ON SITE r e v i e w Spring 2026 47
building materials
Garth Lenz
Tofino Creek, Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island
nascent building materials
s white
While wood might be considered a sustainable resource, we must never forget how such materials come to us. Logging, euphemistically called harvesting, literally leaves a trail of environmental destruction; mining turns a three-dimensional zone deep in the earth into a terra nullius , a new territory to be colonised, exploited and emptied. Extraction processes, always somewhere in the production of building materials, are dangerous and destructive. Environmental standards at present concentrate on emissions, a chemical equation, desperately welcomed as our survival is at stake. But the other equation, the cultures of land and people, living plants and animals, equally at stake, are also critical to our survival. *
S C WHITE is the editor of On Site review . onsitereview.substack.com
www.onsitereview.ca
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