Selects: Timber! How Timber Works
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BuyAToyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. Hi, folks. Chuck here on a Saturday morning for me. Maybe Saturday afternoon. Maybe it's not Saturday at all in your world. Who knows? But we release these curated selects on Saturday. And here's my pick for this week from January 21st, 2016. Timber! How timber works. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there with post-nasal drip of some sort. And that makes this stuff you should know. It makes this room the infection zone. Oh, Jerry, are you sick? No, she's not sick. Are you? Good. She's just snotty. That's fine, as long as she's not sick. Are you sick? No, man. How are you feeling? Great?

Good. You're tired. Are you? Yeah. Well, you're a dad. All dads are tired, aren't they? No. It has nothing to do with it. Oh, yeah? No. Why are you tired? Just didn't get enough sleep last night. Okay. But not because dad stuff. Okay. We'll leave it at that, everyone. How's that for building a wall? Let's back away from that question, shall we? Instead, Chuck, take my hand and let's wander off into the forest.

This is pretty neat, I gotta say. I was excited about this because A, it's dense. Like a forest? B, it's cool.

Like a forest. And C, it provides a great canopy over our heads. It does. A canopy of knowledge. Yeah. I reverse engineered that last one. Oh, you did? Yeah. I was like, man, he is on a roll today. We're going to get some stuff wrong on this one. I don't know if that's correct. I feel like any time we tackle something that's in any industry like this, the people in that industry are going to have way better current information than we will. So I think it's funny because I picked up on the same thing, not just with the industry.

but also with the battle over forestry rights. This is a minefield, my friend. It really is because this article was written a number of years back and is very friendly to the forestry industry. Yeah. It's not like extraordinarily conservation-minded as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah. Well, I don't think I had a slant. Did it just drop a bombshell? No, I don't think I had a slant. I saw it as pretty neutral. I don't know, man. But here's how confused I was, and we'll get to this later, but these initiatives and certification programs that we'll get to later, I didn't know which one I should like and not like at the end. I can tell you. Well, save it. Okay, all right. Because I need somebody to tell me what to like and not like. I can tell you.

Just save it. All right, I'm saving it. All right. Let's talk about forests in general, Chuck. Yes. Well, let's talk about our country a little bit. The United States. Well, even more. Let's talk about our continent. Okay, North America. That's right. When settlers came over here, there was a lot of trees. There were a lot of trees. Do you remember in our pigeon episode, like the idea that there were so many, what was it, passenger pigeons that died off that were just...

driven to extinction because of humans? I'm pretty sure it was passenger pigeons. I got confused in the episode about which pigeons were which. Well, it was a very confusing thing. And they think that ultimately the pigeons had been managed by Native Americans who were wiped out by disease so that when the first Europeans really came along, they saw tons of pigeons, places overrun with pigeons because there was no one there to hunt anymore, right? Yeah. Same thing with the forest. They think there was so much forest cover...

That it was because the Native Americans who had managed the forest before had all died off. Right. Or largely died off. And then what we thought was just this crazy...

Stretch of force that had always been there. It was actually fairly new. Yeah, but it's probably not the case well at any rate way back in the 1600s about 40% of land north of Mexico Was trees yeah, not too bad. No, that's a lot of trees And trees are great because they give us wood. I mean they led to You know pre-metal it was all about wood. Yeah, you know ships

Buildings houses wagons William Harris who wrote this article? Yeah, he makes the very smart point that we came and cut down trees and basically built a new nation Yeah, certainly a new economy several new nations out of what definitely for sure like literally out of what if you're talking the world and planet Earth about 30% is forest land and Russia and Brazil lead the way because they have huge tracts of land and

Yeah, but as a continent, actually, Europe is the most. They have the most forests of any continent. The most dense, I believe that. They have 1,001 million, which is a little over a billion hectares. A hectare is 0.4 acres, right? Sure. And the total number of acreage, if you're in the U.S., of forest land throughout the world, 1.58 billion acres of forests. Is that the most broad definition of a forest? Yes.

That includes everything. And that's in the U.S.? No, no, no. That's the world. 1.58 billion acres in the world. Gotcha. Yeah. Because in the U.S., if you talk to a forester...

They will say everyone thinks that you see a bunch of trees and that's a forest, but they would narrow down that definition to at least one acre of land, which has at least 10% tree cover. That's a pretty, that's a good definition for a forest. I'm on board with that. Well, if you're talking that definition, then the U.S. has about 750 million acres, 766 in Canada. Yep.

And that's forest, my friend. Boom, we're done. Yeah. It was a minefield, but we navigated it. But this is about timber, and that's different than forest. It is different than forest. So a forest is that definition that you just said. It's an acre of land with 10% tree cover, right? Yep. Timberland is a type of forest land, but it has to have a certain amount of usable trees on it or timber.

to make it timberland, right? Yes. I grew up in a forest, actually, now that I think about it. Oh, yeah? By that definition. Nice. What was it called? It was called Chuck's House. Chuck's House Forest. Yeah. I mean, it was, I think we had like an acre and a half, and most of it was trees. So more than 10%? Oh, yeah, easy. So you had a dense forest. It was pretty dense. That's awesome. Did you learn to climb trees out there?

No, but I used to get poked fun at because I didn't grow up in a neighborhood like most kids. It was just a street with like six houses in the forest. Who would make fun of you for that? What were they saying? Well, you know, it's cool to grow up in a neighborhood in the 80s. Hey, man, I grew up in a neighborhood in the 80s.

It wasn't that great. I was jealous, man, because everyone else would sneak out at night and go to their friend's house, and there were swimming pools and tennis courts and community centers. And it was just like me and my brother in woods. But I got older, and everyone was like, dude, your house is awesome. You live out in the middle of the woods. Yeah, well, plus you were lucky to have your brother to hang out with. He's a great guy. True. Good point. So, you know, I had a door that led out to the—

back porch when I was growing up. It's like, there's no sneaking out. I just opened the door and went out from my room to the outside. Your parents were just like, go ahead. Come and go as you please. No, I wasn't supposed to, but there wasn't a lot of sneaking involved. It was opening the door and quietly closing it. You didn't have to. I always wanted to shimmy up a drain pipe to my room. Have you shimmied up? Or down. Down's a lot easier than up. I could have shimmied when I was 10 or 12, though. Ain't no shimmying anymore.

So people have sent in that Guideposts cover. Is that you? No. Okay. It's just some other kid from 1984 playing the trumpet. Yeah, I never played the trumpet. Oh, I thought that was you. And I never wore blue blocker sunglasses either. It doesn't look like you, but I was like... No, and it may not have been a four-piece picture, but I think it was. Okay. Someone will find it. I hope so.

