Page 30 - Georgia Forestry - Winter 2018

WORKING FORESTS
Cleaning
Did you know that Georgia’s
22 million acres of working forests provide clean air for you to breathe every day?
Our Air
Carbon dioxide (or CO2) is released into the atmosphere through both natural processes (such as decomposition and respiration) and non-natural causes (such as burning fossil fuels). High levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are considered by many to be a contributing factor of global climate change. While trees are growing, they absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen during
photosynthesis, and, even after the tree is harvested, carbon is stored (or sequestered) in the wood fiber. That’s why we call them working forests — because they produce oxygen for us to breathe every day while sequestering carbon in the products we use.
HERE’S A FEW FACTS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT CLEAN AIR AND WORKING FORESTS.
50% Carbon
Wood is 50 percent carbon
2
70
Million Tons
2
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that
the amount of carbon stored annually in forest products in the
U.S. is equivalent
to removing more than 70 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year.3
CO
26% less net CO2
Wood framing in a home produces 26 percent less net CO2 emissions than steel and 31 percent less than concrete.1
830 Million+ metric tons of CO2
by dry weight.
$37 Billion
The estimated annual value of the ecosystem services — including clean air — provided by Georgia’s working forests.4
Trees in the U.S. sequester more than 830 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents annually — the equivalent of the greenhouse gas emissions from 177 million passenger cars over a year.3
10 to 20%
of U.S. carbon emissions each year.5
U.S. forests offset
1) ReThink Wood (2015). Evaluating the Carbon Footprint of Wood Buildings. Web; accessed: December 2017. 2) R. Sarthe et al. (2010). Synthesis of Research on Wood Products & Greenhouse Gas Impacts, 2nd Edition. FPInnovations. Web; accessed: December 2017. 3) Environmental Protection Agency (2013). Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990 – 2011. Web; accessed: December 2017. 4) Moore, Rebecca et al. (2011). Quantifying the value of non-timber ecosystem services from Georgia’s private forests. University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. January 2011. 5) U.S. Forest Service. Forests and Carbon Storage. Web; accessed: December 2017.
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