Yucks, more dead-tree printing. So much for the 'cradle of innovation' from Silicon Valley, lol.
You could argue it’s pretty monocultural but otherwise I don’t see much of s problem with it.
Someone elsewhere in the discussion asks for a Kindle edition; that'd be a great way to keep unnecessary paper down.
I'd rather have the dead trees, thanks.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://twosidesna.org/US/our-carbon-footprint-how-do-paper-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_paper
> discarded paper and paperboard make up roughly 26% of solid municipal solid waste in landfill sites
> In the United States the pulp and paper industry released about 79, 000 tonnes or about 5% of all industrial pollutant releases in 2015...
> Worldwide, the pulp and paper industry is the fifth largest consumer of energy, accounting for four percent of all the world's energy use.
> Wastewater discharges for a pulp and paper mill contains solids, nutrients and dissolved organic matter such as lignin. It also contains alcohols, and chelating agents and inorganic materials like chlorates and transition metal compounds. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus can cause or exacerbate eutrophication of fresh water bodies such as lakes and rivers. Organic matter dissolved in fresh water, measured by biological oxygen demand (BOD), changes ecological characteristics. Wastewater may also be polluted with organochlorine compounds. Some of these are naturally occurring in the wood, but chlorine bleaching of the pulp produces far larger amounts.
> The pulp and paper industry is also associated with important emissions of heavy metals. In Canada, for example, this industry is the third source of lead (Pb) emissions to water[27] In the U.S., the pulp and paper industry is responsible for 9% of industrial releases to water.
and so on...
Even if the 1% number were fair/complete, combating climate change is likely going to involve a lot of small cuts rather than one or two big ones. Avoiding printing stuff we don't need to print is worthwhile.
That being said, an individual reducing their consumption of paper based products is arguably the least impactful action we can take as a society.
Instead we should be focusing on the packaging industry's use of onetime use packaging for products, particularly those that are difficult or impossible to recycle (e.g. milk cartons, juice boxes, etc). This is not only a huge contributor to paper pollution but also micro-plastics pollution and landfill waste in general.
Greater Container-deposit legislation on more products (e.g. plastic bottles) and on limited use but highly recyclable paper goods (e.g. newspapers and magazines) would greatly increase the amount of recycling we do as well.
So you're arguing against using crop land to produce a crop?
Producing crop for food supplies is not the same thing as producing crop for transmission of blob of text. The former is critical for human survival whereas the latter is totally undesirable. Especially now that we have a well permeated web to distribute books on, we don't need anyone to sow or reap the trees anymore. Period.
> Producing crop for food supplies is not the same thing as producing crop for transmission of blob of text. The former is critical for human survival whereas the latter is totally undesirable.
Do we need to produce more food? No, we have an over supply and producing more would only drive down prices and harm the producers who are already struggling and require subsidies. Proposing we produce more food crop farms is asinine at best.
> Especially now that we have a well permeated web to distribute books on, we don't need anyone to sow or reap the trees anymore. Period.
Suggesting that web delivery is a suitable or even complete replacement for books or printed literature is equally asinine. Conveyance of discrete data is only one small aspect of printed media. The experience of reading a book, magazine, pamphlet, or paper is entirely different from reading on an electronic device. Dissemination is also another critical difference, sure everyone can download your PDF but that doesn't mean they will. A magazine sitting on a coffee table in a waiting room is an entirely different experience from anything electronic and it is complete incomparable.