Cross Laminated Timber (or CLT for short) is a structural building material that can replace concrete and steel in new building construction.
I wrote about CLT back in April and mentioned that the Gotham Gal and I are in the process of making two CLT buildings right now.
The paper version of the New York Times has an excellent op-ed today that explains why making buildings out of wood is much better for our climate than making them out of concrete and steel. What CLT does is make it possible to make tall and strong buildings out of wood.
This explanation from that NYT op-ed is particularly good:
Trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in their wood. … This will allow us to pump carbon from the atmosphere and store it both in forests and in cities.
There are challenges to making buildings out of CLT. For example, CLT is not yet an approved building material in the five boroughs of NYC. That is changing however. It looks like the city will add CLT to the NYC building code soon.
I strongly encourage the NYC City Council to act quickly and approve the addition of CLT to the NYC building code.
