More trees these days?
If so, is “capitalistic stewardship” the reason?
I used three paper towels to dry my hands in the men’s room. A coworker chided me for it and in so doing called me out as as being unsympathetic with environmental causes. I responded that there are more trees now in the U.S. than there were in 1900. That’s something that my dad used to tell me. Then I started wondering if it’s true.
The answer did not lend itself to a quick Internet search, but I did find this editorial from a publication in Hawaii. Wish I could find better authority, like the Forest Service report the author cites, but I haven’t taken the time to do so.
In any event, the proposition seems to make sense, and one of the main points of that article is that greed motivates conservation. The example he gives is that timber companies don’t want to destroy all the trees because that would but the companies into bankruptcy.
I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as “greed” being the motivator if called on to put it in my own words. “Rational economic activity” would suit it better. How about something along the lines of “capitalistic stewardship”? Wise, sustainable “use” of natural resources, in my book (printed on recycled paper, of course!), presumes the same kind of progress — economic, social and cultural — which we’ve grown to enjoy in America.
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