Okay, so let's get back to timberland. Yes. Timberland is a forest that's capable of growing something like 20 cubic feet of commercial wood per acre per year. That's right. That's it. And people estimate two-thirds of our nation is forest land.

uh, and 502 million acres of that is timberland. Yeah, that's not bad. Not bad at all. No. So the key here though is, and this is where the big debate comes up and we're not going to get into it necessarily now, but the, the key is that yes, you can have a forest that is capable of growing 20 cubic feet of commercial grade lumber timber a year. Um,

But you also want it to be able to regrow. Yeah, sustainable harvesting. Right. So what you're after is what's called the net annual increase. This article calls it a net annual gain. That's wrong. Yeah. It's a net annual increase, which means that...

The amount of stuff you're growing in a given year is more than what you're harvesting tree-wise. What's the difference between a gain and an increase? I'm just saying the industry term. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. I looked up net industry gain or, yeah, net annual gain. And they said, you must be city folk. Right. Idiot. It's increase. Yeah.

So basically it's pretty simple. You just want to take less trees than you're growing in a particular year or that you have than you have in reserve. Yeah. And actually the United States has been in an annual gain for decades now. Yeah. It's a real concern. It's a cause for worry that we over-

over-harvest trees. Well, we used to, man. That we deforest. But if you look at the historical data, we are growing more trees than we're taking every year. Yeah, I think the stat was since 1920, we haven't made anything worse. Right, and apparently... And since the 50s, we've gotten way better. I think the 70s were kind of bad, but I think that was the transition decade. Yeah.

Yeah, what this made me really appreciate were early conservationists. Yeah, like Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah, because post-Civil War and during pre-Civil War even, people just sort of took what they wanted and did what they wanted with the land. There wasn't a lot of foresight. And so early conservationists were really fighting an uphill battle back then, I think. So I just have a lot of respect for them. I do, too. To say, you know what? I don't know if this is smart. What's going to happen in 100 years?

Like, I know you need your log cabin, Jebediah. What's mind-boggling to me is that the debate still goes on. Yeah, that's true. You know? But not even just with timber, with, like, climate in general, climate change, things like that. Agreed.

All right, so if you're a scientist, you're going to classify forests usually by what kind of trees are there. For instance, a tropical rainforest. You're going to have broadleaf evergreens, a boreal forest. You're going to have needleleaf evergreens. Then there's the temperate forest, which is like what we have here in the southeast. Yeah, and the U.S. are five major regions, Pacific Coast, Rocky Mountain, north-south.

And I love it. Alaska has its own region. Yes. Just because it deserves it. And there's a lot of trees up there. Yeah. And in fact, there's been a little bit of a scandal recently as far as Alaska and trees go. Oh, really? Yeah. Is that a tease? It's a tease. Okay. But we're going to consider a couple of regions here, and we're going to mainly be talking about the United States because that's where we live.

Yeah, but there are trees everywhere. Yeah, and you can apply this to a lot of places. But east of the old Mississippi is the hardwood region, and west is softwood. And if you're talking hardwood, gums, maples, oaks, walnut, very hardwood, walnut. Mahogany? Mahogany.

Is mahogany in there? Actually, now that I think about it, I think mahogany is a tropical rainforest tree. Is it? Yeah, I'm an idiot. All right. No, you're not. That's what I get for coming up with something on my own. Softwoods, you're talking pine, spruce, hemlock, douglas fir, redwoods. Those are softwoods. Sure. And we're just getting started. There's a lot of information coming your way. Should we take a break here?

Should we? I don't know. It sounded like you were working up toward that. That was a breaky setup, wasn't it? Yeah. All right, let's take a break. We'll come back and we'll talk about why wood is good. ♪♪♪

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Alright, wood is good because you can use it for lots of stuff, which we'll talk about. And I didn't realize this, that we've been using it for a very long time. At least one and a half million years, right? Starting with fire and like clubs and... Yeah. Did you realize that we'd harnessed fire that many years ago? I don't know if I really thought about it.

That is a long time for people to be building fires. A million and a half years ago. Yeah. That completely reshaped my ideas of hominids from 1.5 million years ago. What did you think about them before? Not that they could create fire. They were a bunch of cold dopes? A little bit. Maybe that they just kind of made do with what came their way rather than actually making fire, you know? Yeah. We should do a podcast on the origins of fire. We did do one on fire. Yeah, but I don't think we covered...

Like the first fires, did we? Or did we? Probably not. Yeah. I think I've since seen Quest for Fire, which we've talked about. Oh, yeah. Good movie. I kind of want to talk about my favorite part, but this is a family podcast, so I won't. Yeah, it's pretty brutal in a lot of ways, isn't it? Yeah.

All right, so why is wood good? Like I said, you can make stuff out of it. Another big thing is carbon sequestration, which is why you hear a lot of people battling clear-cutting forests because carbon sequestration is great. It traps carbon, so the buildup of CO2 is reduced. Yeah, as a matter of fact, trees account for 70% of the organic carbon locked in the earth. Yeah, that's why that canopy is important. All right.

They also provide habitats for all our animals and birds and insects and all the plants and good things that we love. And the hydrologic cycle. So a forest will help soak up rainfall and filter the water as it becomes groundwater. All very important stuff. Yeah, if you like drinking water, you can thank trees for...

for helping keep the soil in tip-top shape to filter out all that nasty stuff. So, yes, forests are extraordinarily important, right? Wood is good. But you also can make pretty good use of it, too. Sure. Like, if you're a clever primate like we humans are, you can not only use it for fire, which a lot of people still do around the world. Firewood is still a huge...

use of wood, of timber around the world. Nothing beats a natural wood fire in a fireplace in your home. No, it's true. You know? But do you remember when we were...

when we shot those Toyota videos at Carnegie Mellon. Oh, yeah. And one of the innovation things was like a filter, like an easy, cheap, portable filter for cooking fires. Yeah. Indoor cooking fires. I remember that. Because that was a big problem. People were like using wood fires to cook with, but they were doing it indoors and like suffering all sorts of lung problems. Yeah, and that still happens in...

you know, non-industrialized nations? Yes. Is that what we call things? It says it's the primary fuel for cooking and heating in developing countries. Right. Non-industrialized. I think that's even better. All right. So here in the U.S., though, and in a lot of countries these days, only 7% of timber is used for, I guess, heating and cooking. Right.

Yeah, there's a big push against even that 7% too. Really? Yeah, it's just such a... I agree with you. I love having a fire in the fireplace. That a fire is nice, but it's wasteful? Yes. Okay. Well, I don't have a working fireplace, so I just like them. You just like the idea of it. Well, I want one, but I have one of those old houses from the 1930s that...

