Paper Manufacturer Launches "Print More" Campaign

innocent_white_lamb writes "Domtar, a major North American paper manufacturer, has launched an advertising campaign to encourage people to print more documents on paper. Domtar CEO John Williams opposes campaigns by other companies asking employees to be responsible with what they print. 'Young people really are not printers. When was the last time your children demanded a printer?' Mr. Williams said ... 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.' The industry expects that, absent this campaign, paper demand will decrease by 4% annually. Williams's comments did not go down well in some environmental circles."

Comments

wait, what?

[thepike]

FTA:

'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.'

But it is an environmental negative.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Have we lost the ability to grow trees? If anything, you're sequestering carbon, which is what a lot of the environmental whackos are all about these days.

Re:wait, what?

[jalet]

It is an environmental problem because natural forests are ruined to grow different kinds of trees which are easier to transform into paper. This is also an environmental problem because the paper industry uses and certainely rejects a lot of chemical products in order for your paper to be white (mostly).
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Re:wait, what?

[odsock]

Most likely using less of almost anything is an environmental positive. Consider the footprint of harvest, transport, disposal. Plus it costs the user more to print than to read on screen, so it's bad business to print when you don't need to. Sure, it's not like they are making paper out of old growth forest. But that doesn't mean it's a good thing to waste paper.

Re:wait, what?

[dudpixel]

hmmm I'll revisit your argument when the number of trees chopped down due to paper manufacturing drops below the number of new trees planted 5 years ago (ie. that are now reaching maturity - its no use going on new trees planted if those trees never grow to fully replace the trees that were chopped down).

Re:wait, what?

[timmarhy]

is it really? why, where's your proof?

last i checked paper was made from the waste from milling timber from sustainably managed forests as well as recycled sources.

Re:wait, what?

[Skreems]

May be... still uses a fuckton of bleach and other processing chemicals to get that nice shiny white color.

Re:wait, what?

[poopdeville]

And those processing chemicals are recycled as much as possible too.

Re:wait, what?

[timmarhy]

it's not like any of the alternatives to paper don't use a lot of processing chemicals though, and there's much cleaner ways of disposing of the waste and friendly alternatives to bleach these days.

personally i don't use it at all unless forced to because it's redundant. it is misleading people to make out that paper is some kind of baby seal killing product though...

Re:wait, what?

[JWSmythe]

    People frequently forget about all those pesky middle parts.

    Trees are harvested. They're transported to the location making the paper. It's packaged and distributed to various tiers of warehouses. It's then distributed to retail outlets, and then to the point of use. From there, it's distributed to waste or recycling centers, or specialized centers for proper destruction. I'd be willing to bet the carbon footprint for the transportation is higher than the trees themselves that are used in the process.

    Someone had a good point. The carbon is sequestered, assuming the paper is kept. Most places have more paper going in the trash than they do staying in long term storage.

    When I was a kid, my parents took about 10 acres of empty land and planted trees on them. It consumed a good bit of time and fuel. Try planting rows upon rows of trees, and you'll find it's not a job to be done by hand. My dad passed away and my mom eventually moved. Google Maps satellite view showed the land to still be full of trees, but the street view (more recent) showed it to have been clear cut for other purposes. I'd guess by the person who bought the house (at least two owners later who renovated it) to sell the entire property as a horse farm. Dense trees don't make for good grazing land for livestock.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

They might be whackos, but you're a beefknob.

Sure, trees grow in dirt. That's TREES. Not paper. There are few steps involved before you get your fucking paper. First you have to cut the damn trees down. That takes energy from chainsaws or specialized tree-cutting machinery. Then you have to remove the branches. Then you have to gather the things up (did you know trees are fucking heavy?). Then you have to put them on a truck. Then you have to haul the motherfuckers to some huge-ass factory somewhere (did I mention trees are fucking heavy?). Then you've got to turn them into pulp 'n shit. THEN you've got to package the fucking paper. Then you've got to haul THAT shit to some warehouse, where it sits around wasting space in an air conditioned facility (don't want that paper getting moldy!). Then you've got to ship the fucking paper AGAIN to some store somewhere. And then some chump has to get in their SUV, drive 20 miles to their favorite store to pick up one item (that'd be the paper), and then drive the fuck home.

For some paper.

And THEN they print out a picture of the goatsex guy for him to autograph. They get their trophy signature, but later their mom makes them throw it out. So it ends up in the trash, along with millions of tons of other worthless paper, that gets hauled in yet another fucking truck, where it ends up in a landfill (no recycling here, 'cause you're all about carbon sequestration or some such shit!).

After all that energy's been spent, how much do you think your precious carbon sequestration really counts?

Like I said. BEEF. KNOB.

Re:wait, what?

[davester666]

> And those processing chemicals are recycled as much as possible too.

There are 3 R's. And they have a specific order, as in, what is best for the environment.

1 Reduce
2 Reuse
3 Recycle

Recycle is literally 1 step up from pouring it down the drain.

Arguing that we don't need to bother reducing because some of what is used get's recycled is, well, asinine.

Re:wait, what?

[Qzukk]

Have we lost the ability to grow trees?

Have you tried to buy a nice piece of wood lately? The answer to your question is "yes" but it has nothing to do with environmentalists, it's because the timber industry replaces the good forests they cut down with crappy fast-growing trees that produce knotty lumber because it's cheaper and faster that way.

Re:wait, what?

[timmarhy]

"that produce knotty lumber" I went down to the hardware store last week and there was a huge array of hard and softwoods, they even had structural pine with 100% knot free money back guarantee. all of it was sourced from managed timber plantations - thats HOW they get the wood knot free ffs.... by stripping the branches off early.

Re:wait, what?

[poopdeville]

And you think paper companies don't reuse their processing chemicals? What purpose is wasting their supplies supposed to serve?

They reuse. And then they recycle.

Certainly, wasting paper is a waste. But if you're not wasting it, it isn't a waste to use it.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know the difference between an ecosystem and a mono-crop? Dumtar claims to plant a tree for every one they harvest, but there's no mention of clear cutting or the overall effects of managing what used to be a forest as if it is nothing more than a pulp farm.

Perhaps there's an alternative.... maybe they should try brain farming. If they could genetically modify gray matter and its network to the same standards of homogeneity, the pablum coming out of the mouths of people like Mr. Williams might just sound intelligent.

Re:wait, what?

[davester666]

> Certainly, wasting paper is a waste. But if you're not wasting it, it isn't a waste to use it.

But that's exactly what the executive is trying to get people to do. He's saying that young people AREN'T printing enough stuff out.

So, either young people aren't effectively communicating, and he's suggesting that they can do this by printing stuff out [he's trying to help them, and only incidentally helping himself], or they are effectively communicating, only without using paper, and he's suggesting that they switch from non-paper media [such as email, wiki's, etc] to paper media [ie, his suggestion is entirely self-serving].

Re:wait, what?

[mellon]

Five years ago? Are you kidding? It takes trees more like 40 years to grow to anything resembling maturity, and if you see a tree that looks old, it _is_ old--that gnarled old maple tree out in front that they had to cut down was at least 100 years old, and probably more like 200. In five years you have a sapling, not a tree.

Re:wait, what?

[Miseph]

Step 1 is still "reduce", as in use less, as in do precisely the opposite of what these paper vendors are suggesting.

Are people honestly arguing that we should use more paper because the people who stand to financially benefit from using more paper said so? Have we gotten to be that stupid? The reduction in paper usage has come from a lot of places, and the "environmentalist" movement might be the loudest, but absolutely is not the most important. There are immediate and obvious economic benefits to printing less, benefits which actually grow geometrically with the size of the organization in question... I'd suggest that the single largest sector of reduction has been from large companies streamlining their processes to replace paper with electrons, the latter is monumentally cheaper and more efficient to store (especially since it would likely be stored electronically anyway, effectively making it a sunk cost), transport, produce, reproduce, track, edit, distribute and dispose of.

The USPS has seen declines in business for most of the same reasons... it's just cheaper to send a file across the internet than it is to send a physical piece of paper with the same information.

Re:wait, what?

[Abcd1234]

last i checked paper was made from the waste from milling timber from sustainably managed forests as well as recycled sources.

Yes, right. That's the only input to paper manufacture. Timber.

No large volumes of energy produced from primarily non-renewable resources.
Or large volumes of harsh chemicals.
Or large volumes of water.

And the only output is nice, clean paper.

No gaseous carbon, nitrous, or sulphur dioxide.
No water pollution.

And, of course, there is absolutely no paper, anywhere, being manufactured from old-growth trees or anything like that. It's totally sustainable and awesome! Really!

Re:wait, what?

[Hadlock]

Are people honestly arguing that we should use more paper because the people who stand to financially benefit from using more paper said so? Have we gotten to be that stupid?

I don't usually directly link to images, but this is a prime example. It's so absurd I don't have any reason to believe it's not real.
 
  They're happy because they eat LARD - Issued by the Lard Information Council
 
But, as usual, Snopes proves me wrong. Turns out it's fake.
 
Anyways, this is basically what the paper companies are attempting to do. If they even manage to decrease the decline from 4% to 3%, they've succeeded in saving a lot of people's jobs.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get how it's bad for the environment. Wouldn't all that paper act as a carbon sink? Trees grow, trees store carbon, tree made into wood and paper, wood and paper kept in houses and buildings... carbon sink. Shouldn't it be a net benefit?

Re:wait, what?

[Miseph]

"If they even manage to decrease the decline from 4% to 3%, they've succeeded in saving a lot of people's jobs."

Broken windows.

I would rather see those people get work in manufacturing things that are actually useful... most of the skills along that chain are entirely transferable. Of course, then we might have to retake some of our manufacturing from China, and the only way that could be made viable is to raise tariffs such that they are equivalent to the drain on our economy caused by shipping the work overseas in the first place. I ain't holding my breath.

Re:wait, what?

[interkin3tic]

'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.'

But it is an environmental negative.

What's the confusion over? It often requires work to convince people of lies. The RIAA, coal, pharmecutical and other industries only make it -look- easy.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

And when the IRS comes knocking on the door of your business, or the State Comptroller comes for the sales tax audit, they'll be expecting _paper_ documentation to support anything a company does. And if it's no already printed out, it will be--more than likely in triplicate at a minimum.

Sustainable forestry more than takes care of the actual raw materials necessary, and the chemical processing gets greener every year. If you want to attack printing, maybe you should address the much more costly and chemical-based manufacture of ink and toner.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except nobody cuts gnarled old maple trees down to make paper. For one, such a beautiful wood like that is far too valuable to be used for paper, and it'll surely go into making some piece of fancy furniture, part of a musical instrument, or veneer to back up less costly materials--for a piece of slightly less fancy furniture, etc.

It's a bit disingenuous, or more than quite a bit naive to suggest that 100+ year old hardwoods are sent to paper mills.

A lot of (most of, these days) the trees used for paper production, are in fact rather quickly growing pine/fir trees, which are grown by tree farmers. Five years results in a product just about perfect for this purpose. Also, the fiber bearing remnants of timber farming--which use the same kind of trees (grown for a bit longer)--are also quite useful for making paper (as well as chipboard and other macro-grained products). Nothing goes to waste at an industrial tree farming operation.

Re:wait, what?

[Chatterton]

He is half kidding. Paper company plant quick growing trees and not these pesky maple tree, oak or any slow growing trees. And not only because they are quick to grow, but because they are quick to grow they are also of lesser density thus they are more easy to reduce to pulp to make paper.

Re:wait, what?

[EdIII]

benefits which actually grow geometrically with the size of the organization in question...

Damn right. I recently helped a business reduce 60K in monthly paper costs. Just by purchasing a few thousand dollars worth of signature capture pads, configuring some terminal servers, and setting up some signing certs.

According to this gentleman up there in Canada, we were all motivated by misconceptions and our dire need to protect the horny spotted dwarf owl or something.....

It had nothing to do with the immediate savings of materials costs and long term savings of derived from increased worker productivity since they were not spending 5 minutes, printing, signing, and scanning.

Yep.... all about the environment over here.

Re:wait, what?

[dudpixel]

you are correct. I did a quick google search to make sure my estimate was somewhere in the ballpark.

Re:wait, what?

[linzeal]

What the fuck are you talking about? There are numerous problems with tree farms but the quality of wood is hardly one of them.

Last week I went down to Home Depot and got 20 feet of 4x8 with no knots in them whatsoever for a dollar less a foot than it was a year ago.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

toner, electricity, manufacturing costs, packaging costs etc etc printing is more than just the paper.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "quick to grow trees" still take about 40 years in a temperate zone to reach maturity, not 5, though energy brush could probably be harvested and made into pulp in 5 years, but they don't seem to do that much here in Sweden so I'm guessing there is a downside.

Re:wait, what?

[daem0n1x]

In the last decades, my country has been planted with millions of eucalyptus and wild pines, that are completely alien, to produce paper.

The results: We have almost no native forest, every summer there are big wild fires all around the country, the eucalyptus suck all the water from kilometres around, ruining the few farmers and herders that still subsist.

The planting areas that were abandoned because of fires of owner carelessness are now bare, completely exposed to soil erosion. These areas are will eventually become desert land in the next years if nothing is done.

Of course, the government could step in and take two measures:

1. Take over bare areas and replant with native trees.
2. Every spring, coercively clean the neglected plantations to avoid fires, and punish the owners.

But in these days of free-market fundamentalism, the government can't do shit because it would go against the "legitimate rights" of the land owners or something. When the whole country looks like Saudi Arabia without the oil, the land owners can stuff their legitimate rights up their asses and try to survive eating sand.

Re:wait, what?

[Aceticon]

Paper pulp is made from fast growing trees such as Eucaliptus.

Nobody makes paper pulp from slow-growing trees: their wood is much too valueable in other uses for it to be wasted on making paper.

The wood of fast growing trees on the other hand is basically worthless for anything but paper pulp since it's not resistent enough for structural uses and does not have the appropriate properties for furniture.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

is it really? why, where's your proof?

last i checked paper was made from the waste from milling timber from sustainably managed forests as well as recycled sources.

Come to Sunny Florida. Drive South from Jacksonville (or North from Orlando) on US 17 (yes, one of those Socialist-funded Federal highways). When you get just North of the city of Palatka, there's a bridge over a large creek. Stop and take a deep breath.

On second thought, take a shallow breath. A deep breath is likely to choke you. And you don't actually have to stand near the water. Anywhere within a mile or so will do.

This is wonderful Rice Creek, the fortunate recipient of the outflow from a pulp and paper company. At one time, according to someone I know someone who fished the area, this creek went totally sterile. Even the crabs died off. It's supposed to be better now, but it's still bad enough that for years, the mill has been lobbying for the right to run a pipeline out into the nearby St. Johns River in order to dilute the effluent more rapidly.

Sound environmentally friendly you you?

Re:wait, what?

[Aqualung812]

for a dollar less a foot than it was a year ago.

While it has nothing to do with your main point about knot-free wood, the price drop has more to do with the high inventory of building supplies after a year of almost no building going on.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

last i checked paper was made from the waste from milling timber from sustainably managed forests as well as recycled sources.

Some paper is, not all, not the majority either.

The real issue isn't so much paper, but ink and its crazy price.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of those "pesky slow growing oaks" aren't that slow growing: Red oak, Noxubee (sp) Refuge in a "Green Tree Reservoir": ~4' (48") diameter in around 40 years. 2"+ rings on that thing... Not good lumber, but would work for paper if it wasn't so large.

Re:wait, what?

[obarthelemy]

Waou, that was a convincing argument. everything is an environmental negative, BTW

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on the tree type in question and where it's growing. Grow them in a cold climate, which is clearly where you live, trees grow slowly. Move to Florida and that huge gnarly tree is only about 40-50 years old. Big pines are only about 20 years old. I'm sure there are faster growing species than pine, and probably climates better for tree growth than Florida.

Re:wait, what?

[styrotech]

And of course that is just the paper itself.

There's also all the ink, toner, cartridges, drums etc that get manufactured, packaged, transported, stocked, sold etc. And printers themselves are getting more flimsy and disposable too. And then the power used by printing...

Yeah, printing sure is good for the environment.

Re:wait, what?

[raju1kabir]

And you think paper companies don't reuse their processing chemicals? What purpose is wasting their supplies supposed to serve?

The chemicals they use cannot be infinitely reused. They become tainted and the cost of purifying them is higher than the cost of buying more. So they get dumped.

Buying less paper will always result in less of this happening. There's no way around that.

I really don't understand how you can be trying to argue this point.

Certainly, wasting paper is a waste. But if you're not wasting it, it isn't a waste to use it.

People have found ways to achieve the same things without using paper. This company wants people to go back to using paper. That's a waste, since effective alternatives demonstrably exist.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are people honestly arguing that we should use more paper because the people who stand to financially benefit from using more paper said so? Have we gotten to be that stupid?

Printing, it's what kids need.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

is it really? why, where's your proof?

last i checked paper was made from the waste from milling timber from sustainably managed forests as well as recycled sources.

Let me guess... you've never actually checked, have you?

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have we gotten to be that stupid?

I submit that we have always been that stupid.

Re:wait, what?

[michalk0]

can only advise you all to read Lew Rockwell's Anti-environment manifesto http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/anti-enviro.html

Re:wait, what?

[Skreems]

it is misleading people to make out that paper is some kind of baby seal killing product though...

I don't think anybody's saying that. It's just ridiculous that this guy is complaining about companies putting "think before you print" messages at the bottom of emails to discourage people from transferring information to a (typically) LESS useful medium and wasting resources in the process. Also, reaching out through Facebook and Youtube to "resonate with youth" about paper-based printing is beyond stupid.

Re:wait, what?

[Abstrackt]

Why? Have we lost the ability to grow trees? If anything, you're sequestering carbon, which is what a lot of the environmental whackos are all about these days.

Here, a little light reading for you: the broken window fallacy. You can sequester carbon by creating parks and planting forests too, you know.

Re:wait, what?

[commodore64_love]

>>>And you think paper companies don't reuse their processing chemicals?

Okay clearly someone is not thinking. Which process burns fewer gallons of diesel in the Timber company's cranes & trucks & saws?

(a) Chopping down the tree, carrying it off, turning it to paper, transporting the new paper to the office, collecting the used paper, and then recycling it.
(b) Not using the paper & therefore not needing to cut down the tree, or burn diesel.

The answer is b. NOT using the paper is the more environment-friendly option. If "young people" have developed the habit of passing documents electronically, without printing, then we should encourage them to continue that habit. Encouraging them to print just for the sake of printing as the Domtar CEO wants to do is worse for the environment. He's an idiot.

Re:wait, what?

[The_Wilschon]

I'm guessing that trees grow a lot faster in warmer climates with a _longer growing season_ than they do in Sweden. I've seen trees of many types reach maturity in less than 5 years in Texas and Oklahoma. Furthermore, I expect you can make paper out of not-yet-mature trees pretty easily.

Re:wait, what?

[skids]

"Also, reaching out through Facebook and Youtube to "resonate with youth" about paper-based printing is beyond stupid."

Actually I think we should hope this campaign is pursued aggressively. It's just so entirely lame and face-value-dumb that its very existence will spread awareness of astroturfing among the youth culture.

Re:wait, what?

[Aerowin]

I only wish the company I work for would wise up... They are a small company made even smaller by combo of piss poor management and the depression. Yet they still somehow manage to go through 3 big ol' boxes of paper a week... A week! They print out EVERYTHING! Invoices, orders incoming, orders outgoing, quotes, quote responses...

Email. They print out their email! They went with google for their email services to make things easy, have 8 or so GB of storage space PER PERSON, and they opt to print out each and every email and delete it. Not archive it, delete it.

They also want a hard copy of every web site they have in both the boss's office and his wife's desk. (they have several that pertains to their core business and tons more that don't, but thankfully they don't want hard copies of them...) Also, one of the salesmen likes to have a hard copy of the one website... but he maintains his with a pen instead of reprinting.

Here's a good one: How do they email a customer an order invoice?

1. They print it out
2. Scan it back in to OpenOffice
3. Save it as a PDF
4. Email it.

Forget the fact that we use Adobe software that comes with a direct PDF printer... Forget all the completely free stand alone PDF printer software that I have repeatedly emailed to them and told them about. It's gotta be routed through the printer before it can be emailed!

Maybe that's why they aren't using the PDF tools I sent them... I didn't print it out first.

And perhaps the WORST of all: They actively ENCOURAGE their customers to print out their web sites, warranty, and miscellaneous installation instructions!

All of this from a company that advertises themselves as an internet-based business.

Dammit, Slashdot... You finally made me register... I hope yer happy now!

Re:wait, what?

[McGruber]

May be... still uses a fuckton of bleach and other processing chemicals to get that nice shiny white color.

Domtar would like to paper over that fact.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's pretty easy to craft some fucking ridiculous straw man to back up your assertions, but perhaps next time you should consider using a scenario that actually makes sense.

Re:wait, what?

[BrokenHalo]

It is an environmental problem because natural forests are ruined to grow different kinds of trees which are easier to transform into paper.

Time for an old fart like me to point out that we don't need to make paper from trees. In fact, trees make crap paper unless you're prepared to make special efforts to deal with the acids that break it down over time. Time was (and in some circles still is), when paper was made from old cotton or linen rags (hence "rag" paper).

Of course, we can make paper from cotton, hemp or probably just about any vegetable fibre, which need not be as slow-growing as the trees currently being obliterated by the paper pulp industry.

Re:wait, what?

[Just Some Guy]

I'd suggest that the single largest sector of reduction has been from large companies streamlining their processes to replace paper with electrons, the latter is monumentally cheaper and more efficient to store (especially since it would likely be stored electronically anyway, effectively making it a sunk cost), transport, produce, reproduce, track, edit, distribute and dispose of.

My company used to get a lot of documents from our customers and then forward them to various government agencies. Those agencies required us to keep paper copies of the forms so that we could re-submit them if they ever lost the copies that we'd sent to them.

