concrete, the more carbon we keep out of the atmosphere.