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Rare Earth

Can We Build a Better World with Wood?

Duration: 53 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

Available for over a year

From the emotional balm of a walk in the woods to the first wooden skyscrapers, Tom Heap and Helen Czerski ask if we can replace a world of concrete and steel with a wooden utopia. Will the Wood Age be healthier for us and for the planet?

Michael Ramage of Cambridge University explains how the development of Cross-Laminated Timber makes it possible to build pretty much any building with wood while Tim Searchinger of Princeton University argues that turning forests into construction material has a high carbon cost for the planet.

Produced by Alasdair Cross for BBC Audio Wales and West in conjunction with the Open University Show less

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