Eventually, our customers started submitting the information on the forms to us electronically. We'd fill them out, print the required copy for our records, and mail a copy to the gov't agencies.

After a while, the agencies went mostly paperless and allowed us to transmit the images of the completed forms electronically, but still mandated that we keep a paper copy - just in case.

Some time after that, cooler heads prevailed and decided it would be OK if we just kept electronic copies of the images of the completed forms.

Because the transition was so gradual from the original paper trail to the new all-electronic system, certain parts never got refactored. One day I walked through the scanning room and saw a giant stack of papers next to the scanner. As it turns out, the process of generating the forms for submission to the agencies included printing a copy of those forms. Then, an employee would feed that stack into our bulk scanners, view each page in a custom in-house app, read a number on the form to see what internal batch it belonged to, and enter that value into the program which would then file it away appropriately.

Well, a few hours later I'd shortened that to saving an image of each outbound form to the fileserver and skipped the print/scan/data-entry step altogether. That saved the company a few thousand dollars worth of paper each year, the costs of transporting, storing, and disposing of all the paper, and the wages of the data entry clerk (who was thrilled to move to something less soul-crushingly boring). Our friend at the paper mill might not see the benefits of the change, but my boss and coworkers were pretty darn happy with it.

Re:wait, what?

[FrigBot]

And who says sarcasm doesn't translate well over the internet?

Re:wait, what?

[BrokenHalo]

I'd be willing to bet the carbon footprint for the transportation is higher than the trees themselves that are used in the process.

Off-topic, but interesting nonetheless: this argument could easily be used by way of rebuttal to those who insist that nuclear energy is an appropriately "green" solution. Unfortunately, it's one that is hard to fully quantify, because no mining company will tell us how much fuel they use in the course of their operations, but bulk transportation of nuclear (or any) fuel by sea alone commonly involves the burning of thousands of tonnes of hydrocarbons for each trip.

Re:wait, what?

[BrokenHalo]

It's a bit disingenuous, or more than quite a bit naive to suggest that 100+ year old hardwoods are sent to paper mills.

You obviously haven't visited Australia. It is routine here to clear-fell huge tracts of old-growth forest to supply the chip and pulp industry. In Western Australia, some attempt is made to hide it by leaving a band of intact trees between the cut and the road, but in Tasmania it is impossible to hide whole mountainsides of jagged stumps.

Sure, there are those of us who value and use high-grade timber such as you mentioned, but our interests are insignificant by comparison with those of the asswipes who, with the willing complicity of our governments are happily wiping out thousands of acres of old-growth forest.

Re:wait, what?

[dougvdotcom]

I live in Maine, a state where growing trees to support paper making has, for nearly 100 years, been a major part of the economy. The sustainable harvest of hemlock and spruce has actually increased the amount of forested land in this state to a higher percentage than at the time of European settlement. Of Maine's 19 million acres, about 17 million are forested. (Previous to colonization, Native Americans practiced slash-and-burn agriculture throughout much of the state. From the time of statehood forward, agriculture was a bigger economic contributor here than timber -- because trees grow slowly in northern climes -- until the financial panics of the 1890s, which wiped out most of the farming. This conveniently coincided with the growth of newspapers, which was largely helped by the invention of technology to create paper from wood pulp, versus linen / cotton. That made harvesting softwoods a profitable business.) We in Maine have had our problems with the environmental impacts of wood harvesting and paper making. Our rivers were, until the 1970s, foul and stinking highways for pulpwood and paper plant waste, until our senators George Mitchell and Edwin Muskie helped pass the Clean Water Act to clean up all such rivers. Even more recently, practices (such as clear-cutting) that negatively impact flora, fauna, soil and water have been changed, both by fiat and by industry cooperation. We still have offenders and problems, but most of Maine's large landowners (about two-thirds of the state's lands are owned by fewer than 10 corporations) care deeply about good forest stewardship. The greatest contribution of profitable tree growth for wood pulp is our tradition of permissive trespass. Unlike other states, here in Maine you can generally freely drive down private roads and use private lands for hiking, fishing, skiing, snowmobiling, camping, ATV riding, hunting and other outdoor activities. It is rare one finds a toll road / gate fee these days, and many large landowners go out of their way to help visitors find and get to places of interest. All this is made possible by paper. It's done more to keep Maine wild and protect its natural resources than any environmental group ever will. Paper, private land ownership and vigilant cooperation to protect our traditions is not "environmental negative." It's the only way to protect our resources, because people only protect that which they value. Less than 5 percent of Maine's land is in public ownership (e.g., state and national parks) but it is world-renown for its bounty of natural riches as "Vacationland." Paper did that, not some hippie who thinks hemp is a green strategy.

Re:wait, what?

[GigsVT]

Nuclear plants don't need much fuel. Moving it around is a negligible cost. Nuclear fuel isn't very radioactive either. You can hold uranium fuel rods in your hand safely.

In fact here's an image of someone doing just that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fuel_Pellet.jpg

Re:wait, what?

[BrokenHalo]

Nuclear plants don't need much fuel.

This is true, but such fuel isn't exactly usable in the form in which it comes out of the ground. There's a hell of a lot of "stuff" that has to be moved around before you get anything that can be used in a reactor.

Re:wait, what?

[linzeal]

Its like these hipster kids saying that meat quality from factory farms is worse than before, but before factory farms there was almost no consistency in meat at all. So what they are saying is they want to back to a time when every ham was different.

I live in Oregon and have access to all organic butcheries and the only two meats I think are worth the premium are whole chicken ( no 20% salt water by weight ) and nitrite-free lunch meats.

Re:wait, what?

[StikyPad]

...using less of almost anything is an environmental positive.

Which is why I'm launching my new campaign: Chicks Gone Green -- Using Less Judgment, Fewer Clothes, and Zero Inhibition

Also keep an eye out for my environmentalist videos: Eating Organic with Protein Shakes; Cleaning up the Environment (Starts at Home); and Saving Water by Showering Together.

And of course, my educational series for the classroom: Things That Shouldn't Be Green; Being Positive You're Negative; and my personal favorite, Keeping Methane Out Of The Air -- The Unexpected Benefits of Kegel Exercise.

Re:wait, what?

[Aqualung812]

I have to disagree with you there. I like the fact that the cows I have butchered locally taste different. The bland crap that is served most places might be consistent, but it is consistently crappy IMHO. However, we're both totally OT now! :)

Re:wait, what?

[mellon]

Before you made this claim you might have benefited from a drive around British Columbia or eastern Washington and Oregon. Unfortunately, giant trees are routinely chipped. I agree with you that it's utterly stupid, and I wish that you were right that this beautiful wood was only going to appropriate purposes, like making beautiful homes or cabinetry.

There's a bit of a mixed metaphor when I talk about 100-year-old maples. The point is that there's a lot of second-growth forest around the U.S. in areas that were clearcut during the original settling of the country, in order to produce fields for farming, and have since lain fallow for fifty to a hundred years, and are now woodland again.

These lots have a mixture of maple and pine and oak, and various other varieties as well. They make for beautiful forests, and great habitat. And they're very profitable to cut down. Not all the wood goes for paper--you try to get the highest price you can for the wood you cut--but chipping wood for pulp is one place where the wood does go. And what is planted, if anything, after this mayhem, is not a diverse forest, but an ugly stand of pines in rows, intended to be cut down again in 40 years.

There's nothing wrong in principle with planting pines for harvest--we need wood for building, and the need for paper is never going to zero out, although I hope that we can get to the point where we're making good use of it, and not just printing on it and then throwing it away. But when someone gives you the cut-one, plant-three line, it pays to be skeptical. If you do the math, it's pretty obviously a deliberate attempt to mislead.

Re:wait, what?

[DinDaddy]

"Free" main ingredient of industrial process does not equal total environmental cost of said process.

Encouraging people to use a manufactured product they had managed to do without is an environmental negative. Unless you have some support like an even halfway plausible theory that printing out documents reduces some other activity with negative impact.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be willing to bet the carbon footprint for the transportation is higher than the trees themselves that are used in the process.

I'm doubtful about that. To a reasonable approximation, the amount of carbon contained in paper is equal to that in an equal mass of fuel. A truck carrying a few tonnes of paper has to drive a long way before it's burned a few tonnes of fuel.

(I'm oversimplifying here, since there are many stages in the transport chain - generally either long, efficient ones, like semi-trailers on a freeway, or short, inefficient ones, like a car carrying a few boxes of paper from a local office shop. But this basic comparison - between mass of fuel and mass of carried paper - at least gives you a reference point from which to make a judgement.)

Re:wait, what?

[Qzukk]

I've never seen a "knot free guarantee" ever in my life. I'm obviously going to the wrong stores. If there really are places like this, then obviously its unfair for me to judge timber based on my experience.

I'm thinking of calling my dad and asking him if he's ever heard of such a thing, because he's been complaining about lousy wood for far longer than I have.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah-fucking-men dude.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

No you don't understand, if people use more paper, they can recycle more!

Re:wait, what?

[dougvdotcom]

Monoculture can be a problem. It was in Maine, until restrictions were placed on the use of herbicide, and our large landowners switched over to sustainable forestry certifications such as SFI. I can't speak specifically to Domtar's lands but having been in the Quebec woods many times, I can tell you they are not running out of trees of any sort. As far as paper bleaching goes, I suggest you update your information; most US and Canadian paper mills -- at least, the ones here in Maine and in the Maritimes / Quebec -- have switched to non-chlorine bleaching systems, again due to federal regulations / laws.

Re:wait, what?

[dougvdotcom]

I see. And none of this would apply to hemp. Rather than wasting time calling me names, try applying some brain power.

Re:wait, what?

[dougvdotcom]

I suggest you actually walk a new woodlot in Maine or Quebec before you go telling me how it looks.

Re:wait, what?

[dougvdotcom]

I will point out, once more: Maine has more trees than at any time in recorded history. That is the product of paper. Maine has some of the cleanest air and water in the United States, in spite of being at the end of the Jet Stream, in geographic terms. If the price of having lots of trees is a little gasoline and a little exhaust, I think we're getting a fair trade. If you disagree, quit your job, move out of your house, and into a cave.

Re:wait, what?

[mog007]

As trees are the primary ingredients of paper, I would say that it is a mostly renewable resource.

Re:wait, what?

[dougvdotcom]

Again: There are more trees in Maine now than ever before.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I'm not even sure what a "beefknob" is, but in fairness to the AC poster you're replying to, the poster that HE was replying to started the name-calling with the "environmental whackos" comment. (Did you even read the whole thread?) If that original poster is you -- and it seems like that's what you've implied -- then I've got to ask (aside from why you felt it necessary to start the name-calling): why did you suddenly bring up hemp? It doesn't have anything to do with the core choice of using paper versus not using paper.

For all the "brain power" (as you put it) that you and the other supporters of the paper industry have shown in this discussion, none of you have managed to make the energy used in paper production and distribution magically disappear. Energy use is an issue whether the paper comes from trees, or whether it comes from hemp. It takes energy to make and distribute paper! Period. It's like you're trying to cloud that crystal-clear point by randomly throwing things into the discussion like hemp and carbon sequestration -- a tactic which, frankly, just makes you look clueless and/or unhinged.

Sorry. Industries come and go. Sometimes they just shrivel up a bit. From the article and this discussion, it seems clear to me that paper production is in the "shrivel" category. From the perspective of saving energy, that's undeniably a good thing.

Re:wait, what?

[Meski]

And energy.

Re:wait, what?

[Meski]

It's time someone did a "Downfall" youtube parody of them for doing this.

Re:wait, what?

[darthvader100]

And what happens when everyone stops printing? Do they turn their paper mill back into rain forest? Unlikely They will build a shopping center there instead. Not printing doesn't save trees, it just decreases the number of working-trees out there(but does increase the number of super-dupulous shopping malls)

Re:wait, what?

[shnull]

why would you print if you have a perfectly good screen to read on and a perfectly good network to share your documents. This reminds me of this discussison i had with my mother about no one reading books online ... no one their generation does. Why would paper be a necessity other than the necessity to make that guys pockitzes fatter ?

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not completely true, some of the things within the manufacturing process are that way. There are other jobs within the paper mills and industry that are not completely transferable. I have a parent that works in a scale office, where they scale the incoming trucks with lumber in them to determine the amount of wood going into the wood yard. They'd lose their job with the mill shutting down, as well as soon as the mill shuts down all of the people will move away causing a good portion of the town to have to move out, leaving other portions of the towns business to slow down and possibly close. If it is a family and both people work (husband and wife) then it is losing an employee elsewhere, and thus might cause another business to have to close down.

It affects a full community, not just a small group working in the mill.

Re:wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's not...

Re:wait, what?

[Phoghat]

Buggy Whip Manufacturers Protest Automobiles, Promote Buggy Whips as "Fashion Accessories"

Re:wait, what?

[vuffi_raa]

Are people honestly arguing that we should use more paper because the people who stand to financially benefit from using more paper said so? Have we gotten to be that stupid?

have you looked around lately? people are carrying obama-hitler signs and trying to elect people like meg whitman here in California to office because they want change, what change is that? It is the change they get because someone says "I will bring change" even though it is not only the same plan that is killing us but pushes us further down the same path. People think that there are conspiracies with the vaccination program, conspiracies that we didn't land on the moon, drugging of the water, a plan for a global currency, giants living at the north pole- the list goes on and on. People are very good at believing exactly what you tell them so long as you suggest that they are different, that they have some enlightenment that others don't. Personally it has been driving me crazy lately.

Re:wait, what?

[sjames]

Even if all else is equal, the more you print, the more diesel fuel you convert to CO2 in the process of hauling milling waste around the country. If nobody used paper at all, the milling waste would be used to power the saw.

It may not be much of a negative, but there is some negative. It CAN be a positive if by printing something you need to access later you avoid powering the computer back on to read it, but if you use a laser printer, it'll take several readings to break even due to the energy drawn by the fusor.

+5 Funny

[dwarfsoft]

Ahahahahahaha! Mod article +5 Funny. I haven't laughed that much all day! BTW, you owe me a new keyboard. 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.' What? Cutting down trees is an environmental POSITIVE? Seriously, It isn't April 1st anymore. My sides hurt.

Re:+5 Funny

[dwarfsoft]

Actually, he might be on to something. I just printed this article out and it's a helluva lot funnier in print.

Re:+5 Funny

[MichaelSmith]

Actually, he might be on to something. I just printed this article out and it's a helluva lot funnier in print.

And on paper you can't be modded down.

Re:+5 Funny

[epiphani]

Oh, he knows its an environmental negative. But he is bound by law to do the most he can to improve sales and shareholder value, regardless of the environmental cost, social need or greater economic benefit.

And this is why capitalism* has failed.

* as practiced today through the legal construct of a corporation

Re:+5 Funny

[dudpixel]

man, you need to learn some more jokes if you laughed that hard over this...

funny? maybe, but not side-splitting funny...

Re:+5 Funny

[poopdeville]

It's not an environmental "negative". They plant three times as many trees as they harvest. Paper is a truly renewable resource, especially since it is recyclable, in many different ways.

Printing pages pointlessly is a negative, because you waste energy in the paper production, for no good reason. And you waste your own money. But using paper "responsibly" -- for things you want to keep hard copies of -- is entirely appropriate, and not wasteful.

Re:+5 Funny

[timmarhy]

huh, capitalism has failed? i musted have missed that memo

Re:+5 Funny

[dwarfsoft]

OK, I lied. It produced a mild chuckle, which is more than any of the other stories have done for me ;)

Re:+5 Funny

[Sir_Lewk]

You do realize that trees grow back right? Hell, not only do they grow back, but paper companies go out of their way to make sure that they do. Do you even know anything about the paper industry at all?

Re:+5 Funny

[dwarfsoft]

No, I live in a paperless office you insensitive clod.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

  But he is bound by law to do the most he can to improve sales and shareholder value, regardless of the environmental cost, social need or greater economic benefit.

This is just not true.

And this is why capitalism* has failed.

Also wrong

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

But he is bound by law to do the most he can to improve sales and shareholder value, regardless of the environmental cost, social need or greater economic benefit.

In what jurisdiction? Cite, please.

Re:+5 Funny

[jhol13]

Just if the forest's environmental value could be calculated by number of trees. But alas!

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_benefit

Re:+5 Funny

[paeanblack]

But he is bound by law...

In what jurisdiction? Cite, please.

Earth-That-Was, duh.

Re:+5 Funny

[EvanED]

It's not an environmental "negative". They plant three times as many trees as they harvest.

Do they undo the damage of the chemicals used in paper manufacturing? Do they put back into the ground all the oil that is used for shipping paper around? Do they go around and pull out all the paper that people throw away from the landfills?

Re:+5 Funny

[pgn674]

But he is bound by law to do the most he can to improve sales and shareholder value, regardless of the environmental cost, social need or greater economic benefit.

My mom came up against something like this. She was investing in a portfolio investment firm of some sort, and a group of other people investing in the same portfolio brought up some moral concerns regarding some of the companies they were investing in. My mom had a vote, and she received advise from that group and from the firm's board. The board was bound to give advise to maximized profits.

So this firm had a balance thing to give moral vs. monetary issues their due consideration. I wonder if Domtar has a similar balance of some sort, and we're only seeing one side of it right now?

Re:+5 Funny

[mirix]

Well if you count the environmental impact capitalism has had, with it's myopic outlook, short term gain over long term sustainability... It sort of leaves something to be desired.

Flashy excessive non-biodegradable packaging on a $2 trinket is just one of the many pitfalls. I'll let someone else come up with some better examples.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that we're getting better and better at making digital media last longer and longer, and more reliably than paper since it can move to a new location or exist in multiple locations at the same time. The uses for paper are rapidly going away. It's difficult to keep organized, a pain in the ass to search through, expensive to store... it's just flat out inconvenient AND unnecessary in many many cases these days.

These guys are just like the traditional print media. The digital age is destroying their business model, and they're fighting like hell to prevent that instead of adapting. Fuck 'em. I hope they go out of business.

Re:+5 Funny

[Eggnogium]

I have yet to see an email signature that says "Don't print this message under any circumstances no matter what!"

They say "Think before you print" to discourage just the sort of wasteful and unnecessary printing we can all agree is an environmental negative.

Re:+5 Funny

[TheRon6]

Actually, he might be on to something. I just printed this article out and it's a helluva lot funnier in print.

And on paper you can't be modded down.

Yeah, it looks like he's headed for -1 Troll any minute now.

Re:+5 Funny

[timmarhy]

care to explain how that's a failing of capitalism?

Re:+5 Funny

[ckaminski]

For fucks sake: THERE IS NO SUCH LAW!

If that were so, every dot-com era CEO would be in steel cages right now. And that is demonstrably NOT so.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Paper uses more resources than just trees. Paper production is a major source of water pollution, for example. Moving paper around uses up fossil fuels, in most cases.

Recycling is still better than creating new paper, and not using it in the first place is even better still.

Re:+5 Funny

[Fex303]

It's not an environmental "negative". They plant three times as many trees as they harvest.

If this is allowed to continue then we'll soon be crowded out by exponentially renewing pines! We have to stop this process now!

Re:+5 Funny

[slimjim8094]

I do believe you are missing the forest for the trees, pardon the pun. Those trees will take a long time until they can re-support the developed ecosystem that had been there.

Re:+5 Funny

[mellon]

Suppose you harvest an acre of hundred-year-old trees, and you plant three acres of trees. Next year, you harvest a second acre of hundred-year-old trees, and plant three more. In thirty-three years, you will have cut down 3,300 acre-years of growth. You will have replaced it with 1680 acre-years of growth. Not even counting the fact that you've destroyed 33 acres of quality second-growth forest and replaced it with 99 acres of farmed forest.

So when you hear "we plant three for every one we cut," just bear in mind that the person saying this to you is definitely trying to deceive you. There is no other possible motivation for that statement, because what they cut is in no way comparable to what they put in its place. They are mining the forest, and leaving you with the tailings.

If they were planting real second-growth forest, and if they were going to be around for a hundred years, then we could talk about environmental improvements, but that's not at all what this guy is talking about. Or if they were planting barren fields and harvesting the trees years later when they'd grown enough, you could say that they'd planted a crop and harvested it. But that's not what they said, and it's not even close to what they're doing.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

You think it's good on paper, try printing it out on baby seal skin. It's freakin high-larry-us.

Re:+5 Funny

[CAIMLAS]

Oh yeah? Well, I can do this.

*whips out Zippo*

Re:+5 Funny

[Michael Woodhams]

"Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility." Ambrose Bierce

(Thank you Civilization IV for that quote.)

Worse than that, it makes "being an amoral bastard who will do anything within the law to boost company profits" into a moral requirement. Even if none of the shareholders actually want the company to be amoral-bastard.

Not that I have any better alternatives at the moment.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose the Jurisdiction would be the United States of America. Ever hear of the SEC?

Re:+5 Funny

[Rakishi]

Congratulations, you've noticed that humans are selfish short thinking bastards. Capitalism just lets them be that way more efficiently. Of course, Soviet and Chinese Communism are the kings of destroying the environment.

Of course, the computer you're on is the direct result of centuries of environment destroying progress that wouldn't have existed without capitalism. Actually you'd probably be dead without all the medical advanced it helped to come to pass. Granted, hypocrisy seems to be the staple of zealots.

Re:+5 Funny

[coaxial]

Oh, he knows its an environmental negative. But he is bound by law to do the most he can to improve sales and shareholder value, regardless of the environmental cost, social need or greater economic benefit.

You know, I've seen this tossed around on /. and other places for years now. And I'm going to call bullshit on it. The argument is that unless the CEO and the Board of Directors don't with Terminator like focus, do anything and everything to "maximize shareholder value" that they're going to have a shareholder revolt and lawsuit on their hands.