It's expensive to get it retrofitted. Have you ever gotten an estimate on it? Yeah, I need chimney work. I need a bigger firebox. They said something like eight or ten grand. The guy tried to talk me out of it. The dude, I was like, you don't want to make money? He's like, I want to fire. And he's like, I don't know. It's pretty expensive. I wouldn't. It's wasteful. So 7% goes toward that. Lumber, which we'll get to in a minute.

is about 53% in the U.S. of timber. Yeah, and most of that goes to new house construction, it turns out. Oh, really? That makes sense. Pulp and paper are 32%, and then composites like plywood and veneer are the other seven. Right. Although I think we're missing one percentage point, aren't we? Or are we? Yeah. Yeah. I wonder what that is.

It's the mystery percent. The mystery percent. God knows what they're doing to that 1% of wood. All right, so I said the word lumber, and lumber isn't just cut wood. No, just like timberland isn't just forest. Yeah. No, forest isn't just timberland. Right.

Lumber is actually a specific thing. It is wood that is squared or rectangular. So when you go to the hardware store and you see all the 2x4s and 2x6s and all that stuff, that is lumber because it is square. If you point to a post, a round post, and go, give me three of the lumbers. They'll say, okay.

Boy, where'd you come from? Yeah, you're wrong on a couple of points here. So that's called roundwood, actually. That's not included in lumber. That's a little nitpicky if you're outside the industry, I think. I agree with you wholeheartedly. If someone points that out, then, I don't know, punch them in the face with a 2x4. Right. That's not lumber. That's roundwood. Remember Hacksaw Jim Duggan? Didn't he attack people with a 2x4 in the WWF?

I didn't watch a ton of wrestling. I'm pretty sure he had like a two by four. That makes sense. It's violent. Construction, it's about a 50-50 split with lumber in the U.S. About half goes to construction and about half goes to pallets, crates, and furniture.

Yeah. I didn't know it would be that high. I read an extraordinarily interesting article on the pallet trade. Oh, I'm sure it's... There's like a whole cartel controlling pallets that people rebel against. And there's like pallet thieves and counterfeiters. Yeah. It's a really interesting article. I'll see if I can find it. I'll post it in the podcast page for this. Well, pallets you can...

You can make a lot of cool things out of pallets and a lot of people are finding other uses so they think you can just go behind the grocery store and take them. Sure. So now a lot of places have big signs that are like, do not take these pallets. No, especially if they're blue. Like that's stealing. If they're blue pallets, you can get the place where you stole them from sued. Yeah, that's the saying. If the pallet is blue, it's not for you. Because you'll get sued. That's right.

Furniture, if you make furniture, you're going to like hardwood, like oak and maple, because it's durable and it has that lovely grain. And mahogany. That we all love so much. Right. But softwood is no slouch either. No, but pallets are used in hardwood too because it's sturdy.

Right. But, yeah, softwood's a different deal. No, and they usually use softwood for construction lumber, too. Yeah. Because it contains fewer knots and things like that. And, actually, softwood is used, Chuck, more for construction lumber because you can make it long and straight. Right.

Which is, that's how you want your construction lumber, long and straight. Nobody wants like kind of a topsy-turvy house. Yeah. Maybe a crazy person, but most people don't. They want straight plum houses. Yeah, although it's tough if you've ever done a home reno project to find straight lumber these days. Is that right? Yeah, you go in there and they all seem like they're warped and bent. Really? Yeah, and if you're an amateur like me...

It doesn't help you out any if your lumber's not straight. No, you want straight lumber. Like, I don't know how to make up for that. Like, my buddy Isaac in Kansas helped me do my house. Right. He would go pick out stuff, and I would say, this is curved. He'd be like, I can account for that. Huh. But I can't. He's got, like, a special organ in his brain. Yeah, it's called...

Smarts. Construction carpentry smarts. Okay, so that's lumber, right? Yeah. You can also make paper out of wood. Yes. This might be the fact of the podcast. You ready for this? Yeah. Paper is made out of wood. Oh, I thought you had something else. No. You got me. Have we done one on paper before? Because this seemed awfully familiar. No, but I will say this touched off like five different topics that we should cover. Okay. Paper being one of them. All right.

The origin of fire, paper. Yeah. What else? Deforestation. Okay. In earnest. Yeah. We're going to touch on it, but, and then there was a couple more, I think. Okay. Pornography. Just kidding. So let's talk about the cellular structure of wood, because it's very important.

Well, especially when you're talking about paper. Yeah. Like that was not just a non sequitur. It actually makes sense. Exactly. So trees. Yeah. Like everything else are made of cells, correct? That's right. And when you take enough of these cells and stack them together, you can create something as strong and tall and rigid as a tree. Yeah. But it takes a certain kind of cell to make a tree. Yeah.

Yeah, the cells, if you think of the walls of the cells, they make the tree strong. And there are a couple of chemicals that make up these walls, cellulose and lignin. And cellulose is flexible and bendy. And lignin says, no, no, I'm your glue, cellulose. I'm going to keep you more rigid because I don't want you to bend. So they work together. Yeah, whether cellulose likes it or not.

Yeah, I always wondered about that. It has to go along with it. It's like I wanted to bend, Lignan. Get out of my face. Right. Lignan's like, no.

No coloring outside the lines. So if you separate those things, which we've been doing for a long time now, you can get those cellulose fibers and actually make something called pulp, which will eventually make paper. Right. And you can form it into a mat, press and dry it, and bleach it and turn it into paper like you said. You can also make other stuff too. Technically fiberboard, you know the stuff that they use to put on the backs of dressers and things these days? Yes.

Crud? Yeah. That's actually made from paper pulp. Yeah, MDF. Or wood pulp, I should say. If you're at another hardware store and some guy that works there or lady says, what you want to use is MDF. What's that? Medium Density Fiberboard. Okay. And that way they won't think you're city folk. All right. You can just say, yeah, MDF. Sure. Totally. And then they'll know you're city folk. I'll be like, give me three of those MDFs.

And then you have hard board, and that's even stronger than fiber board. And it's just, I think it's harder because it's pressed together with so much pressure, it's more dense. Yeah, fiber board is pulp and glue pressed together. Hard board is the same thing, but pressed together, like you said, under pressure. And then, completely different actually, although it does seem like it would bear a pretty striking resemblance, is particle board.

