Friday July 3, 2009

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Today's Commentary: By Lou Guzzo Environmental Extremists’ “Save Our Trees” Stance Is Whacky For a very good reason, I have saved an important letter written by my old friend, Dave James, who was a crackerjack reporter at the Seattle Times. Dave left the Times many years ago to take a good job as a director of communications at the Weyerhaeuser Company, the forest-industry giant. Dave, exasperated by the news media’s unfounded support of save-the-forests addicts, wrote the following letter to a TV environmental reporter in August, 1992: “The other night, you stated that shoppers should ask for plastic bags, rather than paper because that will save ‘our’ trees. I don’t know where you got this information, but I can tell you it is wrong. “Plastics are derived from petroleum, an irreplaceable resource. Paper comes from waste-wood products, chipped and pulped from trees, our greatest replaceable natural resource. I spent 28 of my 92 years in the forest-products industry in Western Washington. I have seen two crops of timber harvested off commercial lands and a third crop coming on. “The benefit of cutting a tree for commercial use is that it begins creating useful products and jobs the moment it goes off the stump. It is picked up, hauled, sorted for species and quality, milled, packaged, delivered to dealers and finally used by carpenters. “Aside from Boeing, this is one of the biggest job providers in Washington. It has been an active industry in Washington since the first mill was built at Fort Vancouver, Washington, in 1827. “Urbanites assume that our timber supply is shrinking because of clear-cutting. I have never seen a clear cut that failed to restock trees either naturally or by hand planting. Responsible ownerships plant trees immediately after cutting and the average is three trees planted for each one cut. The real clear-cuts in Western Washington are on lands once heavily forested. They are the cities, shopping malls, farm lands, and housing developments. “I leave it to the people’s choice about plastic or paper bags, but I don’t like to hear people broadcast that using plastic saves trees. Trees do an admirable job of saving themselves.” It’s a letter that should be read and re-read by everyone --- and it should be read particularly by all those self-appointed environmentalists who don’t know what they’re talking about. Dave, my old friend, rest in peace. You did your job well.

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