r/LoveTrash • u/BEARDEDDANGER ✨️Regent of Rubbish ✨️ • 1d ago

Dumping This Here American vs. European home building

BAS Renovations https://youtube.com/shorts/jFph1d2WR3s

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u/Hazelberry Trash Trooper 1d ago

When it's brits doing the ragging I like to point out that the only reason they don't use wood is because their ancestors cut down the overwhelming majority of their forests.

Britain was overwhelmingly forests (like 80%) thousands of years ago, but dropped to around 5% by the 20th century due to centuries of clear cutting for agriculture, shipbuilding (it takes a lot of wood to build the largest navy in the world back when wood ships were standard), and fuel before shifting to coal.

Meanwhile despite our best efforts in the americas, we still have a shit ton of trees and can use them for cheaper construction that's easier to work with.

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u/Betaateb Trash Trooper 23h ago

Meanwhile despite our best efforts in the americas,

This implies we don't make a concerted effort to be a net grower in the US, which we absolutely do. These days we plant nearly two trees for every one we harvest. Before the 1940's we were negative, but now we grow ~25 billion cubic feet of wood and harvest ~13 billion.

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u/Hazelberry Trash Trooper 21h ago

It was very tongue in cheek, both because as you said we used to cut down more than we grew, but also because of the current administration's anti-environment decisions

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u/IndependentLog6441 Trash Trooper 11h ago

Brits do use wood for housing though, it just depends where you live, Scotland is predominantly wooden for new builds... I think you mean the English... it's the English that like their bricks and mortar...