Right? Yes. These are composites. Plywood and particle board are both composites. Right. But they are different. The difference between MDF and particle board is MDF is, well, particle board is cheaper and it's made out of sawdust, whereas the MDF is made of actual fiber. Right, out of pulp. Yeah. Yeah.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Like, Chuck, you realize that stuff you should know has hit such a stride. We're talking about particle board. It just hit me. Plywood is when you take, if you look at plywood on the side of it, you'll see that it's a lot of little veneers pressed together. Yeah, that's what they're called. Yeah. Veneers. Veneers. Plywood's great, but if you really want something that's just as tough, just as durable, but cheaper...

You're going to go for the oriented strand board. OSB, baby. Which is basically like plywood made out of particle board. Yeah, and it's all but replaced plywood in construction these days, home construction, because it's cheaper, it is stronger and more durable. And I was wondering why it was stronger. And it's because it comes from, it's right there in the name. It's oriented. The specific orientation is,

of the wood strands makes it stronger. Oh, okay. So it's not just haphazardly tossed together and pressed, I guess. By God. Specifically oriented. Right. Invented in 1963. By man. Yeah, in California, I think, actually. Nice. Yeah. So your OSB, if you go into your hardware store and they'll say you either want MDF or OSB,

Say, I know what I'm talking about, so don't try and trick me. Right. I didn't just fall off of the turnip truck. Of the lumber truck. All right. Where are we now? Are we harvesting yet? Yeah. So to get to this point, to get to all this wonderful products of lumber, timber, sorry. Man, I have a lot of trouble not confusing lumber with timber. That's right. Lumber is timber. Timber is not necessarily lumber. Right. That's what I was taught as a young boy.

So when you harvest timber, there's a couple of approaches, right? And, well, there's several approaches, but they really fall under two umbrellas. One is the take everything to hell with ecology approach called clear cutting. Yes. That is, all these trees can make some money.

Ergo, I'm going to cut down all these trees. Yeah, typically over five acres is a clear cut. Yes. Anything under that is called a patch cut. Okay. Although people disagree on that definition too. But the suggestion is that under five acres, an area that small could recover being effectively clear cut? I'm not sure it has to do with recovery.

Oh, it has to do with the amount of money you made? I don't know. I'm not sure. All right. Well, with clear cutting, you just go in and you cut down everything. It's pretty straightforward, really. It takes slightly more thought to come up with a good, what's called a silviculture approach.

Silver culture takes into account the idea that you want that area that you cut down to grow back, to renew, so that, again, you hit that net annual increase rather than decrease. Right. To where the amount of trees you have in stock or growing in a particular year is actually more than the amount of trees you harvest that same year.

Right. To do that, you have to be selective. You have to be smart in the number, amount, and type of trees you cut down during any given tree cut. Yeah. With clear cutting, when you hear that, you would just think, like, why would anyone...

argue that that's a good idea. But people do. It's very controversial. If you're in the timber industry, you can say, you will think in good confidence that you can say that clear cutting is fine if you do it the right way. I don't get that. Yeah, they said that there are seven conditions that if you meet them, then it's actually better.

That sounds like propaganda. Do you want me to read them? Yes, I do, because I'm interested. When regenerating tree species that need full sunlight to stimulate seed sprouting and seedling growth, when dealing with sparse or exposed shallow-rooted trees that are in danger of being damaged by wind, when trying to produce an even-aged stand, and a stand, I found, is a group of trees that are the same species, age, and condition that you can manage as a unit. That's a stand of trees. Okay.

When regenerating stands of tree species that are dependent on wind-blown seed, root suckers or cones that need fire to drop seed. When faced with salvaging over mature stands or stands killed by insects, disease, or fire.

When converting to another tree species by planting or seeding. And finally, to provide habitat for wildlife species that require edge, new ground, and high density, even age stands. I couldn't make sense out of any of that. Well, one of it really stuck out to me, and it was that for when you're cutting down an entire area that's been hit by pests or disease. That one makes sense to me.

especially if you're trying to contain an epidemic. Yeah. Sure, clear-cut. That makes sense. Everything else, I mean, there's some logic to it. At least it's not just total madness. Yeah. Opponents to clear-cutting will say it increases soil erosion, water degradation, increases silt in streams and rivers. Aesthetics is...

the main reason that most people are opposed to it. Yeah. Or that many people are. Sure. Is that it just looks like a wasteland. Right. Well, the problem is also with clear-cutting, it sets the stage for invasive species of, say, like fast-growing weeds to overcome seedlings. Yeah. And it keeps the forest from regenerating. Yeah. So, therefore, clear-cutting, most people, I guess, except for the people who came up with those seven conditions...

tend to believe that it's an unsustainable method of harvesting timber. Right. A more sustainable method is shelterwood cutting. That's a type of silviculture. Yeah, and that's when they use partial cuttings over time. We're talking over 10 or 20 years, only two to four harvests where things can naturally regenerate during that time frame. Right.

That sounds like a good idea. It is. There's also seed tree harvesting and then selection harvesting, which is where you basically go in and say this tree, that tree, that tree. Yeah, that are more marketable. But proponents of clear cutting say that's worse.

I don't know why, though. I can see. I can see what they're saying. I mean, like, think about it. Like, you're artificially selecting. Yeah. And you're disrupting the balance or the ecology of the forest by saying, just these great oaks. Leave all these other crummy elms. Yeah. But the thing is, is you're also affecting the ecology by cutting down everything. Yeah. The ecosystem. I would like to hear from someone...

that really knows their stuff that is a proponent of clear cutting to explain it better to me than the internet did. Please do. All right. Um,

So when you do use any kind of silvicultural technique and you're not just clear cutting, you have to go through the forest and figure out what trees you're going to take. A lot of times, and even with clear cutting, they will leave trees that are, say, six inches in diameter or less in size. They're too young. It's like how you leave fawns when you're deer hunting. Yeah. It's the exact same thing.

I love the name of that process when determining and surveying the land to work it all out. It's called cruising. I'm going to go cruise the forest. Right. Everybody drives around the forest with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in their shirt sleeves. Next comes felling. And I got confused with tree felling and the correct way. So I put a little post on Facebook.

And I had a guy named Gabriel Fribley who worked as a forest service fire and fuel management dude. And he said, I've cut hundreds if not thousands of trees. So you want to hear what he says? Yeah. Because we would screw it up. I guarantee it. Okay.

Are you about to say that you know better than this guy? I don't know better than this guy, but this article was definitely wrong from everything I found. Yeah, that's exactly why I asked. He said terminology changes depending on where you are and who you're talking to. There are a number of different ways to do so, but the safest and most common is to cut a wedge out of a tree, measuring about a third of the diameter of the tree in the direction you want the tree to fall.

