I have often written about the environment, so as to make it seem as though I am one of those "tree hugging owl fetishists" or something along that order. Well, I certainly care about the environment, since I have many grandchildren and nieces and nephews who will need it for their lives -- even if I did not care at all for my own health and welfare.
I usually don't hug trees, unless I am climbing in one and nearly fall out or something. I care about owls as much as the next guy I guess -- anything that eats rodents is probably a good thing to have around. Rodents spread diseases pretty quickly when left uncontrolled.
But all that means nothing. I think the lumber and paper industries, the energy industries and other "heavy users" of the environment are far more concerned about those things than I am -- they often make big ha ha about the dimwitted tree huggers and joke about how people are far more important than owls. Whatever. I am not so impressed by either side. Trees will die no matter what happens from now on. Owls will die. People will die. I don't see all that much to laugh about. And all those things have always died, in more or less numbers that now. There is not much to cry about, either, except for being a bit sorry for destroying the place as bad as we have.
Yet, I feel a certain sorrow that the entire propaganda system employed by industries that destroy so much of the world and profit so much by doing so, can be so successful in destroying the efforts of those who try to protect the futures of our descendants. It isn't about owls, it is about your grandchildren.
We don't need paper as much as the paper industry needs us. There are many substitutes for paper made from trees. Any kind of fibrous material can be used for various grades of paper. Paper money is not made from trees, but from linen and other plants. There are huge amounts of hemp plants -- useless for smoking but great for making rope, paper, clothing and millions of other uses. Hemp and marijuana are variations of the same plant, similar to how corn comes in many variations -- from Indian corn to cattle feed to popcorn. But relatively few varieties of hemp are useful for getting intoxicated, whereas ALL hemp is useful for its fiber.
People can argue over the relative strengths of this or that fiber, but there is really no true need for trees when making paper. Yet, the use of trees for paper is probably not that big of an issue. The trees in question can be the most useless kinds of trees for any other purpose, and be great for making paper.
You cannot build houses from hemp. This is a use of wood that needs real trees. And the better the quality of wood, the better the houses. Yet even houses do not really need to be made from so much wood. If only furniture and the inside finishing of houses used wood, rather than the entire frame, roof and so forth, then a great deal fewer trees would be needed. Wood is very handy, easy to cut, and all that, true. But there are alternatives to wood for building the structural parts of houses. Bricks, metals, plastics, and even fibers in the form of rope or cording can be used instead.
For centuries, because of the endurance of ceramics, the favored building material was stone and brick. It did not suffer termites or wet rot. It was less prone to fire, and offered protection against arrows, spears and other projectiles. Only the lessor of the piglets, who built their houses from straw or wood, were eaten by the wolf. Yet, there is a great cost and effort to building from stone, not to mention a formidable problem with earthquakes or ground movements. Brick can be more convenient, since bricks can be manufactured from fiber and mud or cement, and more easily hefted to a lofty position for assembly in pieces than stones.
Yet, here in the 21st century, we still need to kill vast forests of trees just to build houses that will rarely survive longer than the occupants. Forests do regrow, certainly, so long as they are not merely destroyed wholesale, so for controlled populations, wood can be a perfectly adequate material for housing. But, it is doubtful that wood can supply the houses of 10 billion people in the manner of American house construction.
If we were to live on the Moon, in a place completely devoid of trees, we could probably do well simply stacking rocks and melting them into an airtight seal, or compacting the powdered surface into bricks, melted in solar ovens and then solidified in the frigid shadows. The entire Moon is one giant quarry. We wouldn't need to kill a single tree. I'm sure we would kill them if they grew on the Moon, but since they don't we wouldn't. At least there would be no tree huggers on the Moon, for those who find them disagreeable.
We could do the very same thing on Earth, even using solar lenses to melt sand into bricks, and never kill another tree. The trees can be left in place for shade, oxygen, habitat for animals, etc. And certainly a few of them could be used for making furniture and so forth. Or for hugging, just to piss off the people who can't stand that.
I usually don't hug trees, unless I am climbing in one and nearly fall out or something. I care about owls as much as the next guy I guess -- anything that eats rodents is probably a good thing to have around. Rodents spread diseases pretty quickly when left uncontrolled.
But all that means nothing. I think the lumber and paper industries, the energy industries and other "heavy users" of the environment are far more concerned about those things than I am -- they often make big ha ha about the dimwitted tree huggers and joke about how people are far more important than owls. Whatever. I am not so impressed by either side. Trees will die no matter what happens from now on. Owls will die. People will die. I don't see all that much to laugh about. And all those things have always died, in more or less numbers that now. There is not much to cry about, either, except for being a bit sorry for destroying the place as bad as we have.
Yet, I feel a certain sorrow that the entire propaganda system employed by industries that destroy so much of the world and profit so much by doing so, can be so successful in destroying the efforts of those who try to protect the futures of our descendants. It isn't about owls, it is about your grandchildren.
We don't need paper as much as the paper industry needs us. There are many substitutes for paper made from trees. Any kind of fibrous material can be used for various grades of paper. Paper money is not made from trees, but from linen and other plants. There are huge amounts of hemp plants -- useless for smoking but great for making rope, paper, clothing and millions of other uses. Hemp and marijuana are variations of the same plant, similar to how corn comes in many variations -- from Indian corn to cattle feed to popcorn. But relatively few varieties of hemp are useful for getting intoxicated, whereas ALL hemp is useful for its fiber.
People can argue over the relative strengths of this or that fiber, but there is really no true need for trees when making paper. Yet, the use of trees for paper is probably not that big of an issue. The trees in question can be the most useless kinds of trees for any other purpose, and be great for making paper.
You cannot build houses from hemp. This is a use of wood that needs real trees. And the better the quality of wood, the better the houses. Yet even houses do not really need to be made from so much wood. If only furniture and the inside finishing of houses used wood, rather than the entire frame, roof and so forth, then a great deal fewer trees would be needed. Wood is very handy, easy to cut, and all that, true. But there are alternatives to wood for building the structural parts of houses. Bricks, metals, plastics, and even fibers in the form of rope or cording can be used instead.
For centuries, because of the endurance of ceramics, the favored building material was stone and brick. It did not suffer termites or wet rot. It was less prone to fire, and offered protection against arrows, spears and other projectiles. Only the lessor of the piglets, who built their houses from straw or wood, were eaten by the wolf. Yet, there is a great cost and effort to building from stone, not to mention a formidable problem with earthquakes or ground movements. Brick can be more convenient, since bricks can be manufactured from fiber and mud or cement, and more easily hefted to a lofty position for assembly in pieces than stones.
Yet, here in the 21st century, we still need to kill vast forests of trees just to build houses that will rarely survive longer than the occupants. Forests do regrow, certainly, so long as they are not merely destroyed wholesale, so for controlled populations, wood can be a perfectly adequate material for housing. But, it is doubtful that wood can supply the houses of 10 billion people in the manner of American house construction.
If we were to live on the Moon, in a place completely devoid of trees, we could probably do well simply stacking rocks and melting them into an airtight seal, or compacting the powdered surface into bricks, melted in solar ovens and then solidified in the frigid shadows. The entire Moon is one giant quarry. We wouldn't need to kill a single tree. I'm sure we would kill them if they grew on the Moon, but since they don't we wouldn't. At least there would be no tree huggers on the Moon, for those who find them disagreeable.
We could do the very same thing on Earth, even using solar lenses to melt sand into bricks, and never kill another tree. The trees can be left in place for shade, oxygen, habitat for animals, etc. And certainly a few of them could be used for making furniture and so forth. Or for hugging, just to piss off the people who can't stand that.
