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Old 01-10-2008, 06:18 PM
 
Location: Louisville KY Metro area
4,826 posts, read 14,269,479 times
Reputation: 2158

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Did you ever hear anyone complain about cutting a stalk of corn, a shock of wheat or other crop? A major garbage hauler is appealling to city-slickers that they are saving millions of trees per year by recycling while our paper "trees" are nothing more than a crop planted and harvested every 5 to 10 years. Young replanted trees go right back in where the old trees had been cut for pulp.

What I am saying here is, "watch yourself in spin zones" the truth just might not be a beneficial truth. Of course, I am not speaking only about environmental issues. It is 2008, at least according to my calendar, but then again we'll likely be told sometime this year that the count started wrong.
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Old 01-11-2008, 02:33 AM
 
Location: Boise
4,426 posts, read 5,902,765 times
Reputation: 1701
what on earth are you talking about?
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Old 01-11-2008, 03:55 AM
 
Location: Camberville
15,798 posts, read 21,318,694 times
Reputation: 28025
I really like grammar.

I THINK the OP is trying to say that trees are a crop and recycling is worthless.
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Old 01-11-2008, 06:30 AM
 
Location: Earth
1,479 posts, read 5,069,028 times
Reputation: 1440
Ironically, trees are ofted cut down in order to plant corn and wheat, etc. I don't think ALL of our paper come from the happy little tree farms you describe. Recycling sure doesn't hurt, it just might even reduce deforestation.

Do you ever hear about catestrophic mud-slides as a result of hillsides being de-corned or de-wheated?
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Old 01-11-2008, 06:47 AM
 
419 posts, read 2,015,342 times
Reputation: 386
Clearcut Logging is ugly and destroys the environment and causes landslides and global warming.
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Old 01-11-2008, 07:06 AM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,478 posts, read 59,575,874 times
Reputation: 24857
Forestry – long post

Selectively harvesting trees for timber or paper can actually improve a forest by removing ‘trash” wood and flammable undergrowth. Wholesale clear cutting and or fire can destroy not only the forest but also the forest soil by exposing the soil to direct rain and runoff. The results of the fire devastation can be seen in California where ever the scrub/forest has been logged or burned. It can take centuries for the soil to be rebuilt to the point that forests can be reestablished.

Logging for timber or paper is not done for forest conservation but for short term profit because the time required reforesting an area renders any investment valueless. This is why many forests are either government owned or sold to the government after harvesting. The private sector only wants to mine the forest for profit and does not want to spend the money to restore the trees. Some companies have done this in previous years but the current investors are changing back to exploitation instead of conservation.

Forestry was developed in Europe to provide long term supply of timber, firewood and productive hunting. Kings needed armies and navies to stay kings. Weapons and ships were make of wood or charcoal derived from wood. Keeping forests around was very important even if it did not make economic sense. For example a one ton per week iron furnace consumed about 600 acres per year of hardwood charcoal. The ironmasters would try and control about 10,000 acres of forest to guarantee a fuel supply. They would start at one end of a stand and cut the trees to make the charcoal. The cutting does not kill hardwood trees and the stumps sprout new growth that 25 years later is ready to be cut for more charcoal. In Europe firewood is continuously produced in much the same way.

On this continent the post ice age forests were partially managed, using fire to clear under growth, by the natives for game and firewood. When the Europeans arrived they found an “unlimited” wood supply that they pretty much cut down in less than 200 years. There was little or no forestry except for a few ironmasters protecting their charcoal supply. Even these woods were cut for farmland when the technology of creating coke from coal was developed and the iron industry consolidate into the huge steel industry of the 1800s. Trees were no longer needed for fuel so they were consumed for other uses like paper and rayon. Or the land transferred from forest to farms to feed the increasingly urban and industrial population.

In New England the westward expansion created by the Erie Canal and other transportation improvements led to the abandonment of vast acreage of depleted farmland. In this climate when open land is not conterminously cut over the trees take over and you have vast lengths of stonewalls under forest cover. This also happened in many areas of the south after the civil war led to the abandonment of farmland and the west was opened to settlement.

In recent years the government investment in our federal forests has been neglected because of out fetish for privatizing everything. As forest investment is inherently unprofitable the private sector could care less and the forests have managed some natural regeneration. Another factor has been the spending on militarization and our oil empire. We have been living off our stored resources but that is for another thread.
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Old 01-11-2008, 07:23 AM
 
3,367 posts, read 11,034,670 times
Reputation: 4210
Quote:
Originally Posted by tomocox View Post
Did you ever hear anyone complain about cutting a stalk of corn, a shock of wheat or other crop? A major garbage hauler is appealling to city-slickers that they are saving millions of trees per year by recycling while our paper "trees" are nothing more than a crop planted and harvested every 5 to 10 years. Young replanted trees go right back in where the old trees had been cut for pulp.

What I am saying here is, "watch yourself in spin zones" the truth just might not be a beneficial truth. Of course, I am not speaking only about environmental issues. It is 2008, at least according to my calendar, but then again we'll likely be told sometime this year that the count started wrong.
What they are doing is marketing a service using terminology they hope will appeal!

What they really plan to save is resources - not trees per se.

The energy efficiency of re-pulping used paper is higher than repeating the cycle of planting and nurturing tree crops, harvesting, transporting, processing and finally pulping for paper.
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Old 01-11-2008, 11:38 AM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,478 posts, read 59,575,874 times
Reputation: 24857
Check out just how well the Lead in automobile batterys is recycled. Or the platinum in catylitic conveters.

They make old newspaper into egg cartons for instance.
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Old 01-11-2008, 11:41 AM
 
Location: Louisville KY Metro area
4,826 posts, read 14,269,479 times
Reputation: 2158
Quote:
Originally Posted by boiseguy View Post
what on earth are you talking about?
One word... SPIN
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Old 01-11-2008, 11:45 AM
 
Location: Florida (SW)
47,891 posts, read 21,897,190 times
Reputation: 47131
I am an enviornmentalist and when I hear the term "tree hugger" I know that it is coming from someone with a hostile point of view.

If you really want dialogue or to be persuasive, you should try not to start off with an insult.

If I started off by calling you a "knuckle-dragging, chainsaw wielding Neanderthal" I doubt it would be an auspicious start to a productive conversation about renewable resources and re-cycling.

Last edited by elston; 01-11-2008 at 11:54 AM..
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