WOOD. 3rd most important thing to man?

[cmoore]

The thought occured to me the other day just how important and crucial wood has been to mans survival. In my mind I've placed it up there as being as important as food & water! Just a bit of food for thought whats everyones opinion on this one?

Cheers

[morganp]

Interesting train of thought mate. Especially when you think of wood as shelter and tool.
I think I prefer a non-hierarchical connection though, less what is first, second, third in importance and more like the interconnected circle of life.
NO NOT the greeny, fantasy one, my circle of life includes predation as a major theme!

[Flatliner]

I agree cmoore,,, maybe not the third but it's definitely up there in the top 10.
I find it a little surprising that when listing the most critical things needed for survival most people seem to forget clean air, which is obviously the single most important thing, I mean you have literally about 4 minutes to live without it.
But I guess it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing too cause if we didn't have the trees we wouldn't have the clean air.

Just a thought, Rob.

[cmoore]

Bam!, good thinkin Rob didn't even think of that myself! ....God bless them trees

[Nephew]

I suggest wood was crucial to the evolution of Homo Sapiens.

[perry]

While Wood has proved very important throughout our evolution I don't think it's essential, It's just so convenient and versatile. Maybe if you expand the subject to Plant Fibre[ Grasses, Bamboo and the like !! Look at how some Peoples of the Artic regions survived without a ready supply of Wood, Plant Fibres etc and substituted entire Animals in it's place to make Shelter, Bows, other tools and Fat for Fuel. It is hard to imagine how we would have evolved, developed Fire etc without it though.

regards Jacko

[longbowinfected]

without trees and green plants life for mammals as we know them [and other animals] would not have started on this planet as they converted C02 to O. so the 4 minute thing without clean air goes to equal number 1. The only mechanism to trap and store the suns energy until the advent of solar cell systems were found in plants. All our plastics and 2000 other important products are derived also from plants even fossil based fuels like oil. gas and coal, so too timber/wood fibre as a fuel. This is before you consider food, shelter, paper, books and learning and do not forget weapons. The misuse is also possibly the mechanism of our destruction. Even modern weapons need the use of wood fibre to some degree during their production in the micro or larger scale/view.

Kevin