That simply isn't true. Let me point out something. Many large publicly traded companies have philanthropic arms. They donate money to the Red Cross, the United Way, all that stuff. That's a cost sink. Oh sure, there's someone that's going to say that these donations are not only tax write offs, but also double as advertising, but I don't know anyone that said, "Hey, Dairy Queen is raising money for the March of Dimes. Let's eat there." Direct advertising is much more effective.

If you follow this logic, you're arguing that corporations are duty bound to break the law, as long as the ill gotten gains outpace the fine. It's simple decision theory. If Prob(success | action-A) * Reward(success, action-A) + Prob(failure | action-A) > Prob(success | action-B) * Reward(success, action-B) + Prob(failure | action-B), then you should do action-A, whether it's save a family from a sinking battleship, or eat the still beating heart of an orphan.

But that's not the world we live in. If it was, you'd being seeing lawsuits every day. "ZOMG! He could have bought this for $5 less at CostCo instead of Sam's Club! LAWSUIT!" "LOL! He cut a business deal that wasn't aggressively priced enough! LAWSUIT!" Why don't you see this? Because you'd have to prove that the executives were acting in bad faith, and that simply isn't the case in vast majority of circumstances. Even in this situation, it's not acting in bad faith, if you refuse to lie. (Let the irony of the reverse the parent is arguing to sink in.)

Think about this too. We live in a country, where shareholder rights are infuriatingly weak. You probably couldn't even get a lawsuit started, and if you did I'm sure the Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy would simply say that you waited too long to sue or something equally stupid to ensure the status quo and the tyranny of haves over the have-nots.

Re:+5 Funny

[mwvdlee]

They wouldn't need to plant trees if they didn't cut them down.

Re:+5 Funny

[Rakishi]

There is no such requirement except in the delusions of people who need reasons to dislike capitalism. Don't like what the CEO is doing? Appoint a new board of directors who pushes for the agenda you want.

If a company is amoral than you know what that means? That the shareholders don't give a damn. They want their profit and that's it. The profit is very close to them while the ill effects are very far. Basic human nature ingrained by millions of years of evolution. The tribe over the hill doesn't have your genes so their deaths don't matter. Just like you don't really care about all the poor kids dying in Africa and so you're not donating all your money to helping them.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that trees grow back right? Hell, not only do they grow back, but paper companies go out of their way to make sure that they do. Do you even know anything about the paper industry at all?

The bigger picture is: do the new trees grow back at the same rate they're cutting trees down?

If they cut down a forest, will the trees have grown to the same size and density of trees that were there originally?

Re:+5 Funny

[Jeremi]

But he is bound by law to do the most he can to improve sales and shareholder value, regardless of the environmental cost, social need or greater economic benefit.

It's a lovely excuse, but legally unenforceable and a bit silly. How many executives have you seen dragged into court for not being ruthless enough? How would a judge even be able to determine whether an executive had "done the most he could", or not? The truth is, executives have pretty wide latitude to do what they want, and as long as they aren't blatantly defrauding the company, the law isn't going to touch them. Inefficient management is not illegal; if it was there would be few managers left.

Re:+5 Funny

[sam0737]

Oh, he knows its an environmental negative. But he is bound by law to do the most he can to improve sales and shareholder value, regardless of the environmental cost, social need or greater economic benefit.

And this is why capitalism* has failed.

* as practiced today through the legal construct of a corporation

Maybe he should relief from his position...

Re:+5 Funny

[AK Marc]

Oh, so clear cutting old forest, with diverse wildlife and a variety of species of trees and such, then planting a single species of tree back that gives them the best ROI the next time they are back is somehow better for the environment than leaving the forest alone?

Re:+5 Funny

[Jeremi]

Of course, the computer you're on is the direct result of centuries of environment destroying progress that wouldn't have existed without capitalism. Actually you'd probably be dead without all the medical advanced it helped to come to pass. Granted, hypocrisy seems to be the staple of zealots.

Everything you said above is true, but none of it contradicts the parent poster's argument. Just because he's (arguably) a hypocrite doesn't mean he's not right.

Re:+5 Funny

[trytoguess]

The teachers and professors in my life would like to kindly disagree.

Re:+5 Funny

[Jeremi]

You do realize that trees grow back right?

They can plant new trees, but they can't bring back the ecosystem that was destroyed.

Re:+5 Funny

[ArundelCastle]

Actually, he might be on to something. I just printed this article out and it's a helluva lot funnier in print.

And on paper you can't be modded down.

Clearly you've never had to grade first year university essays.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know about bound by law, but certainly bound by shareholders who are self-interested. If you don't increase their net worth, they'll fire your ass and find someone who will.

Of course, this is predicated on a false market economy - the company doesn't bear all its external costs; society as a whole does. And that's the central dichotomy of the free market small government right wingers - they want to avoid the regulation that would rebalance the market to ensure that everyone does fairly bear all their own costs, and they want to avoid the taxes that would allow society to do so.

So far, that's been fine because the environment has been big enough to absorb the impacts without overall significant negative effects. But that isn't infinitely sustainable - we're living on our capital, not our revenue, and one day, it'll run out.

Re:+5 Funny

[thegarbz]

Yes, but given the first paragraph of TFA says that "Domtar Corp. is getting frustrated with those “think before you print” messages at the bottom of so many e-mails." I don't think that using paper responsibly is the true purpose of this rant.

You could argue that there are far worse things to do than printing, but to in anyway put this quote from a paper company in good light is going precisely against the idea of printing "responsibly". The reduction in paper use is not because communication systems have broken down, it is because we have found a good alternative to printing every damn thing. Document management systems, email servers with endless disk space, heck some companies even have complete Knowledge Management departments who all contribute to a reduction in the amount of worthless printing that takes place.

TFA is saying print away as much as you want, not content with the fact that a lot of people have started to not pointlessly print.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean right before they're harvested?

Re:+5 Funny

[maxume]

If people were strictly controlled by the government and not allowed to produce anything, they wouldn't have anything to throw away.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as renewable as magnetic disc in my hard drive.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

But he is bound by law to do the most he can to improve sales and shareholder value, regardless of the environmental cost, social need or greater economic benefit.

In what jurisdiction? Cite, please.

Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., 204 Mich. 459, 170 N.W. 668 (1919).

It is perhaps not the best citation (it's almost 100 years old and has been superseded somewhat). But it is so famous even I heard of it.

Re:+5 Funny

[Shin-LaC]

Suppose you harvest an acre of hundred-year-old trees, and you plant three acres of trees. Next year, you harvest a second acre of hundred-year-old trees, and plant three more.

That's not how the paper industry works. They use tree farms of quick-growth species (another poster suggested that they can grow a usable tree in as little as 5 years). Hundred-year-old wood is too expensive to use for making paper, anyway.

Re:+5 Funny

[Lockblade]

Flame wars, however, have that added danger that makes them even more fun.

Re:+5 Funny

[Sir_Lewk]

Yeah, that sounds bad and shit, except that's not standard operating procedure.

Paper companies use the same plots over and over again for decades, cutting down the trees in the treefarm, replanting them, then coming back years later to repeat. They don't buy a new "old forest" every time they want to plant a batch of trees, it's just not economically feasible.

Really, all of this "the paper industry cuts down old forests" stuff is nonsense, the majority of it was clear-cut nearly a century ago for timber and land to farm on. The paper industry is responsible for an absurdly low percentage of deforestation, even completely ignoring the fact that they replant trees.

Instead of railing on people to stop using paper, you should encourage people to build and buy houses made of alternative construction materials, only farm in regions that have traditionally been free of wildlife. Of course that will never happen because although environmentalists hate logging, they love things made out of wood and farming just seems like such an "earthy and in-tune" thing to do... Hell, lets all support local farmers who have to clear-cut forests for their fields instead of buying food shipped in from the midwest! Yay environmentalism!

Re:+5 Funny

[geekoid]

" But he is bound by law to do the most he can to improve sales and shareholder value, "

gaagh. will you stop it? all of you? that is such a misguided belief on /.

Re:+5 Funny

[geekoid]

Yeah.. say what about ink? What about all the steps from tree to desk to recycling station?

It's not a truly renewable resource because much of the steps to get it to paper involved non-renewable resource.
Paper plants powered by coal, shipping, nasty chemicals. etc.

This is a grasp by a severely declining industry.

Papers does not brow on trees. tress happen to provide 1 part of what goes into making paper.

We should make a continuous effort to minimize all paper use. It is expensive and poisonous to make and recycle.

Re:+5 Funny

[geekoid]

You do realize that more then trees are used to make paper, right? oh, and that paper us far less useful unless you print something on it? So when you talk about printing more,. you are talking about more of all the nasty chemicals that the paper industry uses as well as more ink?

Re:+5 Funny

[drinkypoo]

Not that I have any better alternatives at the moment.

I have an alternative. Mandate that all businesses be co-ops. Problem solved. It's a drastic measure, but I feel that the pass we have come to warrants it. Unfortunately, only corporations really have a vote, and the media conglomerates that tell the masses what to think are corporations, so any such idea is sure to be ridiculed into obscurity.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Suppose you harvest an acre of hundred-year-old trees, and you plant three acres of trees. Next year, you harvest a second acre of hundred-year-old trees, and plant three more. In thirty-three years, you will have cut down 3,300 acre-years of growth. You will have replaced it with 1680 acre-years of growth. Not even counting the fact that you've destroyed 33 acres of quality second-growth forest and replaced it with 99 acres of farmed forest.

So when you hear "we plant three for every one we cut," just bear in mind that the person saying this to you is definitely trying to deceive you. There is no other possible motivation for that statement, because what they cut is in no way comparable to what they put in its place. They are mining the forest, and leaving you with the tailings.

If they were planting real second-growth forest, and if they were going to be around for a hundred years, then we could talk about environmental improvements, but that's not at all what this guy is talking about. Or if they were planting barren fields and harvesting the trees years later when they'd grown enough, you could say that they'd planted a crop and harvested it. But that's not what they said, and it's not even close to what they're doing.

Exactly! There's an old saying, you can't see the forest for the trees, and it applies more to modern forest "management" than to anything else. A forest is a whole lot more than a timber farm, even if short-sighted people don't view it as anything else. Forests affect watersheds, wildlife, micro and macro climate and are reservoirs of biodiversity. In addition, certain old growth areas, once logged, will NEVER grow back. Such areas maintain their own climate and the conditions that allowed them to grow in the first place (i.e. retreating glaciers) will not likely occur again in the foreseeable future. Too many decisions in forestry "management" are politically or profit based rather than any long term science based plan.

I would rather see tobacco farms start getting converted to paper production from plants such as hemp or jute and less forest "management".

Re:+5 Funny

[mellon]

Cut trees are used for whatever brings the most profit. You talk about the paper industry like it's a single monolith, but it's actually a lot of little companies and big companies, each of which has their own practices. So what you say is probably true about some company or set of companies that you've had personal experience with, but it's not universally true.

And whether what you say is true for this particular paper company or not, making that nice paper you can put into your laser printer is nontrivial. It requires a lot of energy, and a lot of chemical processing. So the fundamental point of this article, mocking the idea that printing more is good, is correct. It is a really good idea to think before you print.

What this guy should be focusing on is how to adapt to the changing market, not how to get the market to stop changing. The market for beautiful acid-free paper whitened with peroxide is probably not going away any time soon, but the market for single-use printing is, and if you want to still be around in 20 years, it might be worth thinking about that.

Re:+5 Funny

[Rakishi]

It's not supposed to, as I said in the first part capitalism has nothing to do with any of what he wrote so his point has no foundation. We've been decimating nature long before modern corporations and we do it quite well in large parts of the world without their help. Capitalism simply fuels progress and progress is what lets us find all new sorts of ways to be short sighted.

The point of what you quoted was to note that you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you want progress than you must also accept what human nature will do with that progress. Also, to show that the poster himself was just as bound by human nature as most everyone else.

Re:+5 Funny

[Rakishi]

I don't think you really understand the reasons for corporations. See, there are some people who have money and some people who need money to start a business. The former group decides to give the money to the later group in exchange for profits through partial ownership of the business. Ownership can of course be exchanged, sold and bought like anything else. Extend it to everyone and not just a small group of very rich people and you get a stock market. Stock market or not, this mechanism has been fueling our progress for many centuries.

So you know why corporations exist? Because they're efficient at what they do.

You can do whatever you want but if your solution is inefficient enough, as co-ops would be, then you know what will happen? China, India, Europe and soon South America will take over. In thirty years the US will be a third world nation and it won't matter. And you know what the average person will be doing if they can afford it? Importing items from those international corporations because they're better or cheaper. You know what all those co-ops will be doing? Importing things from abroad.

You can't legislate away human nature because in the end someone who understands it will kick your backside. The Soviets realized it the hard way. China has known it for decades and is acting to cushion the effect. India took a few decades longer to see the light but once it did it's been doing quite well. You can play games, cushion effects, mitigate effects but if you go too far you end up economically screwed.

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

(yuhong posting as AC to not lose mod points)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1013744

Re:+5 Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

(yuhong posting as AC to not lose mod points)
Yea, I know. I have been reading about the need to move away from maximizing shareholder value and the history for a while now. Here is an article from The Economist about it:
http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15954434

I don't worry much about paper

[plover]

It's made from fast growing wood that is grown on farms for the express purpose of making paper, so it's not like they're not chopping down old growth forests. And offices around the country routinely recycle their paper, which make a whiter pulp that requires even less bleach than raw wood.

It's just not that big of a deal to me if it gets the point across better.

I certainly don't print just to print, but I don't feel like I have to stop and pity the poor trees that gave their lives for my TPS cover sheets.

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[MichaelSmith]

Unfortunately some parts of the world are only too happy to cut down their old growth forests for wood chips.

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[hldn]

what a useless link. huge page full of text and the only mention of old growth logging is contained in a couple of sentences based on old information.

Since the 1980s the environmental focus has shifted to old growth logging, which has proved a highly divisive issue. The Tasmania Together process recommended an end to clear felling in high conservation old growth forests by January 2003.

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[yali]

From a 2006 NYT article:

...The paper industry is not without its impact. Because of its consumption of energy, the industry -- which includes magazines, newspapers, catalogs and writing paper -- emits the fourth-highest level of carbon dioxide among manufacturers, according to a 2002 study by the Energy Information Administration, a division of the Department of Energy. The paper industry follows the chemical, petroleum and coal products, and primary metals industries.

. . .

The most harmful part of the process is paper production. Breaking down wood fiber to make paper consumes a lot of energy, which in many cases comes from coal plants.

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[mikaere]

Actually, I just saw a documentary last week about paper serviettes that are made from old-growth forests. IIRC, it was in Maine. While some forestry is sustainable, you can actually make more money by destroying old-growth forests. Why ? Because you didn't have to pay the cost of developing the forest in the first place.

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[Anonymous Coward]

"We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative"

"so it's not like they're not chopping down old growth forests"

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[dmiller]

Actually, in some places (e.g. Australia), a significant amount of paper _is_ made by chopping down unique old-growth forests. Furthermore, the chlorine bleaching processes commonly used release a substantial amount of toxic effluent. So yeah, you should worry.

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[Opyros]

You are obviously a shill for the Lumber Cartel!

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[Plazmid]

Perhaps he's trying to get people to inadvertantly sequester carbon by using more paper and throwing it away, because if it gets buried deep enough it's effectively getting sequestered. We might even be able to enhance the process by treating the paper with chemicals so stuff can't eat it. Though annual paper production is only 1%(by mass not by amount of carbon) of the CO2 emmissions of the United States, so it probably won't have much of an impact.

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia? No worries! All that toxic sludge will just fall off into space where the Aliens can deal with it.

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda misleading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_liquor#Energy_source_for_the_pulp_mill

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623488607866601.html

The paper industry does emit a lot of CO2, yes. However, the vast majority of the CO2 is emitted while burning waste from the trees the companies had been harvesting for the wood, which they themselves had planted. That makes them carbon neutral, or possibly even carbon negative.

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right...

In an office I used to work in, we have those special blue recycle bins for paper and I once asked the janitor where they recycle the contents at and his response...."we dump the blue baskets in the same dumpster that we dump everything else in"..

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[sadtrev]

These days paper, as is used in laser printers etc. is not made mostly from wood. It is mostly made from bulking agents like calcium carbonate, which have to be ground to typically 2 micron or finer, and then dried at huge energy cost.
The wood fibers are just there to keep all the bulk together, and are a small portion (sometimes as little as 10%) of the weight of a sheet of paper.

You may have noticed that this sort of paper leaves a lot of ash when burnt.

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[xaxa]

Yeah right...

In an office I used to work in, we have those special blue recycle bins for paper and I once asked the janitor where they recycle the contents at and his response...."we dump the blue baskets in the same dumpster that we dump everything else in"..

If you ask the cleaner at my workplace he'll tell you the same thing. But here the paper is in green bags and the normal waste in black bags -- the waste company sorts them out. (Presumably this costs extra, but apparently we don't have enough space to store separated recycling.)

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[Locklin]

It's made from fast growing wood that is grown on farms for the express purpose of making paper, so it's not like they're not chopping down old growth forests.

And that land just magically appeared? You are talking about massive swaths of "plantation" that, if it weren't for our insatiable desire for pulp-products, would either be healthy vibrant old-growth forest, or perhaps, making something useful like food.

Re:I don't worry much about paper

[geminidomino]

TINLC

Pulp paper should die!

[Anonymous Coward]

If ANYONE in power had balls and brains, we'd be using hemp paper instead of wood-based pulp paper. That is all.

The continued government assisted prop-up of industries unwilling to evolve with technology, or environmental social concerns, is why we have half the problems we do. Why must this behavior persist?

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[skam240]

DAMN IT. I've had mod points rewarded to me twice in a row over the last week or so and I finally find a post with a poor mod rating that I'd like to mod up. The increased efficiency in terms of land and resources used for hemp paper versus tree paper is huge. On top of that, for all you puritans out there, it is well within our means today to grow strands that contain virtually almost no THC making the worry over individuals getting high off the crop non existent.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[mirix]

A couple years ago, I was out at one of my relatives' farm, and noticed one of his fields was growing hemp. I wonder who they sold it to, and what it was made into.

This was in Canada though, might be different. I'm not sure if it's becoming common here or not, or what they're purposing it for, and what sort of regulatory headache it involves.

I thought it was interesting though. I'm all for more diverse, sustainable crops.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[ckaminski]

Clothing, probably. There's a huge market for hemp clothing these days among the earthy-crunchy crowd.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Animats]

hemp paper...

Hemp paper is available, but it's more far more expensive than paper from wood pulp. ($46.50 per ream for ordinary 24 pound bond!) Kenaf is more promising. Mitsubishi makes kenaf paper for sale in Japan.

(Somehow, the hemp enthusiasts never seem to be very interested in other long-fibre plants, like kenaf, abaca, sisal, or jute. Or even bagasse and straw, which are agricultural wastes which can be recycled. Wonder why.)

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Anonymous Coward]

The behavior persists because it is a nontrivial task to determine which businesses are getting undesirably destroyed by predatory business practices, starved by temporary poor market conditions, or ruined by pure bad luck, and which ones are naturally (and healthily) being phased out because they make products, provide services, or using methods that are no longer desirable.

Governments can provide protective tariffs, regulatory reprieve, or outright subsidies to businesses they feel are desirable, but underperforming. Most modern nations subsidize farming, because making an appropriate amount of food is generally considered a good thing, and without protective measures, food prices and supplies(!) become highly unstable. The advantages inherent in a predictable food supply, in this case, often outweigh the value of deregulation. Local governments can provide a variety of services to small businesses that provide services that might otherwise be non-starters in the presence of national chains, and this is often (not always) not a bad thing. If nothing else, every once in awhile, a small business takes off and becomes a more efficient mid- or large-scale operation. Climbing higher, big businesses represent a phenomenal investment of labor capital; letting one just drop dead to be bought for nickels on the dollar isn't always a good idea either.

You're right, the government screws it up pretty frequently; voting out the bums that repeatedly rubber-stamp bad investments is one darn good way to make decisions on election day. Screw the parties; I'm looking at legislative histories and informing my office-mates and acquaintances about my findings. Pointing at politicians on both sides of the aisle who have sold out and/or given up is the best thing I can do against the moronic rancor that's currently spreading on both sides of the American political spectrum. After all, many people running for local elections today will be gunning for state or federal positions in a decade or a bit more; if I can help nip the jingoists and the corporate whores early, they won't blossom where they can hurt more people.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[nickdwaters]

I'll smoke two joints to that. And then I'll smoke two more.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[blackraven14250]

Hemp paper is available, but it's more far more expensive than paper from wood pulp.

When you add a boat or plane to the supply chain because it's totally illegal to grow in the USA, no shit it's more expensive

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Falconhell]

Nothing to do with earth crunchy I am afraid.

Hemp clothing is great lasting. I had a pair of hemp jeans that lasted 5 years before wearing out. Normal cotton lasts a year if I am lucky.

That is propbably why we dont see much hemp clothing it lasts to long!

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Anonymous Coward]

(Somehow, the hemp enthusiasts never seem to be very interested in other long-fibre plants, like kenaf, abaca, sisal, or jute. Or even bagasse and straw, which are agricultural wastes which can be recycled. Wonder why.)

Quite simply put (and in all honesty) it's because we'd like to have something to do with all the excess fibers from the stalk. You know, the flowers are all cool and smokable... If farms could sell the stalk AND the bud, hey, not a bad deal!

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[evilviper]

It's extremely inexpensive to ship products, and the high price of hemp paper doesn't include or assume the cost of shipping to the US, it's very expensive even in local prices.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Lehk228]

shipping *products* is cheap, shipping heavy raw materials is expensive

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Eivind]

That's hardly the reason. Bulk transport by boat is literally dirt-cheap. And paper is a reasonable simple good, requiring neither speedy delivery, nor refrigiration. The paper you link to is only 25% hemp and 75% recycled wood-paper anyway.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[ImNotAtWork]

Get a rope, Climbers love hemp ropes.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Anonymous Coward]

Brian Griffin is that you?

