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New research casts doubt on a popular climate solution.
A lengthy report from the nonprofit World Resources Institute released Thursday warns of a “growing land squeeze” where increasing demand for food, housing, and wood is threatening the world’s prospects for tackling climate change. Adding to the competition, the authors argue, is something that’s been broadly advertised as a climate solution — the use of mass timber.
Architects and sustainable building advocates have been spreading the gospel about mass timber for at least a decade. The idea is that replacing carbon-intensive materials like concrete and steel with wood can reduce the climate impact of building stuff. Forests suck up carbon from the atmosphere, and using that timber in the built environment is one way to lock it away more permanently.
Countless articles and photo essays and magazine stories featuring sanctuary-like skyscrapers made of wood have painted it as a no-brainer for sustainability. The concept has also been backed up by academic research published in peer-reviewed journals.
But according to Timothy Searchinger, a senior research scholar at Princeton University and the lead author of the land squeeze report, they’ve been looking at the carbon footprint of timber the wrong way. “What they’re really doing is treating land and plant growth as free,” Searchinger told me.
Mass timber advocates often emphasize that the wood must be “carbon neutral” and come from sustainably managed forests. The idea is that as long as the amount of wood removed from a forest for construction matches the forest’s growth that year, there’s no net impact on the climate. “What that misses,” said Searchinger, “is that if you didn’t harvest it, the forest would grow and absorb carbon. You’re keeping that added growth from happening.”
This is often called the “opportunity cost,” i.e. “the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen,” as the Oxford dictionary puts it. Not all researchers agree that it’s always appropriate to account for this kind of what-if scenario. Some told me that you can't assume forests have the ability to perpetually accumulate more carbon — mature forests reach a sort of stasis.
But Searchinger and his co-authors highlight another frequent accounting error with mass timber. Only a small portion of the wood harvested makes it into the final product. Some of it is lost to roots and bark and other debris left behind in the forest or burned, and some of it goes into shorter-lived products like wood chips and paper that decompose and release carbon in a matter of years. “So only a small amount actually gets into the building. All that other carbon is emitted. That is what they’re ignoring,” said Searchinger.
The authors analyzed a number of different scenarios with different types of wood sourced from different types of forests, with greater and greater amounts diverted to construction, searching for any conditions that would make mass timber pencil out as a net benefit for the climate compared with concrete and steel. Few did.
There were more or less two conditions that had to be met to see significant carbon savings. At least 70% of the wood harvested had to make it into the construction product, and the wood needed to be sourced from a fast-growing tree farm. The problem with that, Searchinger told me, is that all of our existing tree plantations are meeting existing demand for other wood products. “So there’s no free lunch out there.”
The calculus could shift if we’re able to reduce demand for other wood products, he said, but by then we may have figured out how to affordably cut emissions from the production of steel and concrete.
I sent the paper to several outside experts who were critical of its findings. One issue they raised was that some forests, when they are not managed, become more susceptible to severe wildfires, disease, and other disturbances, and can thus turn into net sources of carbon emissions as trees burn or rot. Austin Himes, an ecologist at Mississippi State University, told me that in the western U.S., for example, there's good evidence that removing timber and excess fuel can make the remaining forest more resilient and enable it to suck up more carbon.
Himes also stressed that this kind of analysis is complex, and the results are sensitive to tons of assumptions about location, transportation, manufacturing, and what happens to any material that doesn’t make it into the final product. But most of the literature he’s seen strongly suggests that using wood in construction to meet growing demand in our cities is going to have long term benefits.
“There’s uncertainty around that conclusion and this report highlights some of that, and so there’s obviously need for continually assessing a lot of those assumptions,” he said, “but this is one report based on one model and one set of assumptions.”
I also spoke with Beverly Law, a forest ecologist at the Oregon State University, whose research is cited extensively in the report and who praised its findings. She echoed Himes' statement that there is a lot of uncertainty about how to accurately account for the emissions benefits of substituting wood for concrete or steel, but she agrees with the new report that those benefits have been widely overestimated. “Substitution gets really hard,” Law said. “It’s a number that people can fiddle with.”