Then you, that's where I would just stop. Yeah. My brain just shut down. Yeah. Then you, cutting this wedge will require two cuts, a flat cut and then a sloping cut that meets the flat cut and frees the wedge. The combination of these two cuts is commonly called the face cut. Okay. So then the, that is on the side of the tree in the direction it's going to fall. Correct. And it's like a triangle. Yeah.

Yes. With one, one, the bottom cut is 90 degrees, the top cut is 45 degrees. I think so. Okay. Uh, the con, uh, the wedge acts as a hinge, so the tree falls in a safe, controlled manner. Then there's the third cut, most commonly called the back cut. Okay. Which is a straight cut in the opposite side of the tree.

about halfway through the diameter of the tree, maybe a little more. And that's about two inches above the bottom cut on the other side. Okay. From what I saw. And he said, ideally, you want to leave 20% of the diameter of the tree intact between the back cut and the wedge, and that's called holding wood.

And I think he said holding wood is just what it sounds like. It holds a tree together to make like it's not coming down on your head, basically. It holds it together until you're ready. And he said if you've done these two correctly, three actually, you should be able to simply push the tree over with your hands or drive a wedge into the back to bring the tree down.

I'll bet that's pretty awesome to push a huge tree down with your hands. And yell timber? Yeah. So thank you to Gabriel Fribbley for that. Yeah, thanks, Gabriel. And for firefighting forest fires. Yeah, that's pretty neat. Or starting them. Oh, come on. No, the Forestry Service does control burns. Oh, yeah, I thought you meant like, because there have been cases where they've,

found arson and it was actually a fireman. Or his mother. Firefighter. Do you remember that? No. There was a dude who was a wildfire firefighter who was not getting enough work because there weren't many wildfires. I think that's what I was thinking. Was it the mom? The mom went and set a fire so that her son could make some money. God bless her.

Not really, but, you know, the mom that just wants to, like, take care of business for her son. Right. That's nice. So, Chuck, you've gone through, you've cut a bunch of trees. Yep. The first thing the loggers do is they hop all over the trees and go, hip, hip, hip, hip, and they cut all the limbs off. Yes. Right? That's called bucking. Yep. And then once you've got the tree bucked, you cut it into huge logs from top to bottom.

And then you tie the logs up or you chain them to a tractor and you skid them along a skidding trail. That's right. To what's called the landing area. All right. And they pre-plan these skidding?

skidding trails. Yeah, this is very important. It's not just willy-nilly because they are trying to protect the forest at the same time. Yeah, because if you have a bunch of tractors driving out with lots and lots of heavy logs, heavy, heavy logs attached to them, you're going to compact the soil. Like this was a tree 10 minutes ago. Right. Now it's a log. Yes. Huge logs.

And so if you're going to compact some area of soil, you might as well just compact the same area of soil rather than a bunch of areas of soil so that the rest of the forage can stay healthy. And when you get to the landing area, these logs are going to be basically graded and sorted. And some of them are either going to be sent straight to the pulp mills to be created into paper. Those are crudier logs, generally. Right. Or fiberboard or something like that.

And then others may be sent, in the higher grade stuff, will probably be sent to sawmills. Right.

Or concentration yards. Right. Which are basically the second stage of these landing areas where these people say, we're going to put all these specific species of trees over here because this one sawmill likes only oaks, so we're going to send them their oaks. Right. So either the landing area goes directly to sawmill or there's that extra step of the concentration yard in there. Yeah, and if this sounds dangerous, it is.

And depending on what year you're looking at, logging is either the one or two, aside from commercial fishing, most dangerous job in the United States at least. Either way, you can find documentary television shows about these professions on Discovery Channel. That's right. Check your local list. And other channels. This past year, I think it was commercial fishing. Airline pilot was number three.

I find that very unnerving. Yeah, right? Yeah. That's what I thought. I thought planes didn't crash much. What's up with that? I don't know. Well, my fear of flying just came back. Farmers and ranchers are four, in case you're wondering. Mining machine operator. Then roofers, sanitation collectors, which I thought was interesting. Are you sure it's not like military jet pilot? Dude, soldier wasn't even listed in the top ten. An airline pilot. But, like I said, I think they go by deaths in that previous year.

I don't care. So it probably depends on if we're at war or, you know. Okay, but airline pilot was still in there. It was, dude. And then truckers and industrial machinists. Especially ice road truckers.

Probably. Yeah, for real. I'm sure among truckers that they probably have the higher mortality rate. Well, you were shilling for Discovery. I think that was on History. Oh, okay. You're shilling more for Discovery now than when they owned us, which is weird. It is weird. What do you think Podcaster is? Podcaster? Pretty cushy, unless apparently you're on a commercial airline. Like a 1 in 10 million chance of death? Yes. If you're a podcaster?

An on-the-job death? You know, we could figure that out if we knew what math was. I'm trying to think how we would die from doing this.

flying somewhere to do a live podcast, probably. I would say if somebody locked the door and Jerry started a fire in here, then we could probably die from podcasting. Or actually, in our case, it would be if Jerry finally snaps and just murders us both. I don't know. I think we could fend Jerry off. So, Chuck, once this stuff hits the sawmill, we'll go there. We already kind of hit the pulp mill, which stink, by the way.

One of the foulest smells on earth is paper. Are those like the, can I just say egg fart? No, way worse than that. Oh, I thought it was like that real sulfur-y smell now. That's well water down in Florida. Okay. This is like, it's its own smell. All right. You've surely smelled it before. You ever been to a chicken farm? That's a, okay, you're right. That's not funny either. That might be the worst smell of all. Didn't you used to work on chicken farms doing software or something? Yeah. Not on farms. Oh, okay. But...

But other people in our company would go to the farms and teach them how to use the software. It smells so bad. Which is, imagine that job, going teaching these people that have been literally counting chicken heads for their entire life, teach them how to use the computer to do it. Yeah. They were not receptive many times. Talk about hunting and pecking. Yeah, there was a lot of hunting and pecking. So at the sawmill, right? Yeah. When you're cutting up,

Well, when you get a bunch of logs, you're like, these are some good logs. Yeah. But I can't do much with this bark. You can use mulch, that kind of thing. Sure. And actually, bark, I didn't realize this, bark represents basically one of two organs of the tree. Yes. There's actually three. Should we talk about the inside of a tree a little bit? Yeah, I thought this was interesting. Yeah, me too. So the bark is the folum. It's the sugar-conducting cells. Floam. Floam. And basically, it just...

provides energy. It transfers energy throughout the tree. Yeah. It's like the internal piping. Part of it is the phloem. Yeah. And there's that one Bugs Bunny song it makes. Like, you know, that Bugs Bunny assembly line song? Oh, yeah. Remember the... Totally. Powerhouse? Power something. Yeah, yeah. So that's the sound that that makes if you listen very carefully in a forest. True. There's another set of internal piping, the tissue called the xylem,

And they carry, the xylem carries the water up and down the tree. Right. And they are well suited to do so because they are like pipes. They are shaped like piping. Right. So the fulham...