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Aceticon]

(Somehow, the hemp enthusiasts never seem to be very interested in other long-fibre plants, like kenaf, abaca, sisal, or jute. Or even bagasse and straw, which are agricultural wastes which can be recycled. Wonder why.)

Maybe because no synthentics fibers company bought legislation in the US against the other natural fibers you mention, only against hemp.

The other fibers are allowed to be grown or not on their own merits, while hemp has been held-down by anti-competitive legislation that outlaws it under the excuse that people might want to smoke it in the privacy of their homes (which harms nobody else) so we should forbid it from being grown.

Hemp is a symbol of how corrupt the so-called democratic system is in some countries and why it's bad for most countries to import policies from said corrupt countries.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[vegiVamp]

Because, I hear you think, they can then also harvest the tetrahydrocannabinol-rich flowers and smoke themselves into a stupor.

Not so, unfortunately. First off, only the unfertilised flowers produce plenty of THC. This means you have to keep the male plants far away. Doable, there's even something called 'feminised' seeds, but still a bother.
A bigger hurdle, however, is that the smokey stuff is Cannabis Sativa. The stuff used to make paper, rope and other hemp products, is Cannabis Indica, which doesn't make a particularly good smoke.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Anonymous Coward]

It should die if customers aren't happy with it. Government intervention in the market prevents the customer from making that decision.

Could someone go into some amount of detail on how tree based paper is harmful? As I've read farmed trees on private tree farms are/were planted faster than harvested by something like 14% as a buffer for increased demands. It was only where consequences were socialized that the methods used were negative. On land leased to companies by the federal government... who owns most of the forest in the north east. Additionally mandatory recycling laws cause a lot of pollution given the only reasonable way to recycle paper have required glues and bleaches to make useful. And then only upto 2 or 3 times.

I'm not defending the tree based paper industry but if you allow the consequences of some action to be passed on the society as a whole rather than those performing the action you will get negative results. It's all basic economics.... something most people... let alone politicians bother to understand.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[MartinSchou]

Hemp paper is available, but it's more far more expensive than paper from wood pulp.

And hand-built furniture is more expensive than factory made furniture.

There could be several reasons that hemp paper is more expensive, but you can pretty much count on scale of production being at the top of the list.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Anonymous Coward]

"On top of that, for all you puritans out there, it is well within our means today to grow strands that contain virtually almost no THC making the worry over individuals getting high off the crop non existent."

But THC-containing and non-THC hemp would be nearly impossible to distinguish from a distance (like, say, from the air), and that's why hemp hasn't been legalized. From the "puritans'" standpoint, that's the rationale.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Locklin]

It's also worth mentioning that the pulp industry generally uses forests on land they *don't own.* At least in North America, they get licenses to forest large regions of government owned land. Any hemp or otherwise farmer has to cover the overhead cost of owning the farm.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[geekoid]

Which complete ignores the real modern creation of paper.

How about we just use less paper? Less chemicals, less ink, and so on.

While we are at it, lets legalize marijuana.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Stone2065]

That's because you get FAR more out of hemp than just paper. Remember how much of the Ford Model "T" was made of hemp based products... the cellulose components, the original lubrication, etc. I'm sure this "wonderpaper" from Japan isn't quite so utility in it's use.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[sjames]

I find it really sad that Cannabis Indica is actually illegal purely because it looks like an illegal plant.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[vegiVamp]

Depends on the country - in a lot of places, it's actually the thc that's illegal. Cops and judges are generally stupid, though, and don't listen when you try to explain there's a difference :-)

Here in .be, there's a few small-scale Indica farms, who seem to survive, but then again, we're also allowed one Sativa plant for personal use.

Re:Pulp paper should die!

[Anonymous Coward]

Urrr close but wrong. Both C. sativa and C. indica contain THC and cannabanoids that can get you "high" (heeheehee). But it's kinda like how one species of tomatoe has lots of little fruits that are yellow and another plant has a few big fruits that are red. Both are tomatoes. Both are tasty. Totally different look, taste, growth structure (within tomatoe-y realms), etc.

Now THEORETICALLY, you could take some hemp that you have growing, take samples from all of it, smoke them, find the "best" one and start the breeding process. Pretty much how we have the plants we have today. But why rewrite code when you can just copy and paste (even when that code is DNA).

It's not individuals that paper companies need...

[VinylRecords]

It's not individuals that paper companies need to worry about in my opinion. When you have major gaming companies like Ubisoft claiming that they will no longer manufacture paper game manuals then you have a the beginnings of a major problem (at least if you are in the paper industry or whatever). If large companies stop printing manuals for games, or software, or stop printing instruction manuals for home appliances, and so on, you'll probably see an even bigger impact on paper companies than the losses of individuals skimping on paper use.

I don't print anything anymore. I don't own a printer. And I doubt that I will need one in the future. However I buy tons of video games, movies, appliances, and so on. If those things stop coming with paper manuals and books then it will make a difference.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/108/1084491p1.html [Ubisoft Removing Paper Game Manuals]

Paper is environmentally friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

Paper is a renewable resource. Printing documents doesn't destroy forests, because most paper comes from tree farms. If you don't print out this Slashdot article, the tree you think you're saving will just get cut down for someone else. Then, another tree will be planted to replace it. Your paper doesn't come from ancient trees in the South American rainforest.

Re:Paper is environmentally friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, Domtar (the company in question) plants three trees for every tree they harvest. That is to help make up for the length of time it takes for the replacement to become harvestable.

Re:Paper is environmentally friendly

[SydShamino]

If you don't print out this Slashdot article, the tree you think you're saving will just get cut down for someone else.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/how-bad-for-the-environment-can-throwing-away-one,2892/

Then, another tree will be planted to replace it. Your paper doesn't come from ancient trees in the South American rainforest.

No, it came from the truck that brought it to the office from the store, where it was brought from the regional distribution hub, where it was brought from the vendor's distribution warehouse, where it was brought from the staging area at the factory, where it was brought after being soaked in chemicals to bleach it white.

1 page less isn't much, but TFS says 4% less, and 4% less is a lot less overhead waste, regardless of the "renewable" aspect of the source.

Re:Paper is environmentally friendly

[raju1kabir]

Paper is a renewable resource. Printing documents doesn't destroy forests, because most paper comes from tree farms. If you don't print out this Slashdot article, the tree you think you're saving will just get cut down for someone else.

That's the most retarded thing I've read all day. If demand goes down, then less will be produced. You think if everyone stopped buying 8-track players, they'd just keep making them by the millions? Oh wait.

Environmental?

[DogDude]

Why do environmental groups get upset by paper? Paper is a very renewable resource. Trees get cut down, and grow back. When I'm done with it, it rots (I happen to compost mine). With this computer I'm typing on, rare metals had to be mined to make it, and when I'm done with it, it sits around for at least a few thousand years (or more?). I have no problem with paper.

Re:Environmental?

[bhagwad]

I probable reason is that when you compost your paper it releases either carbon dioxide (aerobic composting) or worse - methane (anerobic composting) into the atmosphere. Having the carbon safely locked up in trees is the best form of natural carbon sequestering.

Ideally of course, the carbon would be locked into oil and other fossil fuels deep inside the earth where it can't harm anyone. But we bring that stuff out and don't know how to put it back again.

Re:Environmental?

[TheLink]

Yeah he shouldn't compost if he wants to lock up CO2 for longer.

He should store it somewhere (archives), landfill it, or recycle.

Mature plants normally stop taking in as much carbon. Growing plants take in more carbon.

As it is, it might be a good idea to use other plants for making paper especially those that grow faster, and those that might reduce the overall environmental impact (use less energy and resources, and produce less toxic/persistent waste).

Re:Environmental?

[Angst Badger]

Why do environmental groups get upset by paper? Paper is a very renewable resource. Trees get cut down, and grow back. When I'm done with it, it rots (I happen to compost mine). With this computer I'm typing on, rare metals had to be mined to make it, and when I'm done with it, it sits around for at least a few thousand years (or more?). I have no problem with paper.

Chiefly, it's the chemicals used in processing pulp and the resulting pollution. Ever live near a paper mill? Even after the reforms thirty years ago, it's still a pretty nasty business. Secondarily, a fairly large amount of energy is involved in the harvesting, chipping, and transport of wood chips to the mills. (The mills themselves are actually very energy-efficient, deriving a significant amount of their power from burning the waste wood products, which is basically carbon-neutral.) Then there's the energy involved in transporting the paper products and toxic compounds in a lot of the inks used, as well as the highly toxic solvents used in cleaning and maintaining large-scale printing presses -- for which reason brownfield sites formerly used for printing are quite cheap, if you can afford the necessary cleanup and remediation, anyway.

As with anything else, it is best not to be wasteful and to remember that, for practically any consumer good, a considerable amount of energy was consumed to bring it to you, along with (most likely) a non-trivial amount of pollution. Use more is almost always bad advice.

That said, your point about the manufacture (and disposal) of electronic hardware is spot-on. The paper industry is squeaky clean by comparison.

Re:Environmental?

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing to keep in mind is that ecological dynamics of a tree plantation or of a forest that is repeatedly logged are not going to be the same as that of a chunk of old-growth forest. And even if during expansion of your operations, you decide to leave a certain percentage of the forest untouched, the way in which you log the rest of the forest might change the ecological dynamics of the unlogged portions significantly if you aren't careful (for instance, if you drastically increase the edge-to-area ratio of the sections of forest that remain, of if you've put in a lot of roads in the process, pollute/silt in watersheds, etc.). So depending on the situation, there might be a number of ecological reasons to oppose the growth of paper production, even if technically they are planting lots of trees to replace those that were logged. CO2 is not the only environmental consideration, although sometimes from the press it seems that way.

Re:Environmental?

[mister_playboy]

Ideally of course, the carbon would be locked into oil and other fossil fuels deep inside the earth where it can't harm anyone.

You do know that carbon-containing molecules are the basis of all life on earth, right?

I tire of the unscientific hyperbole that seems to be increasingly associated with environmentalism.

Re:Environmental?

[sexybomber]

I probable reason is that when you compost your paper it releases either carbon dioxide (aerobic composting)

Well, yes, but then you can use the compost as fertilizer for more plants, thus making them grow faster and larger, and sequestering more carbon than they would otherwise in the same amount of time. When those die, you can compost them, which makes more fertilizer... yadda yadda yadda. As long as you use the compost again (i.e. you continue the circle of life), it's carbon-neutral.

Re:Environmental?

[bhagwad]

But there's more than enough carbon to go around - no danger of us running out, know what I mean? The problem is one of excess. Life was getting on just fine before man came and decided to pull age old carbon out.

Re:Environmental?

[Abcd1234]

Why do environmental groups get upset by paper? Paper is a very renewable resource.

Yes, because, after all, the only input to paper manufacturer is trees, and the only output is nice, clean paper...

Re:Environmental?

[Abcd1234]

You do know that carbon-containing molecules are the basis of all life on earth, right?

You do realize that potassium is required to live, right? So, here, why don't you swallow this large piece and we'll see how that works out for you...

Re:Environmental?

[CAIMLAS]

I don't get it either. The only thing I can reason is that it's a dogmatic, rather than logical, problem for these so-called environmental groups.

Your fancy iPod or Macbook? Yeah, heavy metals (batteries and all), plastics, and other materials which are poison to the environment regardless of how they're recycled. They also have a relatively short lifespan.

Burning wood is somehow ecologically unsound to these people. Hello! it's a biofuel, and it's more renewable and maintainable than any of your crap soy/rice/corn ethers for most things.

My favorite are the hybrid car owners. They do realize what their cars are running on, right? A volatile element which has an obscenely short utility life - oh yeah, and they burn copious amounts of gas when they're actually driving at the speed of traffic, going for a trip, or accelerating (much more than an efficient ICE in the same vehicle).

Re:Environmental?

[TapeCutter]

Ideally of course, the carbon would be locked into oil and other fossil fuels deep inside the earth where it can't harm anyone.

You do know that carbon-containing molecules are the basis of all life on earth, right?

I tire of the unscientific hyperbole that seems to be increasingly associated with environmentalism.

And you know that the enormous variety of deadly venoms found in nature are carbon-containing molecules, right? I tire of the psuedo-scientific strawmen that have always been associated with attempts to discredit well established science.

Re:Environmental?

[TapeCutter]

Composting is at best carbon neutral but when production techiques are taken into account it becomes cabon positive. However if you turn waste paper into bio-char the cycle becomes carbon negative, plus you get the additional side benifit of energy generation, along with the improved soil benifit of composting.

Bio-char alone is not a silver bullet but it's by far the most underrated method of significantly reducing emmissions, probably because (like composting) corporations can't see a way to make big bucks out of it.

Re:Environmental?

[Anonymous Coward]

Burning waste wood is in no way carbon neutral.

Re:Environmental?

[drinkypoo]

You do realize that potassium is required to live, right? So, here, why don't you swallow this large piece and we'll see how that works out for you...

better still, sodium is required for life, so I'm going to stab you with this knife made out of the metallic form.

This has long been my argument: "It's not as bad as x" is like saying "I've already been shot, so you might as well stab me, what the heck." No, it's "DON'T FUCKING STAB ME!"

Re:Environmental?

[abdulwahid]

Yeah, it is not the paper - it the machines - like printers!

Re:Environmental?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe your point about inks and printing presses would have been valid decades ago, but it just doesn't jive with reality today. Many printing inks (offset and flexography) are 100% soy-based, making them low-to-no-VOC and biodegradable. The same goes for solvents used to clean printing presses: low-to-no-VOC, and there are various state and federal regulations that help control the use and disposal of these chemicals. Even looking at the digital printing market, Xerox and other toner manufacturers have developed technologies to organically "grow" toner and make the entire document lifecycle much more environmentally friendly. The gravure printing process is still pretty volatile, but strides have been made to develop more "green" chemicals and processes, and that process represents a tiny fraction of the overall printing market anyway. Wide format inkjet printing has seen a shift from solvent-based inks to eco-solvents and aqueous, which are generally easier to recycle and more environmentally friendly in general.

If you look at most commercial printers (that are still in business), a good portion of them are touting their environmental responsibility chops to bring in business, as it's a growing requirement of their customers. They've gone through independent audits to become FSC-certified, SFI-certified, SGP-certified, etc. Many are buying power from alternative energy sources (mostly wind), and some are even going carbon neutral.

That being said, I think Domtar's campaign does more harm than good. They'd be much better off being more transparent about the forests they have, how they cut down and regrow trees, what is involved in their papermaking process, and what they are doing to be more environmentally friendly. Papermaking's still a dirty business, but it's still necessary (and will be for quite a long time), and many paper manufacturers continue to work to make the process as sustainable and environmentally-friendly as possible.

Re:Environmental?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you'd be using the paper without the computer then?

Re:Environmental?

[geekoid]

If paper was picked directly from trees you wold have a point. IT isn't. tree provide one of the materials need to make paper. There is also a bunch of chemicals to make it, recycle it, and the burning of fuels to transport it. And of course, the use of Ink.

Re:Environmental?

[Any Web Loco]

And then theere's the "old growth forest" issue. Sure, manageed plantations of new growth wood are sustainable & tick lots of "eco" boxes but when you start buldozing "old growth" forests - habitatbs for many, many more species than "managed plantations", you're in a differet game.

could be worse

[vxice]

feeling like a karma whore right now so I'll compare this to a puppy mill launching a campaign encouraging people to run over their neighbors dogs increasing the demand for puppies. /ducks

Re:could be worse

[Anonymous Coward]

feeling like a karma whore right now so I'll compare this to a puppy mill launching a campaign encouraging people to run over their neighbors dogs increasing the demand for puppies. /ducks

That's sick!

Now excuse me while I go kill some kittens.

Re:could be worse

[h00manist]

Actually... they don't need to. most people already want to get rid of the dog when it grows up a bit. It ends up being sacrificed in some way, somewhere, quite often. People like puppies, not dogs.

Re:could be worse

[timmarhy]

agreed. the way some people treat animals is the single greatest shame i feel as a memeber of the human race.

don't get me wrong, i know it can't be all hugs and kisses, i eat meat and i understand the reality of eating meat. I'm ok with it at long as the animals got to live a content enough life and were slaughtered in a humane manner (which most are, and i vote with my wallet getting free range meat).

but shit like puppy mills is one of the few things that makes me truly angry. the animals suffer so much killing them would be a release.

Re:could be worse

[dwarfsoft]

I disagree about how nobody wants a dog. We have a 5 year old dog here and he is awesome. My 1 year old daugther loves playing with him too. The puppy mills are a terrible shame and people who like the idea of a puppy or kitten but don't want to put in the time to care, train and nurture their pet should just bypass it.

HP is much smarter

[h00manist]

They merely keep making products that make you print more. Software, mostly. HP smart web print for example, to encourage you to print webpages.

Re:HP is much smarter

[Sarten-X]

...which is roughly 300 megabytes to download, and requires a dedicated gigabyte of memory to run.

Re:HP is much smarter

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Arguably, in the past decade or so, HP moved from being a major driver of printing to being a major force driving people away from printing...

Their cheap seats aren't even worthy of execration at this point, and even their nicer stuff isn't what it used to be(Hey guys, y'know what was a great idea? Releasing a print driver that crashes the print spooler service if somebody prints a PDF...)

Re:HP is much smarter

[__aaoyac5342]

I strongly hate "smart web print" most screen wasting piece of garbage, its bigger than having two useless tool-bars installed. I just want to punch the guy who thought a vertical tool bar was a good idea.

Re:HP is much smarter

[drinkypoo]

(Hey guys, y'know what was a great idea? Releasing a print driver that crashes the print spooler service if somebody prints a PDF...)

I especially like print drivers for networked printers that ignore the options you've set on your workstation when you print to a Windows server, like the ones for the 5550n. Set the paper type and such, print to a queue on an NT server, it strips all your options. Change the print queue to print directly to the printer (I changed only the port) and it all works. HP has been a massive fail since Fiorina and if you buy anything they make you're a tool. HP service is the worse in the business and it took me literally days on the phone with them to replace a laptop that they knew was a lemon due to a Quadro GPU die bonding failure. When the "tech" (who didn't bother to use his wrist strap in spite of wearing a bunch of poly clothing and running shoes) came to my house and opened the machine a shim welded to the heat sink fell out, and I certainly had never dropped the machine which was purchased for over $3,000.

HP, the new home of incompetence, same as the old home.

Re:HP is much smarter

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's too bad, really.

Back in the day, I had a Laserjet 4L that was basically immortal(it was 12 years old when I got it, and did all my printing in college no problem). Toner cartridges were big and cheap, and there was no driver shit to deal with because it spoke some well-supported PCL dialect.

These days, they all have integrated wireless and multifunction scanners and whatnot; but the driver install weighs in at 700MB(and doesn't work), the consumables last about as long as it took you to get them out of the package, and the firmware seems to know more about throwing cryptic errors than printing.

Re:It's not individuals that paper companies need.

[vxice]

I have to print out homework for my college classes. I don't print too much, although today was an exception. Had to write to someone in gov't who I couldn't find an email for. Actually had to lookup on line how to address an envelope.

And a Thousand Trees...

[Nom du Keyboard]

And a thousand trees cried out in agony, suddenly stilled.

Print More?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trees are a very important part of the ecosystem. We should leave them be. There has been enough destruction of natural resources already.

Hemp paper is cheaper, more abundant, and environmentally friendly.

Also, industrial hemp does not get you 'stoned'. It is said that you would need to smoke a football field of industrial hemp before you began to feel any effects of THC....

I wonder why we don't make paper from hemp then?

Ha ha!

[Vegan Cyclist]

One of the reasons i recently picked up an e-reader was to avoid collecting more books, and even printing up longer online articles (can easily copy to e-reader, and read at my leisure.) Quite happy with it so far.

Re:Ha ha!

[MichaelSmith]

I thought about that recently in Malaysia. My wife's relatives's children go to school with school bags on wheels because of the number of books they have to carry. Its mad.

Re:Ha ha!

[poopdeville]

You don't really think your e-reader is more environmentally friendly, though, do you?

Eminently un-recyclable, full of toxic metals and other materials, active users of energy.

Re:Ha ha!

[Vegan Cyclist]

I'm hopeful it'll have a very long lifespan, but you bring up a good point about the consumption in producing this product. Much of it is recyclable (at least in facilities where i live), and the small amount of energy used can be environmentally friendly (ie, solar.)

Will the device outweigh all the paper i would print, and the thousands of books i'd buy? I hope so.. It's also a matter of convenience, that i don't want shelves of books. ;)

of course young people aren't printers

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes the accumulation of 35+ years of squinting at monitors, TV screens, game consoles, and books/newspapers in poorly lit rooms before people generally decide that they would prefer hardcopy for a significant percentage of their reading.

Re:of course young people aren't printers

[izomiac]

Increasing the number of pixels per inch on screens should improve this. Thankfully, GUIs are finally starting to adjust to DPI, and cellphones have created a market for higher PPI screens. Obviously people will prefer a 300 PPI printout over a 72 PPI screen. Doubly so if their eyesight is worsening. (Which is why it's a bit sad to see people decrease their lcd screen's resolution without knowing any better.)

Re:Paper and Environment

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but paper is not a CO2 sink. Once it's been used, one of three things happens:

1. It is burnt (releasing the carbon as CO2).
2. It is buried in a landfill (where decomposition releases methane, which is far worse than carbon dioxide.
3. It is recycled (which keeps the CO2 out of the air for a time, but can only be done a few times before 1) or 2) occurs.

In the best case, paper is CO2 neutral. On average it is still CO2 positive. Not that I mind. :)

In Other News

[Obyron]

Michelin and Goodyear are teaming up to produce a series of PSAs aimed at getting young people to increase the rate at which they burn tires. The ads will consist of "hip" actors like Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Mayim Bialik addressing kids with "rad" lingo, and talking about how awesome it is sit around the tire fire with your "buds" and drink a cold Ovaltine.