She pointed me to a 2019 paper by ecologist Mark Harmon which questioned common assumptions made when calculating the emissions benefits of substituting wood for concrete or steel, including not accounting for the fact that the energy used to produce concrete and steel is getting cleaner as coal is replaced with natural gas and renewables on the grid. Innovations in concrete also have the potential to turn the material into a carbon sink.
The bigger picture painted by the land squeeze report should give any mass timber advocate pause, even putting the carbon analysis aside. Demand for wood is expected to rise dramatically between now and 2050, without a growing mass timber industry. The authors estimate that an area roughly the size of the continental United States could be harvested for wood by then, releasing 3.5 to 4.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or more than 10% of recent annual global emissions.
Searchinger’s team does offer recommendations to shrink those numbers, including expanded recycling of wood products, reduced use of packing materials, the adoption of more efficient wood-burning stoves, and aid to developing countries to move away from wood-based heating systems. There's also potential to increase yields from existing tree farms.
Beyond wood products, the report also raises big, difficult questions about how we might use land more efficiently to feed and house a growing population on a finite planet, especially as tackling climate change requires preserving and restoring natural habitats to store more carbon.
As Searchinger and his co-authors wrote in a blog post about the report, “Given this squeeze, it is dangerous to adopt policies that encourage yet more human demands for land and its outputs.”
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The leaders of both countries reached deals with the U.S. in exchange for a 30-day reprieve on border taxes.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced a month-long pause on across-the-board 25% tariff on Mexican goods imported into the United States that were to take effect on Tuesday.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Sheinbaum had agreed to deploy 10,000 Mexican troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, “specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick will lead talks in the coming month over what comes next.
“I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a ‘deal’ between our two Countries,” Trump wrote.
In her own statement, Sheinbaum said the U.S. had committed to work on preventing the trafficking of firearms into Mexico.
There has still been no pause on planned tariffs on Canadian imports, which would likely affect the flow of oil, minerals, and lumber, as well as possibly break automobile supply chains in the United States. Canadian leaders announced several measures to counter the tariffs at both the federal and provincial level.
Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have spoken today, and are scheduled to do so again this afternoon. Canadian officials are not optimistic, however, that they’ll be able to get a similar deal, a Canadian official told The New York Times.
UPDATE 4:55 p.m. ET: Trudeau announced that he had reached a similar deal that would stave off the imposition of tariffs for a month. Following a “good call” with Trump, Trudeau said in a post on X that he would deploy personnel and resources to his country’s southern border. “Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working on protecting the border,” Trudeau wrote. He also said that Canada would have a “Fentanyl Czar” and would “launch a Canada- U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering.”
On climate migration, trade wars, and a Pineapple Express
Current conditions: More than 4 feet of rain have fallen in Australia’s Queensland state since Saturday, triggering a flooding disaster • Parts of Los Angeles are under an air quality alert due to particle pollution • A large storm system will torment millions of Americans across the Plains and East Coast later this week.
On Saturday evening, President Trump signed orders placing 25% tariffs on all goods imported from Canada and Mexico, and a lower, 10% tariff on Canadian oil, natural gas, uranium, and other energy sources. Trump also imposed a 10% tariff on all goods imported from China. If the tariffs go into effect tomorrow as planned, they will affect nearly half of America’s imports and reshape some of the world’s most important energy and trading relationships. They could shrink the United States’ GDP by 0.4%, while increasing taxes by $830 per household, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, a center-right think tank. As Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer has reported, the tariffs will hurt a lot of people and businesses, including:
Climate change will wipe $1.47 trillion off of U.S. home values by 2055, according to a new report from First Street. Extreme weather is causing insurance costs to rise, while also changing the desirability of certain areas. This convergence “suggests there may be fundamental restructuring of home values across the U.S. in the coming decades,” with property values expected to fall across the country. Some statistics from the report:
55 million – Total number of Americans expected to voluntarily relocate to avoid climate risks by 2055.
5.2 million – Americans expected to do so this year.
12.8 million – Americans expected to relocate because of wildfire smoke particulate matter by 2055. Nearly 12 million will move because of flooding, 14.7 million because of extreme heat, and 11 million due to drought.
31% – increase in the cost of homeowners insurance since 2019.
22% – rise in inflation during the same time.
322% – expected increase in Miami’s insurance premiums by 2055. Florida’s premiums have already gone up by 47% in just five years due to intensifying hurricanes.