Phloem. That's bark. Yeah. The xylem, that's the wood inside. And in between the two, you have a thin layer that's basically stem cells. It's called the cambium. Yes. And the cambium produces phloem and xylem cells. And it produces xylem cells inward, right? Yeah. So the stuff, the part of the tree that's closest to the bark is also the youngest. Yeah, the heartwood. No, that's in the center. Deep, yeah, that's the sapwood.

Further inside, deeper into the tree, that's the older xylem, and that's the heartwood. It's just the oldest part of the tree. Yes. And when a log gets to the sawmill, they're going to basically separate those two things because there's different uses for sapwood and for heartwood. But the first thing they're going to do is get rid of the bark. Okay.

Yeah, they put it in a debarking drum, and it's kind of like a nightclub. It just kind of, everything rubs together. Yeah, they put several different logs in and let the logs rub their own bark off of one another. Yeah, they put on a little music. It's pretty horrific if you think of it like you're a tree. And all of a sudden, you have a naked tree. Right. You know? Strip the skin right off of it. Then that bark can become mulch, and what else? Oh, fuel. Fuel? Pretty much it. Okay. Okay.

decorative mulch and fuel. But once you've got that naked log, you're all set. So you want to cut the sapwood from the heartwood because the heartwood is extraordinarily strong and you use it for

posts and timbers and beams and things like that that you really are going to put a lot of weight on. Yeah, flooring sometimes. Right, sometimes. And actually, there's another article I read once about this commercial diving company down in central Florida. Yeah. Their whole job was they would go down in the swamp

and, like, raise old cypress logs from the 19th century that have just been down there since then. And they sell them as, like, reclaimed, original, like, heart of cypress for flooring. People pay mind-boggling amounts for it. Oh, I'm sure. Because this...

this log was felled, you know, a hundred something years ago and it just sank. It happened to be one of the ones that sank and they couldn't do anything with it back then. There were so many Cypress trees that they just didn't even bother with those. So now these guys go down and dive and identify them and raise them up and then sell them. That junk is heavy. Yeah. Uh, and actually that perfect time to mention my buddy Jason from damn caster guitars. Uh,

He built me a custom Telecaster replica, and they use...

old wood from a dam in Georgia that had been underwater for like 100 years. That's really cool. And this thing is, it's the heaviest guitar. It's beautiful, but it's tough on my back. Is it? Is it worth it though? Yeah, man. I mean, it's gorgeous. The wood they get is really just heavy and dense and gorgeous wood. And they got this big load of it from a dam that they tore down in, I think, Columbus, Georgia. And so they've got all this wood now that they're making these sweet guitars out of. Would you name your guitar? I haven't named it.

I don't really name my guitars, although he wanted me to. Yeah. You've got to name your guitar. I don't know. I've got four guitars. They're one through four. You should name one Joni and one Chachi at least. All right. And always keep them right next to each other. And one Fonzie and one... Ralph Mouth.

Now, who was Fonzie's leather Tuskadero? Yeah, Pinky Tuskadero. Well, they're sisters. So was Pinky the younger sister? I think Leather was the one that looked like Joan Jett, and Pinky was the one that looked like a bombshell model. Like had the pink sweaters and the big poofy hair. So which one did he date? I think he dated Pinky. Okay. Leather, she didn't need guys. She was...

She was a rock and roller. I think I remember who you're talking about. I don't remember Pinky Tuscadero. I definitely remember Leather Tuscadero. Yeah. Man, whoever wrote that show is a genius. Right? Yeah. Well, what they're doing is they're satisfying everyone. They're like, you like the ladies rough and tumble or you like them dressed up in pink with like poofy hair? Right. Do you like them with an Italian name? Right. Uh...

Where are we? Have we debarked? We're in 1950s Milwaukee. Right. Yes, we have debarked, to answer your question. Okay, so we've debarked. You've got a naked log. If it's going to be paper, it's going to go to a chipper, which cuts the log into little squares about two inches by a quarter of an inch thick. And they're going to mix those chips up with chemicals and stuff.

They're going to put it in a digester. It's a big pressure cooker. And that is what separates that cellulose from the lignin that we talked about earlier to get your pulp. Yeah. So I want to get that lignin out of there. Yeah. And it's wet. It's fibrous. They bleach it to the proper shade, mix it with water again, form it into big mats, and then press them under these incredible rollers to press out all that water. Right.

And then there you go. You've got what will be paper. Right. And if you're making lumber, you send your log to the Scooby-Doo head rig is what it's called. Yeah, man, those things are awesome. The thing that people are always tied on...

Going toward? Oh, yeah, sort of. And it just cuts the log in half, or it cuts the edges off and maybe just cuts out the heart. Yeah, it sort of roughs it out. Right. And then you have a couple of other types of saws. There's a trimmer that squares the ends. And before that, you have an edger, which creates the edges for your lumber. And then, of course, there's a whole other process involved in making roundwood, a.k.a. posts, which are not lumber. Yeah.

Evidently. Your heartwood is going to be older, obviously, because you know how you can tell a tree by the rings, those inner rings that we talked about, the xylem. Right, and as the cambium is creating more xylem cells, they're going on the outside of the heartwood. Yeah. And the tree is growing outward. And there's going to be more knots in that heartwood, too.

from branches past. It's sturdier, but a lot of people would also be like, I don't want to see knots. So they're not going to use it for things like... Yeah, or I do want to see knots. Yeah. Depending on what you're doing. Sickos. Like a good knot in the right place. For instance, my guitar has a beautiful knot in the center of the back that's just gorgeous. Joanie? No, that... I would call this one Pinky Tuscadero, I think. Okay, so that's Pinky Tuscadero. Or maybe Leather Tuscadero. Leather Tuscadero. Yeah.

But I actually looked up knots. I was like, wait, what is a knot? Not even thinking. Well, of course, it's just a former branch. Oh, I didn't think about that either. Yeah, it's either a branch base or a branch bud that never happened. Huh. Do you know, not only did I not think that that's what a knot was, I didn't even think to think what a knot was. Yeah. All right, and the last part of that process is you've got to dry the stuff out. So you stack it up, sort it out, and you dry it in a kiln.