Re:In Other News

[Leebert]

Michelin and Goodyear are teaming up to produce a series of PSAs aimed at getting young people to increase the rate at which they burn tires.

Nah, that's old news.

Re:It's not individuals that paper companies need.

[MBGMorden]

I'm in the same boat. I printed so infrequently that about 4 years ago when my printer ink dried up from lack of use I didn't bother to replace it. Literally, the only thing I was ever printing was Mapquest directions. Eventually I decided that it just wasn't worth the printer and ink cost to print 10-15 pages per year and I just started jotting the directions down in a notebook when I needed them. A bit more hassle, sure, but given the limited occurrences it was worth it. Now, portable GPS systems have eliminated the need for even that. All in all, I just have absolutely no use for printed material in my personal life anymore. The only thing I use it even at work for anymore is to print out something that I can hold in my hands while I compare it to something elsewhere on screen (as flipping back and forth breaks concentration). And honestly, if my boss ever breaks down and buys me a dual-monitor setup, I doubt even that will remain.

If the entire medium of paper were eliminated tomorrow I'd bet I could adjust within a matter of months.

Re:Paper and Environment

[timmarhy]

environmentalists are just messed up and confused, they've got so many cruisades on these days they are bound to conflict.

Like,,,,EVERYDAY

[Itninja]

When was the last time your children demanded a printer?

Clearly this person has never had little children. Try getting them one of those Spongebob or Reader Rabbit games. Almost all of them offer B&W line drawings that kids are supposed to print out and color.We were out of ink when my little girl wanted to print hers off and, I swear, I thought she was going shiv me.

I guess I could buy her something like a "My First Wacom Tablet" (tm) and let her color paper-free, but I think that would be a bit cost prohibitive (but also awesome).

Re:Like,,,,EVERYDAY

[Stormwatch]

I guess I could buy her something like a "My First Wacom Tablet" (tm) and let her color paper-free, but I think that would be a bit cost prohibitive (but also awesome).

A Bamboo Pen & Touch goes for $99, not that bad in comparison when you consider how expensive printer ink is.

Re:Like,,,,EVERYDAY

[Itninja]

Are those dishwasher safe? These are little kids. I would have to buy a new Bamboo every few months due to jelly and snot build-up.

Re:Like,,,,EVERYDAY

[geekoid]

Yeah, I have kids. We have printed a shit load of stuff.

Coloring on paper with crayons is a great way to develop find motor skills. reduce paper use, but it's still a good thing to ahve.

This guy is shitting brinks because newspapers are going out of business, people a printing less, and eBooks have finally gotten some serious momentum behind them.

He is trying to create a controversy and then teach it.

Re:Like,,,,EVERYDAY

[drinkypoo]

It's a wacom tablet, so you could vacuum-seal it and it would still work, albeit with slightly more stylus parallax (and there is some already.) You might go through styluses pretty fast, but AFAIK practically all that's in there is a diode and a wire or something. Styluses are about $15 though, and after you lose two or three of 'em you'll likely give up.

Re:Like,,,,EVERYDAY

[macaddict]

Are those dishwasher safe? These are little kids. I would have to buy a new Bamboo every few months due to jelly and snot build-up.

The tablets themselves are pretty tough and easy to clean. Yes, I have actually had to scrub jelly off a Wacom tablet!

The pens are more fragile, so you'll need to supervise their use until the kids are past the 'chew on everything' phase. If they get moisture inside (from being stuck into a mouth or a cup of water/juice) they may stop working. If it's just water or saliva (non-sugary), a quick bake in the oven on a towel at a very low temp (keep an eye on it and keep checking it every few minutes) may be able to revive it. Guess how I know this. ;-)

A bit of backstory...

[boxxertrumps]

"The announcement was made over a fine dinner of Dodo Parmesan and roasted Tasmanian Tiger. "

Something's missing here

[jollyreaper]

Where's the link to the Onion? There has to be a link to the Onion. There was another article lacking an Onion link, about how coon meat is making a comeback in Detroit. Abandoned neighborhoods are reverting to wilderness and the hunting's getting better. Again, where's the Onion link? I don't want this to be real.

When I RTFS

[OrwellianLurker]

I figured it would link to an article by The Onion.

I'm not pro-paperless for the environment

[Xeriar]

I'm pro-paperless because it's a blasted mess.

green paper and non-green paper

[bcrowell]

From a little bit of web surfing ([1], [2]), the impression I get is that there is a huge range of variability in how ecologically good or bad paper production is. Recycled paper (like newsprint) is much better than non-recycled, because it costs a lot less energy to produce, causes a lot less water pollution to produce, and keeps more paper out of landfills. Loggers like to say that they practice sustainable forestry, but some logging operations are actually a lot more sustainable than others. In some cases, the amount of carbon being sequestered in trees is kept constant, because the trees of a certain size are just being steadily replaced with more trees that grow to the same size before being harvested; but in other cases, older, larger trees are harvested, and replaced with young ones that contain a lot less carbon.

Re:green paper and non-green paper

[geekoid]

Its complex. but even if the tree aspect of paper is a break even, everything else isn't.

In other news....

[dr-alves]

Asbestos producers launch campaign: Insulate your home with asbestos!
Coal Companies launch campaign: Produce your energy from coal!
Catholic Priests say: All your children are belong to us!!!

Many posts about fast growing trees farmed 4 paper

[stomv]

and how that's supposedly good because the carbon is sequestered, etc. Not many posts about the chemical nasties involved in converting trees to pulp to paper, or where those nasties end up, or how much energy is required to harvest the wood, convert it, and deliver it, or how much waste is in the manufacturing of printers, ink cartridges, and ink.

If demand for paper continues to fall, know what that land will be used for? Growing trees. Instead of using that timber for paper, it'll be used for lumber or for biomass electricity generation (which has a net zero carbon emission).

So yeah, trust your instincts on this one... like nearly every processed item, wasting less paper is better for the environment.

Students...

[ProdigyPuNk]

Although there's a lot more technology in the classroom today, things like essays are still printed out, for the most part. In my college English classes, even if you emailed the professor your paper (because you missed class or something), he still wanted a hardcopy the next class. In fact, every normal, face to face class I've had so far (in ~ 2.5 years in college) has required hardcopies of all papers/slideshows/etc.

The only time I don't have to print things out for school is for my online classes (for obvious reasons). It really is nicer for us students to not worry about getting to class on time and making sure we have a hardcopy of our papers, but tbh the prof's always prefer the real thing. I'm sure this kind of printing is a small fraction of a fraction of overall paper sales, but college papers are responsible for at least 90% of my printing.

Oh the vegetality

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine all those poor tree farms that will now be cut down to create data centers.

Flip books?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would expand on the campaign by proposing more flip-book porn.

Considering the size of the market on the internet, I predict this will be a huge success, especially in the multi-angle productions. DVD and Blue-Ray quality? Eat your heart out with awesome 600dpi print on 8x10 super-thick glossy paper for extra flip control!

Need special features? Check the pop-up section!

Young people are also not horse backriders

[Punto]

or telegraph operators, or typewriter users, or newspaper readers. Somebody should get on that.

The concept of environmental friendly

[jsse]

My company is a collector of used electronic devices in Hong Kong. Once we received call from a division of the government to collect used printers. To our astonishment, we found a 10 meter sq. room full of used HP 1100 printers stacking to the roof. Turn out it's a result of some idiotic environmentalists attempt to use used papers in printing to "save the environment", which wore out the rubber rollers in the printers pretty quickly. Since the cost to repair is too high (thanks to HP!) they've to discard them.

How many papers they've been saving? Approx. a box or two. How many printers they destroyed and ended up in the field? Hundreds in a year.

Recycled printer papers that are loved by many environmentalists are also a major environment hazard. Ten times more water is needed to be consumed in order to bleach recycle papers than that of bleaching normal papers, not to mention the dumping ten times more of bleaching reagent into the water system.

While paper manufacturer's advocacy might not be welcomed by the mass, it's true that most people has wrong concepts in saving environment.

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[ajlitt]

Even more idiotic that they didn't attempt to repair them.

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[jsse]

Even more idiotic that they didn't attempt to repair them.

What do you think we pay to buy their trash for? (^^)

But we don't use that kit, actually kits like that are hardly economically viable for mass refurbishment. We'll collect them, dissembling good parts and re-assembling them into functional products, and then sell the unusable parts to recyclers, where they'll extract valuable raw materials from them.

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[moonbender]

That's not true. Recycling paper uses far less water, less energy, and produces far less pollutants than paper from wood, and (modern) recycling paper doesn't do any damage to the printer. You are spreading the paper industry's lies. For the former, plenty of studies are linked on Wikipedia. For the latter -- I had never even heard the claim that recycling paper was bad for printers -- but anyway, I found a reference to a study done by the German federal institute for materials research which apparently isn't available online as well as references to a couple of large corporations that tracked the printer wearout when using different papers.

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[Darth_brooks]

My company is a collector of used electronic devices in Hong Kong. Once we received call from a division of the government to collect used printers. To our astonishment, we found a 10 meter sq. room full of used HP 1100 printers stacking to the roof. Turn out it's a result of some idiotic environmentalists attempt to use used papers in printing to "save the environment", which wore out the rubber rollers in the printers pretty quickly. Since the cost to repair is too high (thanks to HP!) they've to discard them.

I have never wanted the "-1 Wrong" moderation point more.

The Laserjet 1100 was a shit printer from start to finish. It was a top loader, which was incredibly prone to jamming by design. (How many top load printers do see today? Any?).

A class action lawsuit was brought against HP because of the issue you described, jamming due to multiple sheets being fed at the same time. A free fix, consisting of an additional separator pad which lasted about as long as the original separator pad, was offered for some time by HP as part of the settlement. Higher volume laser printers use multiple rollers for picking and separating paper, while personal printers use pads that tend to wear out more quickly. The problem with the 1100 was exasperated by the gravity feed inherent to top loading. If you notice HP's desktop laser printer line (The 5L I think started the top load trend, and was followed by the original 1000's & 1100 series) were completely redesigned when the 1200 came along, and that design was redone for the 1320 series. Those use a more traditional pickup feed that allows for large paper trays

That room full of printers were crap to begin with, and had nothing to do with "idiotic environmentalists", they were the result of piss-poor engineering. The 1100 was the bleeding edge of HP's move towards disposable crap printers, and anyone who had to deal with them has Office Space'd at least one.

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[vegiVamp]

In your first paragraph, you say the environmentalists pushed to use recycled paper instead of fresh. In your second paragraph, you suggest the aim was using *less* paper. Which is it ?

If the recycled paper wears out the printer rolls, they maybe they should've used a better type of recycled paper. If it was sold as laser printer paper, sue the manufacturer. If the paper turns out to have been OK, blame HP for selling planned obsolesence.

You also claim ten times more water is needed to bleach recycled paper. You might be right, but as far as I know, water doesn't bleach. You're leaving out part of the story.

As a last point, even if it would be less bad for the environment to use fresh paper (taking into account the impact on forests, energy use, and whatnot), then it's still undeniably true that using less paper in total is better.

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[geekoid]

"The Laserjet 1100 was a shit printer from start to finish"

true, that doesn't mean is point is wrong.

In 1999 I worked for a company, Home Savings an Loan, that went to recycled paper for printers. Every printer had serious problems for in. Many were ruined. The ones we used need maintenance about every 60 days.
When we wen't back to normal [paper, things got better.

No this was in the 90's, and the paper was pretty crude, In fact it wasn't even white.

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[jsse]

Thank you for your support. I knew my point would not be welcome by those who believe themselves knowing better to save the environment better than anyone else on eaerth, even though I'm practically in the industry.

We collect printers, we work closely with recycling business, so we practically know how used (not industrial recycled papers) papers damage printers and how abusive recycling process damage the environment. Well, they believe what they want to believe. ^^

Thanks again.

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[jsse]

In the first paragraph I mentioned 'used' papers, not industrial recycled papers. Note that what I said actually damage the image of recycling business I'm in, so I don't know why they said I'm spreading lies for the paper industries.

Water doesn't bleach, but more water needed to be use for bleaching process where more reagent are used. I'm not totally opposing to paper-recycling, I actually support recycled papers in packing, decoration etc, but definitely NOT for printing papers. Think about it, we all know bleaching used papers to printer-paper quality is very costly, , unnecessary and abusive(to the environment).

I agree with your last point, I support use less paper. Well it looks like I'm supporting the article, I think it's my fault bringing the wrong message you. :)

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[jsse]

Thank you for your reply. I just gave a worse example, in fact as far as we can see, no brand could produce printer that could be suited to use 'used' paper.

I don't know the class action suit you mentioned, but they definitely deserve it. XD

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[jsse]

Thank you for your reply.

First you said recycling paper uses far less water and energy. It's true, as long as you're not making recycled papers up to the printer paper quality.

I'm not saying you're making up the figures and results, but I personally witness the paper recycling processes and lots of water and bleaching reagents are consumed. Of course, you and the researchers who carried out the studies you mentioned might not realize, as the industries are recycling papers in the countries where environmental regulations are less restrictive. Using recycled 'printer papers' practically pollutes those countries, but I'm afraid not too many people would care.

Your second point shows that you confused 'used' papers and 'industrial recycled' papers. Actually 'industrial recycled' papers are good for printers (as they're thicker in general) but 'used' papers are not.

Nevertheless, what I really want to bring out was that making white papers from used papers are unnecessary and abusive (to the environment). People might not care about the countries we polluted, but since we're living in the same eco-system, I think it makes sense we'd start aware of their environmental problem as a results of recycling papers. Support the use of recycled papers in packaging and decoration, and stay away from recycled printer papers.

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[vegiVamp]

I can't help but wonder what you understand by "used" paper, then ?

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[moonbender]

First you said recycling paper uses far less water and energy. It's true, as long as you're not making recycled papers up to the printer paper quality.

Printer paper quality as in pearly white? When I'm talking about recycling paper I'm usually thinking of paper with a grayish base color. I agree that making white paper from used paper is wasteful, though I doubt it's worse than new paper.

Producing recycling paper still uses lots of water, but producing new paper uses lots more. One calculator is available here (including reference): http://www.initiative-papier.de/index.php?page_id=296 I think arguing that those various studies are all flawed is a bit of a ridiculous claim.

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[jsse]

Hi moon, thank you for your information. Actually I've seen related studies, but they're over-simplifying the reality so as to make a point.

The calculator is based on pure theory, but in reality collected used papers contains lots of contaminations, some contains heavy metals. In theory you could use chemical to separate the impurities from paper, but manufacturers who produce in large would simple bleach the contaminations to pearly white, because it's much cheaper do it that way.

That's why I said we should support the use of recycled papers in packing and decoration but definitely not printer papers. Bleaching them to pearly white is just too much, but since most people think recycled papers is good that drives the economical incentive for them to produce. You see whta I mean.

The calculator wrongly assumed that virgin papers are made from forest wood. If you've been visiting a paper farm(as you may see paper are grown), you can see that the raw materials are soft like grass, thus no need to use that much energy to make the hard wood soft. Also, I didn't even mention the water wastage during the entire recycling process. Paper collectors would soak the collected paper in water in order to make them heavier so as to get more subsides.

The differences between our understandings are exactly the differences between theory and reality. Don't get me wrong, I'm not representing paper manufacturers to argue with you! I'm in the recycling business but I do care about the environment and what I told you would eventually hurt my profit (thanks God my business partner didn't know heh). Some people in the same recycling business are evil as hell, those who makes recycling papers are typical.

I mean, you may support recycling, but I recommended support recycling papers (to printer quality) with reservation.

As an interesting side note, support the use of new papers can actually help negating the greenhouse effect. More paper farms would be establish in face of higher paper demand, and you may see the benefit it brings to the environment (as oppose to cattle farming, which produce more greenhouse gases and damage the environment).

Anyway, I'm so glad to talk to you. You bring a lots insight to the discussion.

Re:The concept of environmental friendly

[jsse]

Used papers are unused printed papers, before they're putting into garbage bins most people would make use of the unused side in printing, and that damage the printers.

So what do we do with the printed paper? Recycle them, don't reuse them. Then you might think I'm contradict myself. No, I'm NOT opposing to recycling papers (I'm in the business how'd I suppose to oppose to recycling?), I'm just opposing to making pearly white recycled papers, as the entire process is unnecessary and abusive.

Some people in the recycling business care about the environment, some just don't give a dam, and recycled papers manufacturers are the latter. Support the use of recycled papers in any way other than printer papers. That's what I mean. Thank you for giving me chance to express my point.

Re:Paper and Environment

[thestuckmud]

...environmentalists are just too stupid to recognize that paper is a carbon dioxide SINK

Redo.

Read this analysis of the lifecycle carbon cost of paper by a paper company. The bottom line is is an estimated cost of 1.81 tons CO2-equivalent impact per ton of paper (see paper for details).

Paper appears to be the opposite of a carbon sink.

What's is happening???

[nodnor]

I think, this is a business model problem, not a environmental problem, do you believe that environmental campaign will that people leave printing? i dont think so, always you have billions of printing papers, books, or whatever. Will papers demand decrease? Yes, but it will not disappear, for goodness sake

Re:Paper and Environment

[American AC in Paris]

...similarly, environmentalists are doubly too stupid to realize that once you factor in the energy saved in harvesting, transporting, milling, packaging, re-transporting, storing, re-re-transporting, retailing, and re-re-re-transporting a ream of paper, you've created over eleventeen jerbs. Jerbs that environmentalists would have took! My god, they're so blingingly stupid!

Convert to Environmental Positive

[rbrander]

Stop recycling the stuff!

1) Raise trees on tree farms with land that would be marginal for food crops.
2) Use as paper.
3) Pyrolize it into "biochar", generating power.
4) Bury the biochar.
5) Environmental profit!

We could probably be burying hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon annually, world-wide, just biochar-ing the paper we use.

The wikipedia article on "biochar" seems to think it would even have commercial profit, if you could sell your "carbon credits" for something over $37 per tonne.

Re:Convert to Environmental Positive

[geekoid]

recycling uses less chemicals and water.
Plus you fall under the delusion that only trees goes into the making of paper.

And the you want to burn all that paper and release the chemicals into the atmosphere?

Genius~

Enemy of The Free Market

[Bob9113]

Mr. Williams said ... 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.'

OK, well;

1: Explain to me why "printing isn't a sort of environmental negative." Start by explaining how using energy and materials in cases where it is not worthwhile to do so is environmentally (or even economically) neutral or positive.
2: If step 1 proves to be impossible or tortured at best, tell me why you think your customers should be misinformed.
3: Re-read the section on free market economics about the importance of informed consumers.
4: Apologize for being an enemy of the benevolent ideals of the free market.

This is why people have problems with the free market. Not because an efficient free market is bad, but because oligopolist assholes like this guy work so hard to harm the free market. Even aside from whether he succeeds in damaging the free market, he is creating harmful imagery of what the free market is, which harms us all.

Of course, it is easy to throw stones. The harder question for me is: How do you fix it?

Re:Enemy of The Free Market

[kitsunewarlock]

Bigger stones. And less literal.

How 'bout this?

[0xdeadbeef]

Paper: it's what books were made of before DRM.

Re:Paper and Environment

[American AC in Paris]

...on a side note, my phone's autocorrect seems to think that "blingingly" is a word.

It terrifies me that something in my typing/browsing habits would lead it to this conclusion...

It's no longer economical to print

[GWBasic]

I've realized it's no longer economical to print. Every time I print, I need to spend $50 for a new set of ink cartridges. In contrast, it's cheaper to pay to overnight concert tickets and e-file taxes. In short, there needs to be a printer that can run forever on a $10 ink cartridge in order to get me to print again.

Re:It's no longer economical to print

[bootup]

Christ- you should be using a laser printer. No wonder.

Re:It's no longer economical to print

[bootup]

* and refilling. And they have places that will do that for you now with good ink. I use one called cartridge world. Easy and hassle free.

Re:It's no longer economical to print

[drinkypoo]

* and refilling. And they have places that will do that for you now with good ink. I use one called cartridge world. Easy and hassle free.

You can't refill an ink cart that has dried up unless you have it ultrasonically cleaned, which is what they do when you send them in to be refilled rather than going to a kiosk.

If the print heads are dried up, you have to replace those, too. Usually they're integrated into the ink cart which is why they cost so damned much. When they aren't, and both are dried up, you have to replace both anyway.

A laser printer is the obvious solution; mine prints the occasional page. It's pretty reliable at it, but it's a very old HP printer with a very slow print server, a very slow processor, and only 8MB RAM, and it fails on basically any large job. I have a 2100; I hear the 2300 is the one to get.

Re:It's no longer economical to print

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution to your problem is a bottom-of-the-line black and white laser printer from Brother or Samsung. Even expensive toner is a lot cheaper than the cheapest inkjet ink, and there are no nozzles to clog.

Re:It's no longer economical to print

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a (b&w) laser. $50-75 for a cartridge that'll last for years of low-volume use.

I'm on my 2nd cartridge in 9 years.

P.S. Ultimate CAPTCHA irony: clogged!

Re:It's no longer economical to print

[petermgreen]

there needs to be a printer that can run forever on a $10 ink cartridge in order to get me to print again.
Dot matrix printers came pretty close to offering that, dirt cheap cartridges that seemed to last practically forever. The downside of course was the low speed, high noise and often a requirement for tractor feed paper.

Personally my current recommendation is if you can live without colour get a laser. If you require color then it's a harder descision because color laser printers are both more expensive and have a lot more to go wrong than monochrome ones.

Re:It's no longer economical to print

[Anonymous Coward]

Find a used HP Laserjet 6P (or similar) ... Runs forever (relatively speaking) on the cartridge that came in it. For rare print jobs, it is awesome, and according to the diagnostics page, it's got over 200,000 pages on it. (Still using the toner cartridge that was in it when I got it). These things are "FREE" if you can find them...

