Save the Spinach!

For those with knowledge better / deeper than mine, my slight objection to paper (I use it, without feeling overguilty, though) is not about the trees, but about the chemical-intensive production. I have relatives who live and farm along a river downstream of a papermill; the pollution is no joke.

Is it an OK tradeoff? I suppose, though I am not a big fan -- there's certainly some uncaptured external harm downstream, though.
Is it "worse than ever" as some people seem to believe about everything? No -- in fact, whoever you want to blame or credit (the world being complex and all), the actual intensity of the pollution has overall dropped over the years, though there have been various phases of increase, too. (You don't want the whole story here ;))

The question (raised directly in at least one of the EconTalk episodes) "what is the ideal level of pollution?" has the non-intuitive answer of "something other than zero," at least for human life as we know it, but a lower ratio is good.

does anyone want to save the brussel sprouts? ROFL. I will certainly do my bit to save them

As a forester I have always considered the 'save the trees' comments really idiotic, although I use wheat rather than salad as the counterexample. Any decent forest company will manage its forests using long-term considerations. In addition, most paper is now produced from plantations rather than from naturally occurring forests; some plantations will have short rotations (e.g. 7 years in Brazil) while others will take a long time (e.g. 80+ years in Sweden) depending on species and environmental conditions.

As a forester I have always considered the 'save the trees' comments really idiotic, although I use wheat rather than salad as the counterexample. Any decent forest company will manage its forests using long-term considerations. In addition, most paper is now produced from plantations rather than from naturally occurring forests; some plantations will have short rotations (e.g. 7 years in Brazil) while others will take a long time (e.g. 80+ years in Sweden) depending on species and environmental conditions.

To add another comment. . .

companies such as georgia pacific or weyerhauser have been around for a very very long in one form or another time and they are still here.

So they must have done some very good planning along the way.

I have a policy of using lots & lots of paper and throwing it away in the landfill. It's part of my carbon sequestration program.

If there is anyone who has more of a vested interest in making sure that there are trees in the future to make paper or building products in the future, it would be those evil capitalists such as Weyerhouser or Georgia Pacific who make evil paper and evil building products.

I find it quite incredible that i can go to Staples, buy 500 sheets of paper and it will only cost about $4.00. Were trees such a scarcity that the environmentalists would like it to believe, that same ream of paper would be much more than $4.00.

On the other hand, it is true that certain types of wood building products have become very expensive because much of the accessible virgin material has been harvested. However, capitalists are very good at finding substitutes, and I see this every time I go to a Home Depot, or see a home being built from a much more efficient use of materials today than a home 100 years ago.

I was watching a special on Mt. St. Helen. Much of the land is still devastated from the eruption. Out in the field a researcher was showing the camera some particular detail of how the land is slowly but surely recovering.

But in the distance you could see mile after mile of trees for as far as the eye could see. The interviewer asked the researcher about all those trees. The researchers said [paraphrasing], "Oh, that's all private land. It's owned by [I don't remember, George-Pacific maybe]. After the eruption they came in here cleared all that land and replanted it all. It was an incredible amount a work."

Nice, Marcus, very appropriate.

But inside, I know that you like myself are just cringing at the evil profit motive that drove that clearing and replanting.......oh oh ouch my soul hurts.

Wasting paper is so awesome!!!! Hooray for Drs. Boudreaux and Poggi-Corradini for standing up to the evil scientists and naysayers who are trying to destroy the Earth by masquerading their actions as good-willed environmentalism!!!!!!111 And salad is only for wimpy liberal-vegetarians!!111111

Every page of paper I waste means I have starved a termite somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, and I feel good about that.

Wasting paper is so awesome!!!! Hooray for Drs. Boudreaux and Poggi-Corradini for standing up to the evil scientists and naysayers who are trying to destroy the Earth by masquerading their actions as good-willed environmentalism!!!!!!111 And salad is only for wimpy liberal-vegetarians!!111111

I wonder who is more careful in taking the future into account: private investors who bear the initial costs of postponing consumption and stand to gain or lose depending on whether or not they guess right about the future, or politicians whose time horizon spans the election cycle?