I am the Lorax, I speak for the Trees

Ok so all the chatter about global warming and polar ice cap melting and Hummer's single handedly destroying our ozone makes environmental stewardship seem like this huge insurmountable problem. Something befitting a title like 'Saving the World'. It is of course a big, complicated, daunting issue made more so by the political rhetoric denying any problem and the doomsday predictions calling for radical changes in life as we know it.

The truth of course is somewhere in between and likely will never really be fully understood or explained to us. However that shouldn't stop us from doing things that we know are good for the earth - whether its warming or not, its our earth and we might as well take care of it as best we can.

Now, logging is necessary so long as we would all like to live in houses and not thatched roof huts so I am not opposed to cutting down trees. However, trees are good for so many reasons: tree swings, tree forts, shade, gobbling up CO2, and the list goes on and on. Ergo, I figure anything we can do to minimize the number of trees that need to be cut down to support our lifestyles is a good thing.

I am going to go out on a limb (ugh, just for you Dave) and assume that you're all with me and prefer a good wood built house to one fashioned out of mud clay and pond fronds. Therefore you would much rather save a tree in other ways. So, here is a bite sized thing you might consider doing to help preserve our forests:

http://nrdc.org/land/forests/gtissue.asp

This link will provide you with an easy guide to certain brands of paper products (paper towels, napkins, toilet paper, tissues) that are made with recycled materials and using clean manufacturing processes. The site doesn't include prices, which I am sure are a bit higher for the tree friendly alternatives but it typically isn't more than .75 or so. Not that .75 is pennies but here is what your extra money could buy. . .

"If every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber paper towels (70 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 544,000 trees. "

544,000 trees for .75, seems like a bargain to me ; )

Anyway, I know we all do what we can but I thought this was a useful bit of information and a potentially easy way to cut down on our need for fresh cut timber. I mean wouldn't you rather have a tree fort then blow your nose on a Giant Birch?