The trots=sales

[Hoi Polloi]

If this doesn't work they can always try their other idea to sell paper, "Poop more!"

Re:The trots=sales

[Sulphur]

At the checkout stand always ask if you are purchasing enough TP.

Carbon Sequestration

[paulthomas]

I present Trevor Blackwell's theory on how printing and then putting the paper in landfills may actually stop global warming:

http://www.tlb.org/faq.html (scroll to the bottom)

Re:Carbon Sequestration

[Anonymous Coward]

Does he have any qualifications which make his opinions on this issue more noteworthy than the next man? Has he done any research to back up his idea? Does paper not rot in landfill making it a poor way to sequester carbon?

It's a nice idea, but I'm not sure how effective it would actually be at sequestering the carbon, then you also have to consider the carbon costs of producing new paper over recycling old (I'd assume it take more energy to turn trees into paper than it does to recycle paper). It's perhaps something worthy of research, but I wouldn't advocate people follow that advice without anything to back it up.

Re:Paper and Environment

[Dun Malg]

It is buried in a landfill (where decomposition releases methane, which is far worse than carbon dioxide.

Actually, paper doesn't degrade in a landfill. You can still dig up readable newspapers from the 1800's.

I print!.....

[Dthief]

Every article from slashdot before I read it.

FYI

[Leuf]

After you write "That is all." you are supposed to stop writing. That is all.

Do you see how it sort of loses the effect when you keep right on going like this? Also we can pretty much tell when you're done by the period and then the lack of any more words.

Re:FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! Keep it short and sweet. Don't make us waste more paper printing out unnecessary commentary after your point was made.

Capitalism failed?

[Anonymous Coward]

By what criteria for success has capitalism, as practiced today through the legal construct of a corporation, failed?

This guy would have LOVED where I used to work

[SendBot]

I used to be the sole IT guy at a busy real estate office where 40+ agents were constantly printing things off of their computer in order to feed it into the fax machine, which would indicate a successful transmission by printing out a note to that effect.

In the first two weeks I was there I proposed setting up a system where agents could "print" a fax from their desk and save a bundle on toner and paper. The boss wasn't interested, and in the scheme of things this was one of the less idiotic situations to deal with.

Re:Many posts about fast growing trees farmed 4 pa

[Anonymous Coward]

If demand for paper continues to fall, know what that land will be used for? Growing trees. Instead of using that timber for paper, it'll be used for lumber or for biomass electricity generation (which has a net zero carbon emission).

What makes you think the trees wouldn't be cut down to make way for whatever passes for "the future" these days?

Re:i musted have missed that memo

[snikulin]

Sorry, boss. The office printer is out of paper.

Re:Him and the Pope!

[Foobar of Borg]

This is a perfect storm. These two Italians are trying to subvert America gfreatness by foisting their totalitarian vision of Italian islamo-communism on our wives, daughters and sons. They way they will do this is to destroy our lush forest cover in America for "paper" and then zap us with islamo-communist brain rays. Stop them now! Stop them now!!!!!!

Wait a minute! If that were true, then wood would be an adequate substitute for tin foil in my hat. Of course, tin foil is for the alien mind control beams. The Italians could still be using the mind control beams invented by Leonardo da Vinci, out of a sort of misguided patriotism. While way ahead of its time, they are not particularly efficacious by today's standards. Wood should be able to stop the evil Leonardo mind control beams!

The only paragraph in TFA you need to read...

[macraig]

... is this one:

Responsible forestry companies like Domtar are the stewards of the world's forests and ensure that they maintain their biodiversity, Mr. Williams, a consumer products industry veteran who took over as CEO of Domtar early last year, told reporters after his speech.

Translation: Williams' comments are his personal campaign to distinguish himself in his new job and impress the bored and shareholders, so he can justify a bit fat bonus - or golden parachute. Williams isn't a paper industry veteran or a "Priest of the Pulp", he's just another ambitious twit who leaps from one unrelated CEO job to another, collecting big fat checks along the way. Much like those folks over the in financial industry, perhaps he just sits and downloads porn Torrents all day while he's accruing those bonuses?

Re:The only paragraph in TFA you need to read...

[macraig]

Wow, who knew it would prove to be so hard to type on a keyboard over the top of a closed laptop? *shrug*

Dead Forests...

[Anachragnome]

From the article, a statement from Domtar CEO...

"No one is more interested in the well-managed forest than the paper industry."

I live in the Pacfic Northwest and I am surrounded by "managed" clearcuts.

The forestry industry has this odd idea that "managed" means planting one species, equally spaced for easy harvesting, and often not even a species native to the region. "Grow it fast, grow it thick" is the rule, not the exception.

The "managed" forests out here feel "dead". There is very little diversity in flora on the floor of the forest and I can only assume that is why it feels "dead". The animal life that depended on that diversity is absent. I remember walking through a "managed" re-forested area one time and it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn't being pestered by mosquitos or gnats. Odd. It wasn't until later that I realized that the stuff they feed on was missing from the forest--no food, no bugs. The diversity had been 'managed" right out of the forest.

"Managed" is a relative term, and open to damn near any interpretation you wish.

I seriously doubt that a paper manufacturer and an environmentalist would agree on those interpretations, especially when a dipshit like John Williams is involved.

Re:Dead Forests...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I remember walking through a "managed" re-forested area one time and it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn't being pestered by mosquitos or gnats."

I must visit one of these "managed" re-forested areas, maybe even camp there.

Re:Dead Forests...

[adolf]

It's a managed forest plainly and openly maintained as a source of lumber, not a managed recreational nature preserve.

Repeat that, over and over, until you get it.

[sarcasm]In other news, I was shocked at the absolute lack of biodiversity the last time I walked through a wheat field. Imagine it: A huge field, hundreds of acres, where they've managed to grow almost nothing but wheat! What a waste.[/sarcasm]

Re:Dead Forests...

[NightHwk1]

I was shocked at the absolute lack of biodiversity the last time I walked through a wheat field. Imagine it: A huge field, hundreds of acres, where they've managed to grow almost nothing but wheat! What a waste.

It works much better without the sarcasm tags. Repeat that over and over, and perhaps you'll get it.

There is something wrong with such a lack of biodiversity, especially when you consider that approximately 40% of the land in the US is currently cultivated like this.

Re:Dead Forests...

[religious freak]

Yeah, because I want random bits of whateverthefuck plant in my cheerios and bread. What bullshit. There's nothing wrong with cultivating plants for human uses while at the same time preserving those truly wild places for biodiversity and nature.

Re:Dead Forests...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe not try to pass it off as environmentalism then?

Re:Dead Forests...

[DNS-and-BIND]

The forestry industry has this odd idea that "managed" means planting one species, equally spaced for easy harvesting, and often not even a species native to the region.

That is exactly what a managed forest is. In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

"Managed" is a relative term, and open to damn near any interpretation you wish.

No, it is a precisely defined term. Why am I not surprised to see muddle-headed post-modern nonsense posted by a Seattle environmentalist? Diversity is a racial term, and here it is in an environmental context. Environmentalists aren't happy unless humans are miserable. Who else would actually complain about the lack of stinging pests?

Re:Dead Forests...

[tehcyder]

It's a managed forest plainly and openly maintained as a source of lumber, not a managed recreational nature preserve.

Well, yes, that's sort of the point. If people like you had your way, there would be no more "nature" left anywhere.

Re:Dead Forests...

[drinkypoo]

Diversity is a racial term, and here it is in an environmental context.

What the fuck are you smoking? Diversity is often used in a racial context, but it is not a racial term. We talk about diversity in networking for fuck's sake. And it's simply true that monocultures are fragile, which is why nature never creates them. NEVER. Even that which looks like a monoculture is not. Grasses grow in groups. Heather is actually an entire class of plant that grows together, one plant supporting its neighbor.

Who else would actually complain about the lack of stinging pests?

If you're talking about mosquitoes, they feed critters that we like. If you mean bees, there's obvious reasons why we need them around; yet if you look around the internet you'll find far more resources on hating and killing bees than on loving and protecting them. I think it's safe to say that most humans are short-sighted. You're sounding awfully so at the moment.

Here in California we're seeing dieoffs of certain pine trees, especially the digger pines. If they were the only thing planted, then we'd have problems. The dying trees are not economically valuable as they succumb to rot. They're planting huge stands of only pines in devastated regions of Panama because they're one of two trees that will grow there. The other one is the Cashew but they don't make good economic use of it there; the fruits are juiced, the nut part is discarded on the ground and eaten by pests. When these pines die they dry out, creating a fire risk. That's usually not a big risk in Panama due to rainfall and general humidity. It's all one gigantic SNAFU. There's nothing good about a "managed" "forest".

Re:Dead Forests...

[vegiVamp]

True, but maybe the industry should be more clear about that, and not use it as an excuse for why they should be allowed to destroy natural forest areas that do contain biodiversity.

But, then again, that would impact their paycheck.

Re:Dead Forests...

[DNS-and-BIND]

Who's talking about not feeding critters we like? I'm talking about taking a nice hike and not being stung painfully. What's a normal person's reaction to that? "Oh, that was nice!" What's a nutcase's reaction? "FOREST NO GOOD!"

I just went through about eleven pages of search results for bees and didn't find anything about hating bees, except a few references on how to protect yourself from killer bees. You sure you're not projecting your own hatred onto others?

Re:Dead Forests...

[Anonymous Coward]

[sarcasm]In other news, I was shocked at the absolute lack of biodiversity the last time I walked through a wheat field. Imagine it: A huge field, hundreds of acres, where they've managed to grow almost nothing but wheat! What a waste.[/sarcasm]

You jest, but this really is a problem. This kind of monoculture is one of the reasons soil is losing its fertility, and needs the huge input of artificial (petroleum-based) fertilizers. It looks efficient in the short term, but it isn't sustainable.

You need to take a deeper look at things, and how they are connected to other things. Repeat that, over and over, until you get it.

Re:Dead Forests...

[drinkypoo]

I just went through about eleven pages of search results for bees and didn't find anything about hating bees, except a few references on how to protect yourself from killer bees. You sure you're not projecting your own hatred onto others?

Try looking for results on capturing hives; you'll get mostly results on destroying hives. Look for results about what to do if bees have moved into your wall or something; you'll get far more advice on how to kill them than on how to find someone who will come and get them. We got two hives last year, one failed midwinter, one very recently, we're going to try again this year. My lady is always looking for bee info, which is how I know about this. Also you can see it on failbook, which is a pretty good slice of the masses of asses, look for groups of bee lovers and bee haters, and be astounded.

Re:Dead Forests...

[Anachragnome]

"Who else would actually complain about the lack of stinging pests?"

Someone that knows that they are an integral part of the ecosystem and realizes that the loss of even a small portion of diversity effects the whole system.

Oh, and I don't live anywhere near Seattle. And mosquitos don't sting. And diversity applies to much more then the racial issues. Look it up. And what the fuck does "post-modern nonsense" mean?

You should stick to the little words. You'll be on safer ground that way.

Re:Dead Forests...

[adolf]

It would also impact your paycheck, as well as mine, as prices go up.

Meanwhile, I'm growing tired of folks bitching about what The Man (whichever Man it might be in whatever context) is doing, when they apparently don't realize that The Man is us.

Re:Dead Forests...

[adolf]

What kind of person am I?

Re:Dead Forests...

[NightHwk1]

I know this is a bit late for a response, but...

They don't just mow down the field and turn it all into Cheerios, otherwise you'd have lots of leaves and stalks from the wheat plants in your cereal bowl.

Anyway, such monoculture is unsustainable, especially when combined with our current industrial agriculture practices. It ruins and erodes the soil, is dependent on petroleum and herbicides, and is beginning to require plants with genetic modifications.

Re:Many posts about fast growing trees farmed 4 pa

[jmorris42]

> Instead of using that timber for paper, it'll be used for lumber or for biomass electricity generation (which has a net zero carbon emission).

Perhaps, perhaps not. Take your example of biomass. Think that doesn't have as much pollution as paper production? Hint: it ain't carbon neutral anymore than paper production is. To get decent land utilization you will be growing something faster growing than trees, probably with fertilizer. Then there is the energy to irrigate it, plant and harvest and there still isn't a biomass to usable fuel cycle that doesn't waste close to as much energy as it produces.

But regardless, land must produce more revenue than the property taxes so one way or another value WILL be reaped, regardless the environmental impact. Some will get flattened for development, some will become pasture land, farmland, whatever. That law of unintended consequences always bits ya. Ponder that before dreaming of a world without paper.

Re:Many posts about fast growing trees farmed 4 pa

[mdmkolbe]

know what that land will be used for? Growing trees

Nah, I'd just grow cows on it instead. Yum ... methane.

Old / Bad Law

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not the law in Delaware, nor is it the law of the Model Business Corporation Act, (which are the only two corporate laws that matter in the US). Maybe some state somewhere still uses this principle, probably not. Corporations in the US are not restricted to acts that increase shareholder value.

-ac

It isn't about being green

[mellestad]

Printing isn't on the decline because of environmental concerns, it is on the decline because you don't need it as much anymore, especially for the younger crowd. Who needs printouts when your phone can pull up Google docs, wikipedia and your pictures? Who needs printouts when so much is digitized? Who needs paper when all of your bills are paid electronically? When your books are on a e-reader? The paperless office and home are not here, and they might never be. But paper is certainly less relevant today than it was twenty years ago, and it will continue to become less relevant as time goes on.

Re:Paper and Environment

[Cryacin]

Hello, Dunder Mifflin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunder_Mifflin

the Organization of Oxygen Producing Creatures

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news OOPC, the Organization of Oxygen Producing Creatures, has decided to respond to cut backs in production of carbon dioxide by producing less oxygen.
One spokesman stated "their anti CO2 policies are making it harder for our members to breath, in fact we're beginning to see our elderly members suffocate to death for lack of CO2, so after careful consideration we've decided to cut back on O2 production both to ease stress on our more vulnerable members, and to illustrate to the CO2 producers what we are going through. In short we'll lift our caps when they lift theirs"

Re:Paper and Environment

[Dthief]

Yeah, I'm also pretty sure if they just let the trees grow instead of cutting them down they would increase CO2 absorption and reduce emission as explained in the above post

What industries will follow with this kind of ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine that beer brewers start to advertise "Drink More" with arguments such as, "It makes your life more amusing" and "It just tastes better than water".
Or that car companies start to advertise "Drive More" with arguments such as, "Walking is for Hippies", "Let's exhaust all Gasoline and Oil resources from the Middle East as quickly as possible".
I wonder whether this is all legally accepted in the US...

solar powered logging trucks

[epine]

Embarrassing to be Canadian. Well, at least the Pope isn't Canadian, although to hear what he had to say about the internet, he might be on board this paper thing.

What the Domtar dipshit didn't take into account is embodied energy. People tend to have wacky ideas about embodied energy, unless you bother to work the numbers.

Catherine Mohr builds green

Next time I see a solar powered logging truck, I'll think "damn, John Williams was so right".

What's that funny metal pipe, daddy? That's called a muffler, Sally. Back in the day, most logging trucks had one.

Here are some nice photos about how the logging industry used to look before petroleum was banned.

TJ's Woodshop - Logging Photos

Printing is a HASSLE

[mcrbids]

Printing requires a certain overhead cost. Once that overhead cost is met, the cost of printing drops dramatically. But for many years my printing threshold has been far below that overhead cost.

See, to print, you have to have a printer. I'm often mobile; I sure don't want to carry another 15 pound device plus supplies. And printing is unreliable. Ink cartridges are expensive, and prone to drying out and frequent replacement and the associated trip to the office supplies store. Printing is SLOW. You have to set up drivers, you have to plug stuff in, you have to dicker with drivers and print queues when paper doesn't feed properly. Printing over a network is a pain. You have to have drivers for the network printer, and you have to spend anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes setting it all up in the first place.

And then, when you are done, you have a document in your hand. You can't instantly send it *anywhere* save by digitizing it. (EG: faxing, or scan/email) Sure, you might need a signature on it, but once it's digitized, a signature is easily pasted on the document in its original (soft copy) format anyway.

So, why did you do all that, again?

And then there's quality! When I print, it's highly likely to be because I'm making a presentation. To produce *nice* high quality prints, you need a nice, high quality printer, preferably color. For somebody for whom a ream lasts for at least a year, it's hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars in order to print on $5 of paper. So I find that it's easier and cheaper to print to PDF and then email it that to the local Kinko's or other store. I get the best quality prints in color, on demand, without dickering with drivers, and just having to drive about 1/4 mile to get it, on the one or two days in a quarter I might need it. Queue it up around lunch, and it's a quick stop on the way back with my sammich.

I could go on with faxes - receiving faxes with a "fax machine" has a slew of problems. If your paper jams, your fax is hosed. Since the fax may well be a contract worth many thousands of dollars, this is a non-starter. Also, paper faxes can be lost. They can't be reprinted without the original. They aren't automatically archived for later review. They can't be easily viewed in a remote office without being faxed again, along with the problems of quality degradation, etc.

But soft-copy faxes carry NONE of these problems. Done right, a soft-copy fax system is redundant, multi-point, and accessible from anywhere with proper security authentication. We made this switch years ago, and never looked back!

Printing sucks. I do everything I can to eliminate paper!

Re:Printing is a HASSLE

[Anonymous Coward]

You get in a car and drive somewhere for a 1/4 mile journey? WTF!?!? That's not even 5 minutes' walk.
Even if you're in a frigging wheelchair or some arctic wasteland, there's no excuse for that. Stop being so damn lazy, leave the car behind.

Re:Printing is a HASSLE

[xaxa]

I get the best quality prints in color, on demand, without dickering with drivers, and just having to drive about 1/4 mile to get it

You drive *converts* 400m?

Try walking, if you're average it should take four-five minutes (average walking speed: 80m/min, but 100m/min should be no problem).

Re:Printing is a HASSLE

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this obsession with drivers (usually heard from Linux Zealots, and maybe Mac Hipsters) I keep seeing online? If you have that much trouble... you're doing it wrong.

Re:Printing is a HASSLE

[noidentity]

For me, paper cost and environmental impact is the least of annoyances when printing. The cost of the paper is very clear, unlike the cost of printer wear and supplies. First off, there are the ridiculous inkjet printers, with their massively-overpriced ink. I've given up on them. Even with a laser printer, I have to power it up, wait for it to warm up, and know I'm wasting some toner on the setup process each time. Compare with reading on screen, no contest.

Re:Printing is a HASSLE

[blueturffan]

Really?

I just click "print" and the paper comes out of the printer. Installing a driver takes 2 minutes tops and printing over a network is not really any more difficult than printing over USB. Sure, you have to know the IP address or hostname of the device, but we're not talking rocket science here.

But don't let me get in the way of a nice hyperbole-filled rant...

This geek still prints on paper

[junglebeast]

There is still no technology that is superior to paper when it comes to reading and reviewing articles.

Although I write on the computer all day, when it comes to giving my full attention to reading a complex paper, I cannot do it without printing it out. Somehow the ability to find a comfortable position and scribble all over it with the freedom of an actual pencil allows me to relax and go into deep-thinking mode much better.

Ebook readers just aren't anywhere near what they need to be in order to replace paper for reading PDFs.

And I see nothing wrong with a company that sells paper launching an advertising campaign encouraging people to use their product. They are just a business trying to make a profit at what they do. If you think printing on paper needs to be cut back, then lobby for some new laws to limit how much paper can be produced, but attacking the paper companies for trying to make a profit is not the right way to go about it.

Re:This geek still prints on paper

[Trepidity]

Yeah... the resolution and daylight visibility beats e-paper, too. When it's something I don't have to pay too much close attention to, I sometimes print out 2 pages per side, i.e. 4 pages per physical sheet of paper. And that is still more readable to me than, say, a Kindle, especially for papers formatted like academic papers. On occasion I've even done 4-per-side, and it's readable.

Re:This geek still prints on paper

[Anonymous Coward]

This gets back to the resolution discussion a few days ago. Laser printers commonly print at a resolution of 600 dpi, and 1200 dpi or more is not uncommon. Reading lots of text on paper is a completely different experience from 100 dpi screens.

CO2 and Geek Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

I still can't believe that supposedly intelligent people which we know as geeks believe the utter tripe of the "Global Warming" scare and that CO2 is a problem. Be thankful that the Earth is still heating up because when it stops heating up, we enter the next phase; something we will most definitely NOT like - something called the ice age. Also, CO2 is NOT a problem, its a solution.

Re:CO2 and Geek Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe ignorant fuckwads like you can even think of questioning the scientific consesus of virtually all the experts.

Stupid oil industry shill cunts like you should be banned from the web.

Re: Paper recycling

[IrishHammo]

As the CEO of Xerox once said, "we'll have the paperless office around the same time we have the paperless bathroom" For a Semi serious take on this http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/22/it_equals_lavatory_horror/

Re:Paper and Environment

[Michael Woodhams]

Having just skimmed the paper, it doesn't look like they account for CO2 removed from the atmosphere by the growing trees. Here's a quick calculation of that:
Assumption 1: all plant matter which does not make its way into paper is burned, or otherwise releases its carbon as CO2, hence is neutral for this analysis. (It could net contribute to greenhouse if it releases as methane instead.)
Assumption 2: paper is 100% cellulose.

Cellulose is a polymer of (C5 H10 O5), which means that it is 4/9 carbon by weight. One unit of carbon burns to produce 11/3 = 3.667 units of CO2. So one unit of paper would burn to produce 44/27 = 1.630 units of CO2, and conversely, 1.63 tonnes of CO2 were removed from the atmosphere to make that paper.

So we're still behind on CO2. And, of course, there are all sorts of other environmental costs.

I get it...

[Abalamahalamatandra]

This is really just a clever cross-promotion by NBC for The Office, right?

I keep expecting Michael Scott to pop up somewhere.