Correct? Yeah. All right. It's like you made something out of clay. Should we take a break? Yeah, let's take a break, man. And then we'll take it home. ♪♪♪

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The podium is back with fresh angles and deep dives into Olympic and Paralympic stories you know, and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget. I did something in 88 that hasn't been beaten. Oh, gosh. The U.S. Olympic Trials is the hardest and most competitive meet in the world. We are athletes. We're going out there, smashing into each other full force.

Listen to The Podium on the iHeart app or your favorite podcast platform weekly and every day during the games to hear the Olympics like you've never quite heard them before.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowes. And I'm Guillermo Diaz. And now we're back with another season of our podcast, Unpacking the Toolbox, where Guillermo and I will be rewatching the show. To officially unpack season three of Scandal. Unpredictable. You don't see it coming. It's a wild, wild ride. The twists and turns in season three. Mesmerizing. But also,

Also, we get to hang out with all of our old Scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. So many people. Even more shocking assassinations from Papa and Mama Pope. And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth pulling scene that kicks off a romance. And it was peak TV. This is new Scandal content.

content for your eyes, for your ears, for your hearts, for your minds. Well, suit up gladiators, grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind the scenes. Listen to unpacking the toolbox on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life and marriage. I don't think he knew how big it would be, how big the life I was given and live is.

I think he was like, oh, yeah, things come and go. But with me, it never came and went. Is she Donna Martin or a down-and-out divorcee? Is she living in Beverly Hills or a trailer park? In a town where the lines are blurred, Tori is finally going to clear the air in the podcast Misspelling. When a woman has nothing to lose, she has everything to gain. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words.

that I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, you kind of mentioned like early conservation folks that you were in awe of. John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah, John Muir was a cool weirdo. Yeah. Yeah.

And these people, they reacted to this rampant deforestation that was going on. Like there was a significant amount of logging that happened between the 17th century and the mid-19th century. Yeah, up to 30% of the original forest land by the end of the Civil War was gone. Yeah, and we're talking about a billion acres. Wow.

that was originally there. So 30% of that gone, right? Unbelievable. And there was what was called a, um, they were worried that there was going to be a quote national famine of wood. Yeah. And it wasn't just conservation at the time. Like plastics had not been developed. Sure. Um,

Cheap, easy metal alloys weren't developed until, say, the mid-20th century, right? Yeah. We used wood. Yeah, we really used wood a lot. Yeah. And also for fuel, for cooking, for heating, all that stuff. Sure. We needed wood. So it was going to be a big deal if we ran out of wood. And as a result, a lot of people got behind these conservation efforts, and especially the government here in the United States. Yeah. All government levels own forest land.

But for the most part, the federal government owns the most. Yes. And they don't just protect it and say, this is off limits. They say, you guys can come and pay for the right to cut down some trees from here, but you're going to follow our rules. Yeah, 323 million acres of federally owned land in this country is public forest land. Yeah. So either like national forest or I guess...

to be used by the logging industry if you meet the right conditions, I guess. Yeah, but I think even national forests fall under that umbrella as well. Yeah, I didn't mean that they were not the same. What does happen sometimes is, say, an animal will be placed, an animal that calls forest land or timberland its home will be placed on the endangered list and

And as a result of that, the forest industry will just completely shift. And that was the case with the Mexican spotted owl in the 90s. Yeah, what happened to that guy? So the Mexican spotted owl was on its way to becoming extinct. Yeah. And it made its home in the western softwood temperate forests, right? And the U.S. government decided that this was enough of a problem that they put it on the endangered species list and protected it. And

And that meant that its habitat was protected, which meant that all of this public land that all these logging companies used to go and log on, they couldn't log there anymore. They did not like that decision. No, they didn't. It was enormous. And you know that a federal agency is doing its job when it's being sued by conservationists and logging companies, right? Yeah. At the same time over the same thing. Sure.

Or else they're not doing their job at all, depending on how you look at it. But eventually, the Mexican spotted owl was protected, and its habitat was protected. And so the forestry, the timber industry, shifted eastward. Yeah. And so there was a shift not just in direction on the continent, but also in where they were taking timber from. Right. So now, more timber is taken from privately held lands in the east, right?

then public-held lands in the West, because of this one type of owl, completely changed the complexion of the timber industry in the United States. But the timber industry is doing just fine. Yeah. And it's a real testimony that it can adapt. Yeah. The Mexican spotted owl can adapt, but the timber industry can't, apparently. You ever see owls in Atlanta? No.

Yeah, I have before. Boy, they're amazing. I love owls. Gorgeous. And that wingspan, it's like, it's remarkable when you see one fly. Yes. It's like, whoa, that looks, that's bigger than most birds. Yeah. Have you ever had one like perch outside of your window while you're trying to sleep? Yeah, well, I've got, we have one that lives behind our house. Does it keep you up? No, we've seen it a couple of times and we hear it a lot, which I love. It doesn't like wake me up or anything. Oh, we had one that was keeping us awake recently.

Really? You shoot it? No. No? I just went out and shined a flashlight in its general direction. Yeah? And it piped down. Never heard from it again. Oh, wow. So he got the message. Gotcha. And we were owlless after that. He's like, that guy with the flashlight, he's bad news. Right. I'm getting out of here. He means business. All right. So the federal government owns a lot of land, which is managed by some different bodies. Right.

But it's, you know, they try and do their best job with things like the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, signed in 2003 by G.W. Bush to help protect forest land. So, Chuck, it's about here, though, that, like, this is when I was like, I feel like we're really wading into unexplored.

explained territory. A dark forest? Yeah, there's a lot of like, I suspect a lot of greenwashing going on. And so I started poking around. Yeah. And I found that the Sustainable Forestry Initiative is very frequently accused of greenwashing. The SFI. Yeah, so you know how like Fairtrade

Like you'll look for a fair trade label and you'll be like, I'm going to pay a little more for this because I believe that the people who made it were paid a better wage than, you know, this competitor that wasn't fair trade. That's what the Sustainable Forestry Initiative seal of approval was meant for. Okay. That you could look for it on like,

ream of paper or something and say oh well this thing was this paper was harvested using say shelter cutting techniques or some sort of silvicultural techniques yeah that promotes sustainable forestry okay

The thing is, is there's some other groups, say like Forest Ethics is a nonprofit kind of watchdog group that has come out and really aggressively said that the Sustainable Forestry Initiative is basically just a greenwashing front operation. That's funded by paper companies. But it was international paper? International paper. Is that the big one? Yeah, there are a couple of others. I think Weyerhaeuser was one maybe that fund...

this approval organization. So is it BS? From what I can tell. Really? It looks that way. And yeah, it's very disconcerting. Fortunately, there are some that do appear to be utterly legitimate. And the chief among them is the Forest Stewardship Council. Okay. They do the same thing, but they're the real deal. So this article you sent me, there are a lot of major brands dumping the SFI. I saw that and I was like, well, that's terrible.

