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Today is Arbor Day
Read a blog. Save a tree.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on April 27, 2007 at 09:11 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
My blog is forest-destruction neutral. Every time I get a hit, I go out and chop down a tree.
Posted by: Brian Moore at Apr 27, 2007 9:31:04 AM
So basically the guy who owns the "saved tree" won't be selling his tree.
Great, is there anyone else we should starve today?
Posted by: Matt at Apr 27, 2007 9:48:24 AM
Yeah, but there's really no substitute for the paper with my morning coffee.
Posted by: ricpic at Apr 27, 2007 10:57:53 AM
hopefully in the future we'll read everything on little ipod like pads and even more of the forests will be saved, although a bigger problem is clearing for farmland.
Posted by: adrian at Apr 27, 2007 1:14:17 PM
No. Climb a tree, escape the blogs.
Posted by: amit varma at Apr 27, 2007 1:18:23 PM
ricpic,
Yes, there is a substitute, unless you want to read the news on the train or something. I haven't subscribed to an actual paper newspaper for years now, I get all my news from a combination of:
1) free specialized news servies from Yahoo, allowing me to read in depth about things I want to read about, such as the Middle East, or science, or whatever. Teh local city paper has only so much space to give me news, and insists on making me wade through things I could care less about (local politics, local house fires etc.) to get a mere fraction of what I can get from Yahoo. Yahoo is free, my local paper isn't. Also I go to specialized sites like Bloomberg for financial news, which also is up to date in a way my newspaper can't possibly be, and more intelligently and thoroughly covered.
2) Links from blogs (Marginal Revolution) and user submitted sites like reddit, as well as free specialized sites like Reason magazine (and its blog too). This too is free, and gives me access to both superior news and superior analysis than my local paper's biased and ignorant viewpoint can possibly provide.
3) Cable tv, alternating between the biased junk on FOX and the biased (in a different direction) junk on CNN. Also various other channels for more specialized news, like ESPN for sports or various channels for financial/business news. Technically I pay for this, but even without it I'd pay for cable anyway for tv shows and movies, so it is effectively free for me.
4) The occasional buy of a local newspaper for in depth coverage of a local event or a headline that captures my notice. Neither happens much though.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Apr 27, 2007 1:34:23 PM
No, read a blog and print-out 10,000 copies = save a tree. (i.e. increase demand for tree products and you will have more trees.)
Posted by: Henrico Otto at Apr 27, 2007 1:37:03 PM
Yes, but when reading material switches from paper to non-paper, the demand for trees declines. This reduces the price for trees, and thus the return to growing trees. So people grow fewer trees. In fact, if the price drops enough, some forest owners will chop down their forests to build condos and strip malls.
So: Save trees -- print all the blog posts! ;-)
(Reference: Michael R. Darby, "Paper Recycling and the Stock of Trees," Journal of Political Economy Vol. 81, No. 5. (Sep. - Oct., 1973), pp. 1253-1255.)
Posted by: Robert Book at Apr 27, 2007 1:41:01 PM
I suppose that at the margin we'd have fewer trees if we stopped using paper due to other more profitable uses of the land. But there is a huge substitution effect for the trees, namely lumber (and to a much lesser extent wood burning stoves and fireplaces). The lower prices from an increased supply of lumber would induce more building with wood, thus negating much of the presumed paving of former woodlands.
Also it would make room for more farmland, thus reducing the need for inorganic farming methods, and their resultant spillage into oceans. If we tried to have organic farming worldwide, Norman Borlaug says we could only feed 4 billion people (we currently have about 6.5 billion) without chopping down forestland.
If we somehow stopped using paper for reading and writing purposes, we'd still not be in danger of most timberland going to pavement and brickand mortar uses. Maine would still be mostly safe from economic progress.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Apr 27, 2007 2:25:47 PM
Dorks.
Posted by: Jacqueline at Apr 27, 2007 3:22:06 PM
My copy of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" is (almost) forest-destruction-neutral: http://www.blogigo.de/kopf_voran/Ressourcen-sparen/5378/
Posted by: SteffenH at Apr 28, 2007 12:44:41 PM