It's not the environment

[Xtravar]

It's because printers are crap. Nobody wants to own something that *never* works the few times of year you need it. Fuck that.

If they want people to print stuff, they should make it 'cool' to print stuff. Like if Apple came out with a printer that 'just worked'. Yeah, maybe then I would print things.

Re:It's not the environment

[Garridan]

My parents laugh whenever they see me writing down directions on a piece of paper -- after all, I'm the computer person, why don't I use the printer? 10 years ago, she thought I was whack not to use Mapquest, and now it's Google. My directions are much less complex and faster, and I can read the map I draw while driving. And 99% of the hard-copy information I need from a computer is directions (though I'm fine with a paper map) -- why the hell would I buy a printer? For the other 1%, I'd rather pay somebody $.05 a page to purchase and maintain the hardware -- if I didn't have access to printers at work.

Re:It's not the environment

[Cro Magnon]

My home printer has been borked for years, but it's not really worth it to fix/replace it when I use it so seldom. The last time I did need to print something, I just emailed it to my work address and printed it there.

Re:Paper and Environment

[interkin3tic]

You can still dig up readable newspapers from the 1800's.

Yeah, but then it's stinky. You should probably just read today's news, it's more current anyway.

Re:Paper and Environment

[rtfa-troll]

Environmentalism is not like Palinism. It's science based not cult based. In science, a large amount of progress is had by conflicting ideas. Someone has a theory, they test this against the evidence. In a "science based" activity like medicine, you take the best guess you can based on the evidence available. This inevitably would lead to occasional changes in viewpoint. The suprising thing about environmentalism is how few of these have happened and how much the "anti-environmentalists" have to struggle to make it seem there has. "The environmentalists used to say there would be a global winter"; oh, no they didn't; but they used to say the world was cooling; oh no they didn't; but there was once an article by an environmentalist saying there might be cooling...

It's like the oil company lobbyists "there is no global warming"; okay "there is global warming, but it's not caused by humans"; okay "the global warming is caused by humans but it's within the normal limits"; okay, "the global warming is exceptional but it's for the good"; okay "the global warming is bad, but not using petrol would be worse"; okay "the global warming will be deadly but we'll be able to find a solution"; okay "we haven't found a solution, but we have lots of lobbyists, money and lawyers".

I hear they are not smoking as much pot, either

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Zig-zag and all those other supporters of "reefer madness" must be suffering dearly too. Back when Earth Day was a new idea, I preferred a bong. I guess I was ahead of my time ecology-wise. Of course, Wall Street papering over the biggest scam since the Depression must have used a lots of trees. One hand taketh away, and the other hand shoves it up your ass. Alas, I digress again.

Re:i musted have missed that memo

[Falconhell]

If you let me know your number I will fax you some blank paper. (:

Re:Paper and Environment

[interkin3tic]

environmentalists are just messed up and confused, they've got so many cruisades on these days they are bound to conflict.

Can you point to a group of people united in a cause that this is not true for? Open source or linux crowds? Moral crusaders? Liberals? Conservatives? Religious fundamentalists? You really shouldn't knock a cause based off of it's weakest links. Except for humor, like the whole "living in our parent's basement" thing we have going on here.

Speaking of, I think I heard the microwave upstairs tell me my hotpocket is done. Gonna eat it and talk trash on ubuntu now.

Re:Paper and Environment

[Dekker3D]

... "jerbs"? that sounds like a unit of distance in some corny sci-fi movie. "we're going at fifty jerbs a gleeb, sir! and they're still catching up!"

but yeah. sarcasm and silly words aside, you're probably right: paper itself may be carbon-neutral, but the process of making it still requires an awful lot of energy. energy that usually comes from burning stuff and putting more CO2 in the air.

What's Next?

[FrankDrebin]

"This page intentionally left black." - sponsored by HP Toner and Ink Division.

Tough article ? Print to save enrgy

[nikanth]

I save energy by reading printed copies of tough to understand/digest articles, rather than running my computer till I understand what it is. NO NO I didn't print this article, as this is very light

Re: Paper recycling

[Jeremi]

As the CEO of Xerox once said, "we'll have the paperless office around the same time we have the paperless bathroom"

Actually, a paperless bathroom would be an improvement. Imagine if people cleaned their hands solely by wiping their hands with a dry piece of toilet paper. Not very effective, right? Well, the same logic applies elsewhere, if you take my meaning.

Re:Him and the Pope!

[jabithew]

The Pope is German. Not that I think that helps much.

paper...

[smash]

sucks. I don't print as often as possible, not because of environmental concerns, but simply because

• i can't search paper with ctrl+f, sed, or whatever
• paper takes up too much space on my desk/li>
• finding a particular piece of paper, and filing it is a pain in the arse

fuck paper, let it die. Sure, for things that need to be kept physically secure, a (or multiple, even) paper copy makes sense - but thats less than 1% of the information I deal with, personally.

Yes Mr Burns?

[cyberzephyr]

"Smithers,bring out my life sucking device".

Yes sir.

Re:Paper and Environment

[thestuckmud]

You are assuming most of the new paper made from virgin fiber remains intact. In fact, most of it will be disposed of: Either incinerated or stored in a landfill. Landfill storage turns out to be problematic: "Quantification of methane emissions from landfilled paper is still imprecise, but if it is included, at the least, the yield, measured in terms of CO2 equivalents, will be increased by a factor of 2.5 compared with the CO2 emitted during complete incineration." [Wood in Our Future: The Role of Life-Cycle Analysis: Proceedings of a Symposium (1997) ]

Either way, paper is a net contributor of greenhouse gasses. Also note the original reference I chose was from a "green" paper company. Estimates from environmental groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund Paper Calculator, indicate far higher net CO2-equivalent impact - 5882 lb CO2 equivalent per ton of copy paper according to the EDF, a ton more than Verso's estimate.

The cows analogy

[ircharlie]

If we all stopped eating meat would there be more/fewer cows in the world? If we stopped using trees for paper would there be more/fewer trees in the world? We aren't cutting down rain forests for paper (at least not in my country) - they tend to come from managed forestry that would just get turned over to grazing land if paper wasn't required any more.

I would print more if printing support didn't suck

[bhaak1]

Really which of the available browsers is able to make decent printouts?

You can be happy, if the printed pages don't have large areas of white because of sidebars that make no sense in a printout. That is of course partly to web sites not providing special print pages (although if the web site designers did it right, they wouldn't need to such pages), but also simple table-less html pages look awful printed.

I know very well that web layout and print layout differ significantly. But that makes downloading a web page and manually tweaking it so it doesn't look printed as ugly as it would unchanged less annoying.

Re:Many posts about fast growing trees farmed 4 pa

[Yvanhoe]

Instead of using that timber for paper, it'll be used for lumber or for biomass electricity generation (which has a net zero carbon emission).

Paper production has a negative one. If that is your only metric, paper wins. Anyway the most efficient way to capture CO2 that we know today is to grow tree, cut them, repeat. Activities that involve that are good with respect to CO2. Nasty chemicals are indeed another problem.

Re:Paper and Environment

[Shillo]

Hey, reality check: not all pollution is CO2 pollution.

Paper factories are *major* water polluters.

DEB

[Anonymous Coward]

Every document read on screen is a lost sale to the paper companies. The paper companies should of lobbied with the rest of them for inclusion in the Digitial Economy Act. I think Mr Williams missed a trick there.

iPad = printer

[gig]

This guy needs a new business, because an iPad has replaced my printer. Does all the same things, even uses the same USB port. There's no going back for me.

Re:Paper and Environment

[gzipped_tar]

This is not just about CO2. It's about fast-growing commercial trees replacing the natural habitats of the land.

Cutting down trees??

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument is similar to saying that eating veal is negative to the population of cows, because we are killing them. No, we are *growing* them; if we all stopped eating veal one day, the cows as a biological species would disappear.

Re:Cutting down trees??

[dwarfsoft]

"Growing Cows" is as ecologically sustainable as "Growing Trees" at the moment. Just because I said it is an Environmental Negative doesn't stop me from both:

1) Eating Cows
and
2) Printing on Paper

Neither of which I said we shouldn't do, I just laughed that he believed it wasn't an environmental negative. I could have taken this stance because:
1) I think that cutting down trees is an Environmental Negative or
2) Clearing land to make tree farms is also an Environmental Negative.

The rate of extinction of animals as their natural habitats are removed for more 'convenient' materials farming is probably the worst ecological disaster facing us. Most wouldn't care about it, myself included. This still does not mean I can't laugh that some Paper Company Executive believes the lies he is shovelling.

Re:Paper and Environment

[Zumbs]

And then you haven't even mentioned the CO2 cost of producing/recycling paper, as well as transport to and from the consumer.

If printing itself didn't suck...

[SharpFang]

The shit printer manufacturers put us through. Smaller ink cartridges, no refill, timed killswitch, DRM, "need ink to scan" and the shit of "cheap printer, expensive cartridges" they put us through. People see it and avoid it. They realize a page printed in the home printer is about $0.50, so a booklet of 50 pages will be $25. I have no qualms printing 100 pages at $0.03 per page on my old laser printer. But I see how people wince when an ink printer spits out a full-color test page at a wrong press of a button. And endless problems - drying up ink, printers failing and so on.

Take a step back towards printers with reasonable cost per page, and the paper sales will increase...

Re:If printing itself didn't suck...

[Hrshgn]

Never really understood why most people buy ink jet printers anyway. I suspect stupidity though.

Re:If printing itself didn't suck...

[SharpFang]

Find a color printer of comparable price. Not -as- cheap, but say, return on investment after 4 sets of cartridges.
The problem is people want the option of printing in color, and color laser printers cost arm and leg.

Dawn® dishwashing detergent for your dishes.

[rts008]

Well then, I guess it's time to break out the wire brush and some Crack of Dawn® asswashing detergent!

Re:Paper and Environment

[mcvos]

Environmentalism is not like Palinism. It's science based not cult based.

True, but due to lack of scientific understanding in society, anything science-based can still have a tendency to become cultish when it becomes mainstream. Remember, there are also people who treat evolution as a religion. I've been hearing lots of really crazy stuff pretending to be environmentalism in the past couple of years.

Initech

[jDeepbeep]

We're doing our part. We're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now.

Flintstones

[Issarlk]

"Domtar, a major North American stone tablet manufacturer, has launched an advertising campaign to encourage people to carve more documents in stone. Domtar CEO John Williams opposes campaigns by other companies asking employees to be responsible with what they carve. 'Young people really are not carvers. When was the last time your children demanded a tablet?' Mr. Williams said ... 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that carving isn't a sort of environmental negative.' The industry expects that, absent this campaign, tablet demand will decrease by 4% annually. Williams's comments did not go down well in some environmental circles."

Re:Many posts about fast growing trees farmed 4 pa

[Rogerborg]

Uh... you get the part about requiring energy to turn trees in the forest into paper in your hand, right? They don't pulp themselves, you know.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Try handing in a thesis without printing it.... and try paying for the cost of that!!! pheeewww... don't even get me started on government forms... job applications... etceteras.. THOSE are a COMPLETE waste of paper!!!

RRR... RRR... I still like to print thigns out once in a while, but unless you NEED to, what's the point? Might as well read it as many times as needed on a computer... plus, how many times hace you repeated the phrase... "where did I leave that piece of paper"???

I am pro hemp paper!!!!!!!!!!! or bannanna peel paper... I had a notebook of that once... smells nice too.. and it's thicker paper.

Re:Paper and Environment

[daem0n1x]

Yeah, but then it's stinky. You should probably just read today's news, it's more current anyway.

No, they stink just the same.

Re:Paper and Environment

[delinear]

The obvious issue you're missing here is that people are specifically setting aside land for trees for renewable paper resources. If the demand for the paper wasn't there, there'd be no monetary incentive to grow the trees, these aren't just "found trees" on land nobody owns, they're a for-profit concern. The only way this would be viable is if governments paid the owners for the trees to remain uncut, or purchased the land for the same purpose, but that would likely require some kind of green tax and for people to actually support their principles with cold, hard cash, which is usually the sticking point.

Assuming we can't find such a solution, the question right now is whether growing the trees and sinking them into paper is better for the environment than, say, turning the same land over to cattle or food production. In an ideal world people would just grow trees, but this is far from an ideal world, so we have to look at practical solutions.

What humans too frequently forget is that the Earth is a fragile eco-system and you can quite often do a lot of bad by trying to do good. One example is the negative publicity about nuclear in the 80's, for instance, which has probably been more detrimental to the Earth since we've relied on the more polluting coal and oil industries instead - in an ideal world we'd rely on renewables of course, but again, the real world requires practical solutions. Another case in point, only today there's a story about the clean air act in the US actually contributing to climate change, good intentions which, prima facie seem to be laudable but have negative outcomes, we're just too reactionary a race and the whole "stop using paper" movement is another potential area where we need to consider all the facts before making a decision, and all the solutions. For instance, off the top of my head, it might be better that trees collect the CO2 into paper simply because we then have a form of carbon that's easier to deal with than having it loose in the atmosphere, even if we're not dealing with it very well right now, and of course that has to be offset by the negative impact of actually producing and transporting paper products.

Re:Paper and Environment

[delinear]

You also have the same issue we have everwhere in life - the second money or fame become a factor, people have a reason to spin their findings. Right now we have so many people trying to, on one side, prove global warming is nothing to do with humans and is perfectly natural and something we can live with, and on the other side that it's all caused by humans and unless we fix things now we have 20 years left, and the ones who win the arguments aren't necessarily the ones who have the best science. They're the ones with the money, or the ones who can align their findings with government stances, or the ones who can best play to the conservative or liberal media, so instead of reasoned debate we tend very quickly towards polarised viewpoints and then expect everyone to jump into one or the other. Then we'll rush off and implement some highly reactionary solution which ignores the real issues.

Personally I think the truth is somewhere between the two camps, but even as someone who tries to follow the best evidence on this subject, I find it difficult to reconcile a lot of the findings. For that reason I recognise that my opinion is pretty much a gut feeling and in no way scientific, even though it's driven completely by science.

Re:Paper and Environment

[delinear]

If there was a way to remove the paper from the equation without burning it or adding it to landfill, some kind of treatment that would lock in the CO2 for instance, would this tip the scales in favour of paper having a net positive effect on emissions? My worry is that, on the cold facts, the most sensible approach is to largely do away with paper production, but perhaps we've just not considered an alternative which allows us to grow the trees without turning it into greenhouse gasses later, when we dispose of the paper.

Re:Paper and Environment

[delinear]

This is not just about CO2. It's about fast-growing commercial trees replacing the natural habitats of the land.

Because, of course, if those land owners couldn't make money from growing commercial trees they'd just turn it all over to mother nature, rather than, say, using it for cattle, or landfill, or lobbying the government to allow them to build on it...

Re: Paper recycling

[maxume]

Effective at what?

I clean my hands because I am bent on choosing the things that end up in my mouth, even though I just use a dry piece of toilet paper to wipe it, I keep my anus out of my mouth just fine.

Re:It's not individuals that paper companies need.

[calmofthestorm]

I started emailing all my problemsets smore year and never looked back.

Re:Paper and Environment

[obarthelemy]

i'd actually be interested in knowing how many pages of paper it takes to make as much environmental damage as a single iPad, cradle-to-grave, including a realists % of recycling of both.

No old trees? yeah right

[Diantre]

To all the wise asses claiming paper is made only from tree farms.... You obviously haven't been hiking in the North of Québec. Here I am, walking in a millenia old forest, when suddenly we are greeted by the sound of heavy machinery. there was a tree less clearing about a mile wide, smack in the middle of this immensly complex eco-system. The land (governmental park) had just been sold to...you guessed it: Domtar.

Re:Paper and Environment

[obarthelemy]

Yes and no. Both actually mainly deal in feelings and money. Case in point: does anyone actually know the cradle-to-grave environmental impact of any action or object ? Is it better to get a $30 light bulb, or a $0.5 one and give $49.5 to a charity ? Is planting a tree in my garden and then watering it a "good" move ? Actually, should I not actually use more water, because the profits generated go into improving supply and efficiency ? and so on...

Re:Paper and Environment

[mcvos]

Right now we have so many people trying to, on one side, prove global warming is nothing to do with humans and is perfectly natural and something we can live with, and on the other side that it's all caused by humans and unless we fix things now we have 20 years left,

Exactly what I'm talking about. According to some people, we should be moving to the hills pretty soon. But according to the worst case scenario, sea level rise over the next 100 years is not going to be more than 1 meter. I live below sea level, and strengthening our dikes to deal with 1 meter sea level rise is going to cost money, but it can be done. If we do nothing, it's going to take well over a century before we actually need to evacuate. But when that happens, evacuating 7 million people (probably double that by that time) is going to cost a fortune. Fighting global warming might actually be cheaper.

Fighting global warming isn't so much for us, it's for generations to come. We're not going to drown, we're only going to suffer inconvenience. Different weather patterns. More extreme weather, possibly. Eco-systems disrupted. Low-lying island nations like the Maldives are in real trouble. Problems, sure, expensive ones perhaps, but not fatal ones. With sufficient money and resources, we can deal with that.

The real problems are centuries in the future. Evacuating coastal cities and stuff like that is only necessary once really major continental icecaps melt away completely. I believe Greenland represents 3 meters of sea level rise (but it'll still take centuries before it all melts), West Antarctica is about 7 meters, and East Antarctica 30 meters. If that ever starts to melt (no sign of that yet, fortunately), might be in real trouble.

Re:Many posts about fast growing trees farmed 4 pa

[drinkypoo]

Perhaps, perhaps not. Take your example of biomass. Think that doesn't have as much pollution as paper production? Hint: it ain't carbon neutral anymore than paper production is.

Actually, it is. It takes energy to make the paper, but if you're just burning the wood, you're just burning the wood, you're not shredding it, boiling it, mixing it, bleaching it which is one of the worst parts of the process... and the bleach itself is made by dumping chemicals in a vat and running current through them. It's trivial to see that making paper consumes more energy and produces more pollution than simply burning it.

But regardless, land must produce more revenue than the property taxes so one way or another value WILL be reaped, regardless the environmental impact. Some will get flattened for development, some will become pasture land, farmland, whatever. That law of unintended consequences always bits ya. Ponder that before dreaming of a world without paper.

There are numerous methods of land use which improve the land, rather than harming it. Permacultural farming, for example, builds soil. Unlike so-called "green revolution" farming, which destroys it and turns it into basically a hydroponic growing medium incapable of supporting healthy crops. Or grazing of buffalo (not cows, for obvious reasons) on native grasses; same thing. Both are profitable exercises.

Re:Paper and Environment

[vegiVamp]

Umm... fast-growing trees swallow less CO2 than slow-growing ones, I think. Thus, replacing a 200 year old oak with three or four saplings that you'll be harvesting in five or ten years, is not really a balanced trade.

paper companies should complain to ink companies

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps if printer ink were affordable, we would be more interested in printing?

Seriously, I do my best to draw on real paper but I can barely afford to print on it.

Re:Paper and Environment

[dfenstrate]

...Palinism

So, now that Bush-hating is becoming inexcusably passe, there's a new target for the 'progressives' daily two-minute hate.

paper uses less energy?

[Chewbacon]

It seems to me paper would use less energy than looking at a document/book on PDF. You spend the energy making paper, printing a book, binding the pages, and sit it on a shelf and there's on batteries required for the life of the book. On the other hand, charging your iPad, Kindle, etc. costs energy and the cost of manufacturing those devices is more. You could grow new trees within the lifespan of a book. This makes me thing of why I don't print things and when it comes down to it, I think it's because I don't want to store the paper, go by new paper, etc. I'm lazy.

Bamboo?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Something occurrs to me. What is the problem with making paper out of bamboo rather than trees? It grows fast and you can grow it just about anywhere.

Re:Paper and Environment

[Abstrackt]

... "jerbs"? that sounds like a unit of distance in some corny sci-fi movie. "we're going at fifty jerbs a gleeb, sir! and they're still catching up!"

"Jerbs" is used by the rednecks in South Park in the episode where people from the future take their jobs.

the science doesn't really matter in the long run

[Tristfardd]

The issue isn't nice and neat.

Carbon
When it comes to carbon everything depends on its origin and its destination. Carbon only exists in the earth, in the biosphere, and in the atmosphere. That's it. It transfers easily between the biosphere and the atmosphere, not so with the earth. The environmental problem results from digging up lots of carbon and having it end up in the atmosphere. When making paper, carbon becomes an issue when it is dug out of the ground and burned to make electricity to make the paper. That's the only carbon that counts. This use of carbon can be mitigated by printing telephone books and burying them in the ground. This takes carbon out of the atmosphere/biosphere for a long time, not geologically long, but long.

Water
Water stays water. Production of paper can result in water pollution, but not water loss. There are two types of water pollution, chemical and heat (hot water can be environmentally bad). Paper mills result in less water pollution than people think and keeping the water clean is a matter of legislation, not one of paper production.

Chemicals
Making paper uses chemicals. Most chemicals are recycled. When you see a pulp mill where logs go in and pulp and paper comes out, the big majority of the equipment and processes are dedicated to recycling the chemicals. Making paper isn't hard, its separating the fibers which takes all the work. Chemicals are expensive and the paper industry does its best not to lose any.

Heat
Definitely a waste byproduct. Nature likes to produce heat and anything we do has that result. The human body generates plenty of heat while sound asleep. That said, a pulp mill (people use bad terminology, paper mills aren't an issue) does its best to get as much work from the heat as possible. More and more mills have installed electrical turbines and some come close to generating all their own power. The electricity produced comes at a low cost. The mills already are using the steam, heating it up and cooling it down to make electricity is quite efficient.

Other issues such as old-growth are in pretty much the same boat.

There are problems with everything, once you decide to not live by chasing the migrating herds. I read all the nonsense about electronic books. What can you do? People want to make money and think selling everyone on the next best thing is the way to go. The human being is quite adaptable and can live with all sorts of stupid ideas. Is there too much waste paper in the world? Yes. Does anyone really think the human race is healthier for the invention of television?