73% – share of Americans that consider climate risks when buying a home.
4,107 – neighborhoods currently classified as “climate resilient,” with low climate risks and stable insurance rates. These neighborhoods are expected to drive much of the population growth through 2055. However, high-risk areas with rising insurance premiums are also projected to grow until they reach a “tipping point” into population decline.
21,750 – “climate abandonment” neighborhoods that are seeing premiums go up and populations go down. These represent 26% of all neighborhoods.
National average insurance as a percent of mortgage costs. First Street
In case you missed it: Employees with the U.S. Department of Agriculture were ordered to “archive and unpublish” agency web pages that reference climate change, Politicoreported, citing an internal email. Any future mentions of climate change should be documented so they can be reviewed. The move could limit access to information about climate-smart agriculture programs, USDA climate hubs, and wildfire management. It is “reminiscent of moves made during the first Trump administration to remove references to climate change from federal government websites,” Politico noted.
An atmospheric river is bringing large amounts of precipitation to Northern and Central California. The “Pineapple Express” weather pattern – so named because it moves up from the tropical Pacific around Hawaii – could dump a month’s worth of rain on areas including Redding and San Francisco. AccuWeather is forecasting up to 8 inches of rainfall around Redding, where flooding is already underway. This storm will be followed quickly by another burst of moisture farther south toward charred Los Angeles. This might help ease some drought conditions but could also trigger mudslides in areas recently burned in devastating wildfires.
AccuWeather
The American Automobile Association (AAA) is partnering with ChargePoint to give its 60 million members discounts at EV chargers. The announcement is short on details at the moment, but as Jo Borrás at Electreksaid, “when the nation’s largest auto club is talking about EVs, it feels like we’re moving in the right direction.” ChargePoint has more than 30,000 charging stations across the country.
“If a North American trade war persists, it will qualify as one of the dumbest in history.”
–The editorial board of the conservative-learning Wall Street Journal
Don’t ignore what the president says he wants to do, no matter how unwise it seems.
On Saturday evening, President Donald Trump signed orders placing 25% tariffs on all goods imported from Canada and Mexico, and a lower, 10% tariff on Canadian oil, natural gas, uranium, and other energy sources.
Trump also imposed a 10% tariff on all goods imported from China.
The tariffs will go into effect on Tuesday, giving Trump — who revels in proposing tariffs but has shown some reluctance to impose them for real — another 48 hours to maneuver. But if the new tariffs do actually bite, then they will affect nearly half of America’s imports and reshape some of the world’s most important energy and trading relationships.
Every day, millions of barrels of oil and cubic feet of natural gas flow across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico borders. The three countries have developed an integrated and harmonized network of pipelines, storage tanks, and refineries that has helped turn the United States into the world’s No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas.
The tariffs will almost inevitably disrupt that relationship. They may also upset the millions of dollars’ worth of electricity that shuttles from Canada to the United States every day across their shared power grids.
The tariffs will prove economically painful, although just how damaging is hard to know in advance. They could shrink the United States’ GDP by 0.4%, while increasing taxes by $830 per household, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, a center-right think tank. Another estimate from the Budget Lab at Yale says that the tariffs could push up the personal consumption expenditures price index — the Fed’s chosen inflation gauge — by 0.75%, reducing the average household’s purchasing power by $1,200 over the course of a year.
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These costs could worsen as Mexico, Canada, and China raise their own tariffs or trade barriers in retaliation. Late on Saturday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would impose its own 25% tariffs on CA$155 billion of goods imported from the United States.
The economic hit to the U.S. economy could also be much larger than estimated if some manufacturers respond to higher costs not by hiking prices, but rather by delaying or shutting down production.
We’ve been reporting on the economic impact of these tariffs at Heatmap over the past week, documenting their potential impacts for oil refineries and the electricity grid. But now that the details are here, a few things stand out.
First, the tariffs on China are qualitatively different from the tariffs on our North American neighbors — especially Canada.
Chinese tariffs are not new. Trump engaged China in a trade war during his first term and ultimately reached a handshake agreement, although he has since said that China did not buy enough American agricultural products to keep up its end of the bargain. Some of the tariffs Trump placed on Chinese imports last time — including eye-watering levies on solar panels — remain in effect; the new 10% tariff will be added to those figures.