But they're moving to the better standard. Is that correct? That's the impression I have. Okay. That makes sense now. Yeah. Rather than bearing the SFI seal of approval, like, or buying paper that bears that seal of approval, because it's not even necessarily the paper companies that are doing this, because they're the ones funding the SFI. Right. It's like Office Depot is no longer buying SFI sourced paper. Right.

Okay. I'm guessing they're probably going with the FSC, the Forest Stewardship Council. So Hewlett Packard, AT&T, Pitney Bowles, Allstate,

They buy a lot of paper. Shouting them out. Right. Because they're doing the right thing, it sounds like. Yeah. That makes more sense. I was confused. I thought they were dropping the SFI, which was a good thing. But, yeah, this is all clear now. Right. Thank you. Hey, don't thank me. Thank Forest Ethics, who apparently routinely get cease and desist letters from paper companies and the Forest... I'm sure. ...or the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. And then, Chuck...

The Forest Service itself is often criticized for being in bed with the timber industry. I'm sure. That Alaska thing I was teasing earlier. Oh, yeah. What is it? There is something called the Big Thorn Timber Sale. 6,000 acres, 6,200 acres of 700-year-old forest in the Tongass in southern Alaska up for sale for clear cutting. Wow. Clear cutting. Wow.

And the problem is... It's an old-growth forest. Yes, it is. That's exactly right. The problem is not just that people are worried that the forest won't recover, but that this forest is also used by other industries like fishing industry, tourism industry. These people are like, we're using this acreage. Can't just come in and cut it down. Here's a couple of lawsuits to stop that sale. And I guess a federal judge in 2015, I think March, ruled...

No, go ahead. You're well within your rights. Wow. Maybe disgusting, but go ahead and sell 6,200 acres of old growth forest in Alaska for clear cutting. With the presumption that it will go to a logging company? Yes. You'd be great as if like, oh, I don't know, Warren Buffett bought it.

Right. Said, I'm going to build a small house in the middle of it, and that's it. That guy should wear a cape. So deforestation is a thing, and I agree with you. We should definitely do an episode just on that, right? Yeah. But that's not the only threat to the forests of the world. No. It is a serious threat, but man-made threats are not the only threats. No, there's a few more natural threats.

insects, of course, specifically invasive species like the Eurasian gypsy moth came here in the 19th century. And when it's a caterpillar, it eats the leaves of hardwood trees. Yes. Like a lot of them. Yeah. To the tune of since 1930, defoliated more than 80 million acres. That is so many trees. Of East Coast forest. Yeah.

80 million acres. Just on the east coast. This little caterpillar. Yeah. So that's an insect. Disease is a problem. I know here in Georgia, sudden oak death is a big problem. Yeah. And since it was originated in 19, or I guess found in 1955. 95. What'd I say? 55. Oh. A full 40 years after that. 95. Yeah. I remember when this happened. It was probably Clinton's fault.

It was Clinton's fault. Since then, it's killed more than one million oak trees. Yeah. It's no gypsy moth, but that's a lot. No. And then, lastly, invasive species are a real problem. Kudzu. That was the other one I want to do. Yeah. Oh, you want to do one on kudzu? Heck yeah. So...

Kudzu is a great example of an invasive species. It's a non-native, fast-growing vine that in, I think it's native Japan, has plenty of natural predators that like to eat it. Sure. Right? Here in the United States, in the southeastern United States, where it was given as a gift by Japanese businessmen in the 30s, it doesn't have any natural predators and it just grows like crazy. And the problem is it grows up and over trees and creates its own... It uses the tree's structure...

And then creates its own canopy around it. Amazing. It basically creates a Dyson sphere around a tree. Yeah. But it's a reverse Dyson sphere. Right. It's accepting the sun from the outside rather than harvesting it from the inside. Tree death is what it means. I know. Don't you hate seeing that? Yeah. Like, I just, like, shake my fist at Kudzu. Like, get off of that tree.

Just stay on the ground. But do you ever take time to go out there with your scissors, Josh? Yes. And cut it off that tree? Very frequently. Mile-a-minute weed is another good example, apparently. Another Asian import product.

that has choked the mid-Atlantic region. I guess the lesson here is if an Asian business person ever gives you a non-native plant as a gift... Smile politely. Say thank you very much. Also, don't make eye contact. All right. Say thank you very much, but I cannot accept this gift. But would you like to go have a lovely sushi meal? Nice.

You got anything else? I got nothing else. So that is Timber. If you want, go type that word into the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this coolest tattoo I've seen in a while. Hey, guys, listen to Satanic Panic today, and I loved it. I loved that episode, by the way. It was a good one. Yeah, we got some good feedback. Jerry's even nodding. She hates most of what we do. She's not even aware of most of what we do.

She was born in 1982, this writer, and she says, I remember family members talking about parts of our home state of Kentucky that were lousy with Satan worshippers. One of the things I liked best in the episode was when we talked about the influence works of fiction had on superstition. Made me think of how I've encountered this in my own life. I have a great love of Ouija boards.

And in fact, I don't think she's heard the episode on Ouija boards because she didn't reference it. Oh, that was a good episode. So Carrie, we did an episode on that. You should listen to it. I think they are pretty and I have great memories of playing with one as a kid. I have quite a few at home, including... I have quite a few Ouija board items, including a tattoo on my chest. And she attached a photo. She's got like the upper...

of the Ouija board, like, right across, like, under her neckline at the top of her chest. On her sternum. Yeah. And, like, when she wears, like, a dress with that exposed, it's just lovely looking. Like, that font and everything. Yeah. I saw the photo, and I thought it was really cool looking. Nice. But, of course, people are going to say, like, what's up with this girl? Yeah. She's under Ouija boards. This has led to some very interesting conversations, of course, with people. A lot of people really like it.

like me but some have been a little freaked out by it thanks to movies like The Exorcist and more recently Ouija the Ouija board has been given a lot more power and I feel that it really deserves I've had my tattoo for over a year and have not noticed any paranormal activity surrounding me and I've not been possessed and I've not had a demon use my chest as a doorway to our world so I think I will be okay we'll see keep up the great work that is from Carrie parentheses like the movie

A lot of horror movie references in that. Yeah, I thought it was a very cool tattoo. Nice, man. Well, Kerry, right? That's right. Okay, thanks a lot, Kerry, for writing in. And if you want to write to us, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.

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