Currently environmentalism is the hot secular religion. In another day and age building paper mills had the same cachet.

Re:Paper and Environment

[The_Wilschon]

Environmentalism, sure, I'll grant you. But environmentalists, like any large group dedicated to a cause, have a very large proportion of unthinking, true-believer fanatics in their midst. These fanatics can lose all sense of proportion, generally don't understand a bit of the science, and just cling to some particular mantra that they have come to believe is The Right Thing. For instance, the guy who threw molotovs through the windows of people's SUVs, or the guys who let out all those minks.

Re:Paper and Environment

[biryokumaru]

Wouldn't it be weird if all the bad press and lobbying against nuclear was really funded by the oil and coal folks? That would just be so... unexpected.

Re:Paper and Environment

[biryokumaru]

This is a fallacious argument. The amount of paper produced is significantly more than the number of iPads produced. The ratio would have to be on the order of an entire forest worth of paper per iPad for them to even start being close to the same scale in an economically meaningful way.

The image of each iPad costing 100 trees or something might be a strikingly effective visual against the type of people who would buy an iPad in the first place, but the economic argument it leads into doesn't really work like that. There's more to it.

For instance, if all the paper-equivalent iPad production were totaled up, I would be surprised if it even reached 5% of world-wide paper production. Thus, one iPad is insignificant against the power of the paper. There exists an argument that "every little bit helps" but the amount those little bits help can be economically demonstrated, and in this example iPads can be shown to be largely meaningless against the total environmental impact of paper.

So, yes, making iPads more green might be a worthy goal, but if you converted their impact to an equivalent "destruction of forests," it would be an inadequate comparison. Economists would laugh at you derisively.

As a final example, imagine I live in sub-Saharan Africa, and you live in Luxembourg. We might make the same amount of money in terms of US dollars, but my buying power will be incomparably higher in terms of respective GDP.

I try to compensate for low use elsewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

I use as much paper as I can in order to encourage the planting of trees. Someone's got to do it. If not, what do you think would happen to all those acres of trees you see in Google earth? Yep, they would be cut down and concreted over, new housing, offices, car parks, landscaping, railways, airports, quarries, roads. At least with trees there is a habitat for wild animals and somewhere to walk to get away from it all.

I'll be ordering more paper this evening and printing loads of stuff over the next few days. You could help too. Just print more. 38ppm! Brilliant.

Re:Paper and Environment

[shogun]

We could always just compress the carbon into diamonds, that would lock it out of the atmosphere for quite some time. Of course De Beers wouldn't be too happy about the glut of diamonds that would produce....

Hit Print

[commodore73]

Yesterday I noticed an advertisement in a printed copy of the economist magazine/newspaper with the tagline, "hit print", with text indicating that it costs less to print on HP printers. As someone who is at least slightly environmentally conscious, I was really shocked and actually somewhat offended - this is the opposite direction of where things are and should be going. These companies must be a little worried - 4% yearly is very significant. It's not just trees - pulping is bad for the environment (even recycled paper), and ink is not good either.

Some time ago I heard that an executive at the company for which I worked at the time had his admin print all of his email every moring. Also shocking.

I do generally listen to the economist instead of reading, and often leave my copy in the post office for someone to "reuse", but I don't think I can subscribe to audio only - they push the paper, probably to make their advertisers happy. Capitalism works against us in so many ways...

If it's not on paper, it does not exist

[UBfusion]

Call me an old school fart, or a Luddite, but I often think for me if it's not printed, it does not exist. Examples:

a) My daily to-do list. I cannot trust my PC for holding my appointments and errand lists. Moreover, when I'm on the move in the building, I cannot have my calendar with me. I cannot easily mirror my calendar on my smartphone, and I also tend to forget it behind during my trips. So the only solution that works is a printed calendar, which is bulky and easily lost, so the ideal solution is just a sheet of paper, handwritten or printed.

b) I have hundreds of research papers or pdf books that I can't seem to find the time to read. If I print them, they pile on my desk and their chances of being read increase a hundredfold.

c) Important emails and documents have to be printed so they stay on top of the pile of papers on my desk, or get into my bag when I go home. Otherwise they get buried to the point they are not important any more.

To summarise, my point of view is that for important tasks, the crucial information, if in digital form, gets buried under the tons of digital noise in my PC. IT is not suitable for critical tasks, at least for me. If I don't see in print, it can wait, and until it gets printed, it's just an avatar of the real necessity.

I have no obsession with non-angel white virgin paper - gray paper like the one used by the administration in Germany will do. So the answer for me is decentralised, small and efficient paper recycling facilities, that produce paper for the paper-hungry sectors, like education, administration etc.

Not a surprise

[foxalopex]

To be honest, I find the older generation tends to enjoy material on paper more than the younger generation who is more use to reading information on computer screens. Heck, I'm the only IT Tech for my company and I print far less than anyone else I know in the office. You would think that the computer expert on site would burn through more paper but that is simply not the case. I suspect with the coming of usable E-paper and more advanced tablet and display technologies that we will one day find ourselves relying less on paper. In the meantime, he has a point. I mean if you make cars for a living would you encourage people to buy less cars? It's like saying computers are bad for the environment (they are) but buy less so I can be out of a job! As for those who would argue paper is less green, the electronics unfortunately are not much better. Either way still has it's environmental impacts.

Re:Paper and Environment

[517714]

If you believe that "Environmentalism is not like Palinism" I suggest you read the link at the end. "The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not." - Eric Hoffer. The same applies to AGW zealots, deniers and the few scientists out there who are more interested in science than self promotion.

Many environmentalists did predict global cooling in the sixties and seventies. The information may not be as available online as more recent claims, but I recall as a child numerous predictions of a coming ice age. More recently, in 1991, Carl Sagan predicted on Nightline that Kuwaiti oil fires would produce a nuclear winter effect, causing a "year without a summer," and endangering crops around the world. Sagan stressed this outcome was so likely that "it should affect the war plans." http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html

I can't believe it they do mean it!

[Luke_2010]

ROTFL! So we have to print more?? Lovely!! Sure I'd never bet we would have ended up saying so when the whole information technology revolution starting from the 80s emphasized the "no paper at all" eco-compatible point of it. And, you know? Before the digital transition was complete, we already printed way too much, in the eighties and the nineties. Now, thanks to the ubiquity of our portable digital devices and the ease of accessing every document through the Internet, printed medias are finally becoming a thing of the past. Even State bureaucracy here in Italy has gone digital now, that's true progress and we don't absolutely need to go back. Printers' manufacturers should better resign themselves.

Re:Paper and Environment

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone dumb enough to live below sea level is just setting themselves up for some good old fashioned natural selection. I don't see why anyone should pay for the move except the people who were dumb in the first place.

Re:Paper and Environment

[obarthelemy]

corollary: however much I pollute is but a drop in the sea of pollution humanity generates, hence I can do whatever I want with no consequence ?

your logic is deeply flawed.

Re:I would print more if printing support didn't s

[Anonymous Coward]

You can be happy, if the printed pages don't have large areas of white because of sidebars that make no sense in a printout. That is of course partly to web sites not providing special print pages (although if the web site designers did it right, they wouldn't need to such pages), but also simple table-less html pages look awful printed.

The problem is that the United States drove forward a model in the nineties where it wasn't about the content printed on the pages. The content is secondary to annoying frames, because navigation became somewhat more important than content. Another problem that plagues our web 2.0 world today making printing a pain is that ads are embedded all over the content. If you think about geocities pages before the yahoo buyout, they had maybe 2 ads, near the top. They are the epitome of what a content-focused page is supposed to be: just that... a tableless freeform flow of text that is reminiscent of a book. Eventually we got frames just so companies could throw ads on the left, right, top and bottom of pages (not counting popups.)

Re:Paper and Environment

[vsny]

Thank you for some real data - instead of all the complaints "isn't it so obvious it's bad with chemicals, water, transport, blah blah blah".

It seems like we are pretty close to paper being a sequestration source.

Don't you think with technology improvements, avoiding certain bleaching and cleaning steps, and more efficient transportation it can cause a net reduction.

Isn't this an opportunity and not a problem?

Re:Paper and Environment

[MaskedSlacker]

Only until the forest reached maturity. Mature forests do not absorb any new carbon dioxide.

Re: Paper recycling

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact: Your mouth has more bacteria than your anus. News at 11.

Re:Paper and Environment

[Dthief]

My point is they are claiming: Our paper-making is net beneficial, which relative to doing nothing is not true.

I agree if the alternative is to turn the place into a parking lot, then they are the greenest company I know of.

Domtar - Dumbtard

[sydbarrett74]

Wow, CEO John Williams even looks like a Grade A wanker.

Re:Paper and Environment

[John Meacham]

That was in no way his argument.

It was more "if we have X dollars and we can either spend it on cutting 50% of the environmental impact of Y products, or 5% of the environmental impact of 10000*Y products, we should do the later."

It in no way said that small amounts of pollution don't matter. just that stopping a small amount of polution is less important than stopping a large amount of pollution if you had to choose between the two in your efforts. Of course doing both would be ideal.

It lasts longer falcondouche if you don't smoke it

[Anonymous Coward]

Falcondouche, we know you got 'hard up' for a puff of that funny stuff, so you smoked your hemp pants. No wonder you're so stupid.

The SHEER INTELLIGENCE... of 'Falcondouche'

[Anonymous Coward]

LMAO!

Re:The SHEER INTELLIGENCE... of 'Falcondouche'

[Falconhell]

WHOOOOSH! You just make it too easy!

Re:It lasts longer falcondouche if you don't smoke

[Falconhell]

Not hardup sunshine, I have plenty of the real green goodness, South Aust grown, best in the world!

Does it make you feel tough adding douche to someones name? It definatly makes you look juvenile!

Is it easy being THIS stupid, FALCONDOUCHE?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I qualified as a Telecommunications tech in 1979" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Tuesday April 27, @11:42PM (#32008806)

LMAO -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1619750&cid=32008590 see subject above, read url, and rinse-lather-repeat, falconDOUCHE... how stupid can you be? LOL, I bet you did that MERE TECHIE job on lol, telegraphs. I mean based on your dimwit reply in the url above, where you called others names no less?? Please, falconDOUCHE - do you think ANYONE believes that which I quote of you above, after reading the URL below it? LOL, not.

Go on, smoke some more dope pal, because I love watching you fuckup constantly. It's too easy to rattle your game.

Now about weed? Just judging by your "fine performance" as a "telecommunications tech" (not) 'back in the dinosaur days' no less as you stated above in quote, which we all know is b.s. based on your screwup in the url below it? I bet, lol, that some chump sold you lawn grass shavings and told you it was pot, and back in '79 too, and he's still (lol) selling it to you, telling you it is "the best there is", lmao... which is WHY you are so damned stupid now, lmao!

Re:Is it easy being THIS stupid, FALCONDOUCHE?

[Falconhell]

Sounds like you need a few cones to settle you down kindy boy.

The best part is I only have to type a few lines to get a massive, incoherent, angry response that only vaguely resembles english from you.

I can keep this up all day, nothing better than trolling the troll!

Thanks for the laughs!

(:

Tell us about your telecom tech skills (not)

[Anonymous Coward]

"I qualified as a Telecommunications tech in 1979" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Tuesday April 27, @11:42PM (#32008806)

LMAO -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1619750&cid=32008590 see subject above, read url, and rinse-lather-repeat, falconDOUCHE... how stupid can you be? LOL, I bet you did that MERE TECHIE job on lol, telegraphs. I mean based on your dimwit reply in the url above, where you called others names no less?? Please, falconDOUCHE - do you think ANYONE believes that which I quote of you above, after reading the URL below it? LOL, not. Chump YOU make it "too easy" to make you look like a FOOL... you can't even get email right (see url to anyone reading, lol), so you're far from a "telecom tech".

Tell us more about email FalconDOUCHE (LMAO!!!)

[Anonymous Coward]

"you do realise that there was no email in 1979 dont you? Oh of course being 10 you wouldnt" by Falconhell (1289630)
on Wednesday April 28, @12:35AM (#32009320)

Dimwit, there's been email systems since before ARPANET http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/email.html ... utterly unbelievable: Here's a quote from said "HISTORY OF EMAIL":

***

Email is much older than ARPANet or the Internet. It was never invented; it evolved from very simple beginnings.

Early email was just a small advance on what we know these days as a file directory - it just put a message in another user's directory in a spot where they could see it when they logged in. Simple as that. Just like leaving a note on someone's desk.

Probably the first email system of this type was MAILBOX, used at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1965. Another early program to send messages on the same computer was called SNDMSG.

Some of the mainframe computers of this era might have had up to one hundred users -often they used what are called "dumb terminals" to access the mainframe from their work desks. Dumb terminals just connected to the mainframe - they had no storage or memory of their own, they did all their work on the remote mainframe computer.

Before internetworking began, therefore, email could only be used to send messages to various users of the same computer. Once computers began to talk to each other over networks, however, the problem became a little more complex - We needed to be able to put a message in an envelope and address it. To do this, we needed a means to indicate to whom letters should go that the electronic posties understood - just like the postal system, we needed a way to indicate an address.

This is why Ray Tomlinson is credited with inventing email in 1972

***

LMAO, wait wait... it gets BETTER next, below (so "play it again, SAM"):

"I qualified as a Telecommunications tech in 1979" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Tuesday April 27, @11:42PM (#32008806)

LMAO -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1619750&cid=32008590 see subject above, read url, and rinse-lather-repeat, falconDOUCHE... how stupid can you be? LOL, I bet you did that MERE TECHIE job on lol, telegraphs. I mean based on your dimwit reply in the url above, where you called others names no less?? Please, falconDOUCHE - do you think ANYONE believes that which I quote of you above, after reading the URL below it? LOL, not. Chump YOU make it "too easy" to make you look like a FOOL... you can't even get email right (see url to anyone reading, lol), so you're far from a "telecom tech".

I'm glad you get your mod points back because the next time you call anyone names like you did in the url above? That quotes above, your screwups in it, and in the ones you screwed up on in the url below it, will come to light about your non-existent telecom tech skills (Lol, no way you are or were, because you can't even get simple facts about email right).

Re:Tell us more about email FalconDOUCHE (LMAO!!!)

[Falconhell]

I'm glad you get your mod points back because the next time you call anyone names like you did in the url above? That quotes above, your screwups in it, and in the ones you

Pricelessly nonsensical, keep going.

I especially like the way you complain about others writing when you cant form a coherent sentance!

ROFLMAO!

Prof. FalconDOUCHE's "email class lecture notes"

[Anonymous Coward]

"you do realise that there was no email in 1979 dont you? Oh of course being 10 you wouldnt" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Wednesday April 28, @12:35AM (#32009320)

Dimwit, there's been email systems since before ARPANET http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/email.html ... utterly unbelievable: Here's a quote from said "HISTORY OF EMAIL":

***

Email is much older than ARPANet or the Internet. It was never invented; it evolved from very simple beginnings.

This is why Ray Tomlinson is credited with inventing email in 1972

***

LMAO, wait wait... it gets BETTER next, below (so "play it again, SAM"):

"I qualified as a Telecommunications tech in 1979" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Tuesday April 27, @11:42PM (#32008806)

LMAO -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1619750&cid=32008590 see subject above, read url, and rinse-lather-repeat, falconDOUCHE... how stupid can you be? LOL, I bet you did that MERE TECHIE job on lol, telegraphs.

I mean based on your dimwit reply in the url above, where you messed up on the fact that hotmail does give away your IP address, and where YOU called others names no less?? LMAO!

(Man - Please, falconDOUCHE - do you think ANYONE believes that which I quote of you above, after reading the URL below it? LOL, not! LMAO... you can't even get email right (see url to anyone reading, lol), so you're far from a "telecom tech").

Re: Paper recycling

[Jeremi]

Effective at what?

Effective at removing viscous substances.

I keep my anus out of my mouth just fine.

The point was, wiping your anus with a dry piece of paper won't make it clean, any more than wiping your hands with a dry piece of paper would make them clean.

Re:Prof. FalconDOUCHE's "email class lecture notes

[Falconhell]

Yawn just another copy pasta. Very weak AC Very weak indeed.

Who has to be strong w/ you around FALCONDOUCHE?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't need to be strong, you do the job SO WELL, that you KNOCKED YOURSELF OUT below (lmao, hilarious shit):

"you do realise that there was no email in 1979 dont you? Oh of course being 10 you wouldnt" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Wednesday April 28, @12:35AM (#32009320)

Dimwit, there's been email systems since before ARPANET http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/email.html ... utterly unbelievable: Here's a quote from said "HISTORY OF EMAIL":

***

Email is much older than ARPANet or the Internet. It was never invented; it evolved from very simple beginnings.

This is why Ray Tomlinson is credited with inventing email in 1972

***

LMAO, wait wait... it gets BETTER next, below (so "play it again, SAM"):

"I qualified as a Telecommunications tech in 1979" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Tuesday April 27, @11:42PM (#32008806)

LMAO -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1619750&cid=32008590 see subject above, read url, and rinse-lather-repeat, falconDOUCHE... how stupid can you be? LOL, I bet you did that MERE TECHIE job on lol, telegraphs.

I mean based on your dimwit reply in the url above, where you messed up on the fact that hotmail does give away your IP address, and where YOU called others names no less?? LMAO!

(Man - Please, falconDOUCHE - do you think ANYONE believes that which I quote of you above, after reading the URL below it? LOL, not! LMAO... you can't even get email right (see url to anyone reading, lol), so you're far from a "telecom tech").

About "landing a blow"? Hell, I didn't even HAVE TO TAKE A SWING, lol... you KNOCKED YOURSELF RIGHT OUT with what's above, lmao!

A guy doesn't even NEED to try to get the "better of you" - heck, you do the job FOR ME, lmao!

Re:Paper and Environment

[obarthelemy]

well, mine was that before saying that printing is bad, we've got to make sure that the alternatives aren't worse. Giving tablets to everyone does not make sense, I'm curious about how many printed pages someone has to "consume" per year for switching to tablet/ereaders to be ecologically justified.

Re: Paper recycling

[maxume]

And the reply was that it seems to make it clean enough for millions of people (it isn't as if showering removes all the bacteria from your skin...).

Re:Paper and Environment

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that depends on the conditions at the landfill site.

Re:Paper and Environment

[rtfa-troll]

Look; you are talking about an essay which confuses an equation (the drake equation) with a theory (the drake equation is correct) with a project (SETI). I think your above comment has something worth discussing, but could you please rewrite it without the link to someone completely educationally subnormal who I just feel the need to trash in writing. Here goes:

The Drake equation is not an equation which was ever proposed to give an instant answer. Michael Crichton acts as if he was the person who discovered the uncertainty in the drake equation when in fact that uncertainty was the whole point of stating the drake equation. The Drake equation is, instead, a suggestion for a way of defining the things you have to find out in order to work out how much life there is in the universe.

Now, in so far as we can tell in an essay which doesn't even understand the basic names of the things it is trying to criticise, Crichton goes on to accuse SETI of lack of science. "SETI is not science" he says; "untestable theories may have heuristic value" he goes on, implying that SETI's theories are untestable. However, this is wrong. Seti's theory is simple to state:

We will be able to detect alien societies through their output of electromagnetic waves.

and the test is the quite simple one they are doing. Look for those waves. If you find them you are right, if you don't you are wrong.

Let's look further into his commentary (N.B. as ever I'm cutting out points I want to discuss; you have the link to the original so you can read it whole to understand what these represent). The bit about nuclear war: "The similarity to the Drake equation is striking"; "Nobody knows how much smoke will be generated when cities burn". Science is precisely about things that we don't know yet. If it was true that nobody had ever seen a city burn before, then there's a dead simple thing you can do. Nuke a city. It's not nice, but it is scientific. You might even be able to build a city and then nuke it (I believe this was done on a smaller scale for some early bomb tests).

Seldom have I seen a more pathetic attempt at showing up bad science. I agree with his conclusion (there needs to be science independent of special interests) but find myself almost doubting it as I read his paper.

please look for a better essay which shows your point.

Re:Paper and Environment

[rtfa-troll]

Yes and no. Both actually mainly deal in feelings and money. Case in point: does anyone actually know the cradle-to-grave environmental impact of any action or object ?

yes.

Is it better to get a $30 light bulb, or a $0.5 one and give $49.5 to a charity ?

Stupid straw man; a typical energy efficient light bulb is below $4 and actually saves you money over it's lifecycle. Give the money you save by going energy efficient to charity. Note that even mercury emissions are lower with CFL than with incandescent bulbs (something I just learned reading up for this comment).

Is planting a tree in my garden and then watering it a "good" move ?

They say there's no such thing as a stupid question, but that was one. It depends where your garden is. If it's in a region where trees grow naturally, it will soon stop needing water, so yes plant it. If it blocks out natural light on your balcony and you start needing to use electricity don't. If you live in a desert, plant a cactus instead. If you are watering it lots then don't. If you don't know and really care, hire an environmental scientist to tell you.

Actually, should I not actually use more water, because the profits generated go into improving supply and efficiency ? and so on...

broken window fallacy which has been covered on Slashdot so often I think your post could count as a troll; if you have spare money put it into charities and companies developing renewable energy which is starting to become truly cost effective.

Re:Paper and Environment

[rtfa-troll]

Agreed 100%. However, the main thing to remember here is it's exactly "like any large group dedicated to a cause". The fact that you hear so much about these people all the time whilst nobody mentions anti-environmentalist crazies should etc. etc. be the sign you need to know which side the media is on.

Actually I think this is quite typical for "science based" activities. It's very frustrating to be a doctor, be asked "what should I do to save my child; A or B?" and have to answer "no idea; neither is known to help". You end up justifying a whole load of pseudo science with "well, it won't hurt and might help; I need to do something". Look up "evidence based medicine" one day for an interesting take on the subject.