What did not happen last time was a serious, out-and-out trade war with Canada and Mexico, America’s neighbors and biggest trading partners. Although Trump entertained the possibility of Mexican tariffs during the campaign, he did not propose tariffs on Canadian imports until after his November election.
Second, the tariffs are quantitatively different, too. The president has not yet explained why he has placed higher tariffs on Canada and Mexico, who are our allies, than on China, which is our economic frenemy at best and our geostrategic adversary at worst. During the campaign, Trump sometimes proposed a “universal tariff” of 10% to 20% on all American imported goods, regardless of their country of origin. That proposed universal tariff — which was seen by some analysts as an extreme and unlikely proposal — was at a lower rate than what he is now levying on North American imports.
Third, this trade war has apparently been concocted and planned much more haphazardly than the one during Trump’s first term. Last time, the U.S. was careful to exempt electronics — iPhones, laptops, Xboxes — from its levies, as well as other consumer products. These tariffs do not do so, at least not yet. Nor do they exempt certain minerals that are essential to manufacturing electric vehicle batteries or other high-end electronics. (Bloomberg has reported that as recently as Friday, Tesla was lobbying for an exemption for graphite, a mineral crucial to making EV anodes.)
Finally, what is so striking about these tariffs is how they will be good for almost nobody.
The tariffs will hurt the American oil industry. As I wrote earlier this week, U.S. energy companies have spent tens of billions of dollars on special equipment that can refine the sludgy, sulfurous crude oil extracted in Canada; Canadian companies, in turn, have sold us that crude oil at a discount and built infrastructure so that it can be used by the United States.
The tariffs will hurt oil refineries. The U.S. refines about 18 million barrels of oil a day, but it extracts — even today, around its all-time high — only 13.5 million barrels a day. Most of the difference between what it refines and what it extracts is made up by heavy crude from Canada and Mexico, which blends well with the lighter petroleum produced by U.S. fracking wells. By raising the cost of Canadian and Mexican fuel imports, the cost of all refined products will rise.
The tariffs will hurt anyone who buys gasoline in the Midwest and Mountain West, where Canadian oil plays a much larger role in local markets. They will hurt diesel and jet fuel prices in those regions too.
But the damage will not be limited to the fossil fuel industry.
The tariffs will hurt anyone who uses electricity across the parts of the country, especially the Northeast, that import large amounts of electricity from Canada’s roaring hydroelectric plants.
The tariffs will hurt home builders and construction companies because the United States gets its best building-grade lumber from Canada. That lumber — already made more expensive by a climate change-intensified supply crisis — will now face additional taxes at the border.
The tariffs will hurt anyone who wants to buy or rent a home in the United States because the lack of lumber will worsen the housing shortage and general affordability crisis.
They will hurt automakers, who in the past three decades have constructed sophisticated supply chains spanning North America — a logistical dance that allows a single vehicle’s components and parts to cross the U.S., Canadian, and Mexico borders many times on their way to becoming a final product. They will hurt autoworkers, who depend on that supply chain. They will even hurt car dealerships, who will respond to higher prices by selling less inventory.
If the dollar rises to accommodate the new tariff level, as some White House officials have argued, then the tariffs will hurt all U.S. domestic manufacturers because their products will become more expensive, and therefore less competitive on the global market.
I am not saying, to be clear, that these tariffs are an economic catastrophe. We don’t actually know their economic cost yet — perhaps it will be minimal. But even then, they will still be a stupid waste of money that will help nobody, and which will make the U.S. economy neither more complex nor more secure.
The tariffs are a warning. As recently as last week, Goldman Sachs analysts put the risk of tariffs at only a 20% chance of actually happening. They ignored what Trump had saidhe would do because it struck them as too implausible, too unwise, too patently harmful. Perhaps in the next two days they will be proven right. But Trump has begun to blather about many unwise and harmful ideas — invading Panama (where Secretary of State Marco Rubio is headed right now), annexing Greenland, making Canada (somehow) the 51st state. Many seem even more implausible than these tariffs, and yet Donald Trump says that he wants to do them, too. How much longer can Republican lawmakers and business leaders pretend that he doesn’t mean what he says? The chance of calamity has only just begun.