Is it 'Green' To Cut Down a Christmas Tree?

Tis’ the season for a yuletide debate: Should you buy a real or fake Christmas tree? Which is greener from an environmental standpoint?  On one hand, artificial trees can be re-used year after year.  But on the other hand, most are molded from plastics that do not biodegrade. Moreover, most people who buy real Christmas trees buy them from tree farms, which re-plant trees every year, so forests are not being harmed by cutting them down.

Supporting tree farms supports local agriculture, which is good for the local economy and discourages suburban sprawl. And natural trees themselves absorb carbon dioxide pollution from the atmosphere, and filter and clean the water with their roots.

(It goes without saying, of course, that it would be a terrible idea to march into your local state park or neighbor's yard and chainsaw down a tree that is growing wild.  But nobody I know does this, so I'm going to leave that as an option only for the grinch.) 

Check out this video from the Nature Conservancy that lays out the pros and cons of real vs. fake trees.

By Tom Pelton

Chesapeake Bay Foundation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Photo from freefoto.com)

 

Comments

[Fred Taylor Jersey]

good

[Motos Electricas Precios]

Excellent article! good videos. Thanks for sharing this!

[Cataratas en los ojos]

Great article, i really like it.

[cesped artificial barato]

Interesting debate. Great site.

[Aaron]

Opa, opa, opa Dr. Osmar Essa sua listagem este1 ecqivouada. 14 jogos do Corinthians aed em Se3o Paulo, porque aqui no Rio, do Corinthians ne3o passa nem jogo de totf3. Da mesma forma aed em SP com os jogos do Fla. Pode ter certeza que aqui no Rio seremos soberanos como sempre.Ah, e pode tirar o cavalinho da chuva se acha que o Flamengo vai fechar com a Globo pelo mesmo valor do Corinthians. O Flamengo fechare1 por uns 10 milhf5es a mais e isso je1 este1 acertado.Se o senhor quiser a gente faz uma aposta: Se o Fla fechar com um valor igual ou inferior ao do Corinthians, eu posto aqui no seu blog que sou Corinthiano apaixonado, mas se o valor for maior que o do Corinthinas o senhor faz um post dizendo que embora corinthiano, ama o Fla. Fechado?

[DugsFuseUsate]

Good bye, considerate soul mate :)

[Imre]

I must say that I don't understand the presime that the Pirates should be looking to 2011. Matt identifies 4 MLB-quality players that we can expect (hope) to see in the field (we have 5 now 6 if you think Freddy's 2008 is a fluke). As we know, there are effectively no MLB-quality arms in the pipeline (Tony Watson, I guess; maybe a couple other guys in A-ball, but why should we assume any of them will turn out better than Gorzo, JVB, or Bullington?).In other words, there is no concrete reason to expect this team to get better, rather than worse, in the future. Now, of course, if someone wants to give us real prospects for Bay/Nady/Marte/Wilson, that's worth looking at. But even fantasy trades say, Jurrjens for Wilson don't necessarily make this team better (Wilson's absence cost as many games as Jurrjens' presence would have gained us after all, coming out of Florida, Jair replaces Morris and Dumatrait, not Gorzo and Snell).What I hear when I read break up the Bucs is maybe every trade will gain us 2 MLB-quality players for 1. We all know that doesn't happen. Get rid of every veteran we have, and we'd be lucky to get back to even on them, talent-wise. In the short term, we're looking at 100 loss seasons, and in the long term, we're right back where we are a team a couple front-line starters away from contention.

[Yoshinobu]

I'm not terribly coinvncd that Bay will age well. When you have a bad season in your prime because of knee injuries it doesn't speak well of your ability to continue to perform when your knees naturally get worse.The point about Bay having lots of different skills and thus a likelihood of aging well is a good one. Usually players like that do age better. I'm not sure he's that player any longer, though. I don't give him a plus for his speed anymore, he has 6 SB this year, he had 4 last year and 11 the year before that. There was only season one season of 20 steals. As for average, he's usually around 280, which isn't particularly high. He's a bad fielder at this point in his career. He can still hit for power and gets on base, those are positive signs. But I wouldn't go so far as saying he's got a ton of different skills at this point.