FOREST,
TIMBER AND ENVIRONMENT
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Dr. Jean-Luc Sandoz
Who
is the Dr. Jean-Luc Sandoz ?
1.
The environmental context
It is now 30 years ago, as with the summit in Stockholm
in 1972, which focused on the resource management on
our planet earth, the environment in the broadest sense
reached the top of the agenda affecting all decisions.
After
the Summit of the Earth in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, organized
by the UNCED (United Nation Conference for Environment
and Development), and the following in Kyoto in 1997,
the socio-economical development in the developing and
the threshold countries is regarded under the principle
question, how to apply the criterions of a sustainable
development.
Sure, this concept could be a hold-all, which serves
only marketing purposes for big multinational companies,
and which provides a very short term hence a truly false
sustainable development. Nevertheless: the responsible
companies have to integrate the constraints related
to the environment and its durability, mainly with regard
to greenhouse-gases, among which CO2 come to more than
50%.
2.
The greenhouse effect : The merciless sanction
Indeed, the greenhouse effect today provides the proof.
It becomes evident with the natural powers unleashed.
In countries with particular geological entities like
France with its coast line of over 1000 km or Switzerland
with an extreme topology, have already noted the violence
as a result of the climate drift.
In
the world of forest, we remember the two storms at Christmas
1999 which generated dozens or even hundreds of millions
of cubic meters of windfallen wood.
The
society on the other hand will remember another aspect:
More than 200 lost their lives in Western Europe and
nearly as many indirectly.
If
we look back, the climatic accidents in the past years,
the rate and the violence have increased.
A partial assessment indicates already today thousands
of direct casualties.
- Algeria : Floods in November
2001: more than 1'000 victims.
- Germany - Czecho: Floods in August 2002: more
than 250 direct casualties.
- France, Department of “Gard” and surroundings:
Floods in September 2002 : 25 casualties.
- Northern Europe: « mini-storm » in
27 October 2002 : 35 direct casualties. |
These
incidents just represent the merciless sanction by the
greenhouse effect, the irresponsible excesses with energy
and its accumulation in the lower atmospheric layers.
Further obvious symptoms concerning the short term greenhouse
effect are illustrated in Figure 1. It shows the evolution
of the mass loss of 30 glaciers representing all glaciers
on earth. During the 20 years, when these glaciers have
been followed by satellite pictures, an acceleration
of the melting process could be observed in the decade
1990-1999 compared to the preceding decade. In 20 years
the total average shrinkage is 6 m (1).
And the worst is still to come. Since the warming-up
for the 21st century is seen between 2°C and 6°C
on average, climate changes of unknown measure are to
be expected, which were not registered since the Pliocene
Epoch, which is 6 millions years ago (2).
These consensual data impose the impression, that even
the most pessimistic scenarios about a rising sea-level,
storms and flooding are still far away from the real
evolution, by which we pay the price for messing about
the “climatic genes”.
Thus it very urgent to approach alternative methods
to conceptualize a development for tomorrow. In this
task civil engineering is extremely concerned, as illustrated
in figure 2. It is noted that in the field of construction
and dwelling approximately a third of direct and indirect
CO2 production is involved. Here we encounter a strategic
starting point to search and apply alternative approaches
for such a concept.
Timber thus seems to be a providential material to contribute
to a sustainable development. To start with the beginning,
a significant afforestation on a global scale is to
be initialized.
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