i can't comment on whether or not bamboo farming, which evidently destroys tropical rainforests, is more or less green than harvesting "northern" trees (maple, oak) from temperate rainforests.

however, i can tell you, based on my experience with a nearby restaurant, that bamboo floors dont wear very well - they wear quickly, show traffic scuffs, and apparently warp when they come into contact with water.

i'm sure somebody is going to tell me "they're improved now, and don't do that anymore". i'll give you the name of the restaurant and you can go sell them - their floor is less than 3 years old.

isn't linoleum, which is made from crude oil, the most eco-friendly? it sequesters the carbon in crude oil from re-entering the atmosphere, and it lasts forever.

Linoleum is greener than just about anything out there. It's made from pine resin (no fossil fuels), turpentine and other nicely biodegradable stuff and if it's taken care of properly, it can last 30 years or more. I like it - it comes in all kinds of great colors and one day, that's what's going in my kitchen.

The trick is to find "real" linoleum, and not the plastic crap that the hardware stores try and claim is the real thing.

Bamboo is pretty, and it's better than it was, but I wouldn't put it in a high traffic area like a restaurant. We're considering it for the dining/living room.

Solid hardwood floors are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. They're getting so expensive that few can afford them. Plus, it's terribly wasteful to use planks of old-growth wood on flooring. The engineered alternatives with veneers are tougher than planks, with less tendency to warp or separate from each other over time.

I don't know anything about linoleum, but I do know that carbon from fossil fuels can't be "sequestered" by making a durable product of it or landfilling it. This is a misunderstanding of what carbon sequestration means.

Carbon sequestration involves taking carbon out of the atmosphere, not the ground, and removing it from re-circulation to the atmosphere. Fossil fuels are already sequestered; the eventual combustion or decay of fossil fuel products can by definition only ADD to the net carbon in the air. There is no "eco-friendly" use possible for raw fossil fuel for the purpose of sequestration.

Sequestration is accomplished by the growth of organic material that is then removed from decay; such as in durable building materials, the original deposition and burial of coal beds, or possibly someday in human-fertilized ocean algae blooms that settle to the seafloor before decaying. Other means of artificial sequestration are also being developed.

carbon sequestration

let me see if i learned this right . . .

the carbon in coal and crude oil was pulled from the air by plants

the plants died and were crushed under millions of tons of rock

however, this isn't really sequestration, since we're not only pumping it out and burning it, but its also leaking out (methane gas too)

when you turn petroleum into plastic, you render it inert, so that even if it DOES become exposed to air (a landfill failure) its not volatile enough to re-enter the atmosphere.

plastic is a more permanent form of sequestation than allowing coal and carbon persist.

It's really very simple.

Sequestration is the removal of carbon FROM THE AIR and the sequestration of that carbon from the atmospheric cycle.

Carbon that escapes to the air - a significant portion of which comes from your "inert" plastic - IS NOT SEQUESTERED, regardless of the source. Methane leaks, which generally do not come from fossil fuel sources but from recent decay in wetlands, is (as you say) not sequestered.

If you want to continue to argue that making plastic somehow sequesters carbon you will have to focus on the small percentage of plastics that are made from corn or other plant sources. Mining geologic deposits can only REMOVE carbon from sequestration.

Now have you learned it right? This is the third time I've explained this to you.

A clarification/correction to my badly-worded explanation above: the best that can be accomplished with fossil fuels is to change their form of sequestration from geologic to landfill. Plastics that are burned add to the atmospheric carbon load, as do all fossil fuels.

Carbon is ONLY sequestered, by the definition of that term, when the carbon that is buried was derived from atmospheric sources.

Air → ground: = sequestration.

Air → air; ground → ground; and ground → air: ≠ sequestration.

Deaddrift... Thanks for your thorough explaination.

You'll have to excuse Baltimore... she's getting into character for the regular Thursday release of 'Dear Prudence' here on Slate (you should check it out and join the 'discussion').

'Linoleum is greener than just about anything out there. It's made from pine resin (no fossil fuels), turpentine and other nicely biodegradable stuff and if it's taken care of properly, it can last 30 years or more.'

no pine resin. linseed oil and burlap or other natural wood fibers. developed in england about 150 years ago. still manufactured in some of the same factories as then.

high maintenance but very durable.

Linoleum : original formula was linseed oil (flax seed oil for you health food nuts) & cork powder. I'm sure over the years many things have been substituted for cork, wood dust of all sorts, but it's still one of the more earth-friendly flooring products. Developed by canny Scots in Nairn, the major manufacturer was Congoleum-Nairn. (My aunt worked there in the 1950's). Now that 80-year old lino is wearing out in the kitchen, I plan to replace it with more of the same.

But my bamboo cutting board is excellent!

Bamboo flooring is a nice thought, in reality its not that great. Because bamboo is a grass not wood and its not nearly dense enough for consistant use. Find someone with a bamboo that is 5 or 10 years old, and Ill bet good money it looks like holy hell. I installed hardwood floors to pay for college, and EVERY bamboo floor we put in the customer was not happy with it and questioned the material because it dents and scratches so easily. So the real question is which is more economic and enviro-friendly? 3 or 4 bamboo floors or 1 mahogony or teak floor? the life span of properly maintained teak is on the order of centuries. A final thought, they are called HARDwood floors because the species is a hard wood

I can provide accurate information as to how Linoleum is created.

Oil is extracted from the seed of the flax plant. No fossil fuels are used. Can't comment scientifically regarding carbon sequestering.

Linseed oil is oxidised, mixed with wood flour, ( recylced -post industrial waste) ecologically friendly pigments, mixed, and pressed into enviro Jute fiber backing - Flooring lasts more than 30 years, is compostable, and biodegradable.

All this is Info is supported in an independant 3rd party reviewed document - Life cycle assesment, based on ANSI accredited standards. Forbo Website provides details.

Linoleum is a true "green" product with none of the typical "green wash" often put out by enviro wannabe's.

"i can't comment on anything because i'm a complete tool and moron."

You should restrict all your posts to the above.