Recyclers Do It for the Trees! A Yank on the World's “Chain of Demand”

by Stephen Wing

I feel lucky to have known a few trees in my time. I remember one that grew three branches nearly parallel, so we kids could sit on one, rest our backs on a slightly higher one and our feet on a lower one,bouncing gently high above the middle of our street. Another friendly tree stood next to a steep bank, with a sturdy vine attached. We'd run till our feet left the bank, swing out around the tree, then drop off just before crashing into its trunk. I've been even more fortunate. I've made the acquaintance of entire forests. I've stood in places where the nearest road is a hundred miles away, and trees rule. I've wandered through quiet shaded woodlands, lost and found my way again, and never once has one of these large, gentle beings ever intentionally harmed me. In many ways - providing firewood, wind protection, erosion control, nuts and fruit - trees have been good friends.

Unfortunately, trees bear the brunt of our modern communication fetish. Studies show that using email actually increases the use of paper. And instead of making paper from supple fibers like hemp and kenaf, we use trees.

Trees are so useful that ancient civilizations from Rome to Easter Island destroyed themselves by destroying their forests - to build ships, make charcoal, etc. We're destroying ours to make paper.

Some claim that making paper from trees is balanced by planting more trees. But it's not just trees we're running through our copiers, printers and faxes. It's entire forests: an intricate community of species that evolved over millennia to co-exist in balance. This is the role model our adolescent societies need if we want to continue co-existing with our peers on planet Earth.

If you're concerned about deforestation, habitat loss, erosion, wildfires, climate change, don't focus on the man in the hard-hat revving up the chainsaw. Follow the drive-chain of supply and demand that powers that saw to the person at the other end.  

Every piece of tree-based paper or packaging you buy sends a message up the chain: cut more trees!

Switching to recycled or tree-free not only sends a different message, but also sends that jolt of financial energy a different way. Never underestimate the influence of even the tiniest purchase; the entire world economy is just nickels and pennies that add up.

Recycling paper is only one step on the path back to balance; reducing paper use is another, buying only recycled or tree-free a third. For someone like me who prefers the feel and smell of paper to any electronic interface, recycling becomes a ceremonial act.

Try it. Whenever you're tempted to take for granted the paper in your life, close your eyes and visualize a tree you've felt close to. Smell it if you can. Say a silent “thank you,” and you'll find even the tiniest scrap of paper worthy of recycling. You'll laugh at a hilarious email, but think twice before printing it.

You'll cancel your subscription to celebrity gossip and ads, carry your own shopping bag.

Coal-based electricity is tougher to avoid; it supplies about 60% of Atlanta's power, and the rest is mostly nuclear. But try it. Close your eyes and picture your favorite mountain. The easy coal has already been mined; to get what remains, the coal industry has invented Mountaintop Removal. They blow the top off the mountain, shove it into the adjacent valley, and scrape off the exposed coal. Mountaintop Removal is spreading, thanks to the messages we consumers send every time we flip a switch.

Whenever you can, flip something off - or wean yourself and don't flip it on. Somehow people survived before air conditioning. Now children with asthma choke on deregulated coal smoke. But once you start looking, you'll find that virtually everything we “consume” originates in some raw material gouged and scraped from the living Earth.

“In 1987,” Peter Warshall recalled in Whole Earth Review (Spring 2002), “religious leaders met in Assisi and hinted for the first time that destroying the Earth for financial gain might be sinful.” Then he added his own prophetic vision. “If enviro/sustainability teachings catch the imagination of young members of churches, synagogues, mosques, and humanistic organizations, we may witness a spiritual transformation like the movements to end slavery or women's equality.”  A century ago, America's vast working class discovered their power as workers. They organized, and reshaped the world. Labor unions struggled for many things we now consider normal and civilized: minimum wage, workplace safety, the weekend.

This time around, it's America's consumers that hold the power to reshape the world. We too must organize, counter the advertising and PR with truth - the true cost of “goods” to the life-support systems of planet Earth - and start sending a different message back up the “chain of demand.” It can't be that hard; fundamentalist Christians do it all the time. If you don't have kids, like me, then do it for the trees. Thank you, Creator Spirit! Thank you, Mother  Earth! Thank you, all my relations!

Celebrate your connection to nature with Stephen Wing and Atlanta's interfaith community in a “Prayer Circle & Sacred Dance” for the Fall Equinox, tentatively Wed. Sept. 21 at the Atlanta Friends House, 701 W. Howard in Decatur, 7:30-9:30 pm. Wing is an Atlanta poet, author of Crossing the Expressway: Poems from the Open Road and In the Presence of the Disappeared, about a recent peace delegation to Colombia. Contact him at stevew@newleaf-dist.com or 770/948-3445 ext. 3180. To help end Mountaintop Removal, contact mountainjusticesummer@hushmail.com