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My blog is forest-destruction neutral. Every time I get a hit, I go out and chop down a tree.
Yeah, but there’s really no substitute for the paper with my morning coffee.
No. Climb a tree, escape the blogs.
No, read a blog and print-out 10,000 copies = save a tree. (i.e. increase demand for tree products and you will have more trees.)
I suppose that at the margin we’d have fewer trees if we stopped using paper due to other more profitable uses of the land. But there is a huge substitution effect for the trees, namely lumber (and to a much lesser extent wood burning stoves and fireplaces). The lower prices from an increased supply of lumber would induce more building with wood, thus negating much of the presumed paving of former woodlands.
Also it would make room for more farmland, thus reducing the need for inorganic farming methods, and their resultant spillage into oceans. If we tried to have organic farming worldwide, Norman Borlaug says we could only feed 4 billion people (we currently have about 6.5 billion) without chopping down forestland.
If we somehow stopped using paper for reading and writing purposes, we’d still not be in danger of most timberland going to pavement and brickand mortar uses. Maine would still be mostly safe from economic progress.
My copy of Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” is (almost) forest-destruction-neutral: http://www.blogigo.de/kopf_voran/Ressourcen-sparen/5378/
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