Green Reading
A few days ago, L’il Cayenne and I were watching The Wiggles. Murray was trying to figure out why his encyclopedia weighed more than his cook book (he’s not too sharp). Jeff pointed out that although a single page weighs hardly anything, a lot of pages together (like in an encyclopedia) are quite heavy. It got me thinking about the huge number of pages in my house.
Cosmically, I then received an e-mail yesterday from an organization called Eco-Libris. The idea behind the new earth friendly group is to provide a method for book lovers to offset their dead tree habit by paying for the planting of new trees. Their web site says:
Every book was once a tree.
Now you can plant a tree for every book you read.
I have some issues with the one-to-one correspondence between books and trees. However, the site charges $5 to plant five trees, which seems pretty reasonable. Check them out for one more way to reduce that big ‘ol footprint you’ve got.
I have a ton of books all over my house. Still, I don’t feel as bad about books as I do newspapers. Books will be re-used, shared, sold at a garage sale, or donated to charity. I’ve never seen anyone throw a box of books into a trash can. Newspapers on the other hand…
July 18, 2007 7:00 am 
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By flavawheel, July 18, 2007 @ 6:14 pm
Offset credit mania — catch it!
Maybe in a few years you’ll be able to buy an offset credit for killing someone: “You may have stabbed your dealer to death after he stiffed you on that meth deal, but you can honor his memory with a new life. For each person you cap or shank, we’ll bring an adorable, bouncing new baby into the world at our well-appointed Eastern European baby kennel.”
Ah, I jest, but I can’t tell you how many 425 h.p. Mercedes E55s and the like you see out here with carbon offset stickers. Dude, come ON.
By Frank, July 18, 2007 @ 8:49 pm
Once again we are having a serendipitous connection. Today, at the Conservation Station at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom (we are vacationing in Orlando this week), my boys and I were told that a 3 foot stack of paper equals a tree. So you should be able to plant a tree for every 10-12 books and call it even.
By DJ Cayenne, July 19, 2007 @ 10:25 am
Flav: I am a bit suspicious of the offset markets in general. The whole “trust me – we’re offsetting for you” is a leap of faith that I am sure is being exploited by the unscrupulous somewhere.
Frank: Thanks for dropping some science on us. It was going to get expensive fast around here.
By Herman Glimscher, July 19, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Well, by looking into the EPA position on environmental offsets, I found out that the current EPA Chairman is named Wally Cox. Who next? Charlie Weaver? Rose Marie?
Anyway, I think that offsets have their place, but cannot be the entire solution. (I am not suggesting that anyone who has posted or commented thus far has indicated that they do. Just shooting off my fat trap, as is my wont.) The thing about planting trees as an offset is that companies like Georgia Pacific plant all kinds of trees all the time just so that they know they have plenty to cut down later. Recycling and purchasing paper products made from recycled resources seems to be a more up-front way of dealing with the problem.
However, if these trees are being planted in places where Weyerhauser and Georgia Pacific can’t get at them, then the offsets might actually represent a net gain in trees, a result that can’t be bad.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I am neither a scientist, a philosopher, or a bio-ethicist, although I do play all three on the TV inside my head.
By Mike Burke, July 26, 2007 @ 4:03 pm
Dear D.J:
You say you’ve “never seen anyone throw a box of books in the trashcan”? At our local frequent library sales, after the “buck-a-bag” offers, any books left unsold, (and I’m talking about several hundred books each time), get shoved into an enormous dumpster. i.e dumped in the trash. I doubt that they get recycled. I think they go to the land fill… how many trees is that?