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As someone who loves books and the environment I have to face a hard truth - I kill trees. Lots of trees. I continue to encourage the death of trees for my own entertainment purposes. And even worse, I encourage others to partake in this killing of trees. For awhile there I thought I was going good. There was a publisher, which among other books, published the Canadian versions of the Harry Potter series and they were ancient forest friendly. And you know that was a pretty good idea as the Whomping Willow? Now there's a tree that you whose bad side you want to avoid. But, as luck would have it, that publisher ism't publishing anymore. So I've sat and thought about it and attempted to come up with some solutions to my tree-killing tendencies.
First I thought that I could take a few weeks off in the summer and plant trees. I had friends that did that in school and from what I've heard it's also great for water conservation as you only have the opportunity to shower about once a week. But then there are the mosquitoes and black flies. Those nasty little things love to eat me alive and the only way to prevent that would be to dip myself in DEET and that's not environmentally-friendly or particularly healthy and add that into the once a week showers and that's just plain unpleasant. And now that i think about it my friend only lasted a week because she got tendonitis and I have crappy wrists. And the last time I went camping in the woods I woke up with back spasms. Ok, we'll scratch that one.
Hmm well there's e-books and e-book readers I suppose. They've got to kill less trees but I'm also sure they are a bit less sustainable over the long term. At that rate technology changes anything I buy today is going to be obsolete in a few years anyway, right? Real books aren't like that. I have books that are older than I am. I have books that are older than my grandmother! When I travel I never had to worry about whether or not I have the right currency converter for a book like I would for an e-book reader because while Frankenstein's bride really rocks the hair-standing-on-end look it's really not me, you know?
Of course there's second-hand books. But the whole environmentally-friendly aspect doesn't really work if I drive to the bookstore. Fine, walking it is. No problem, I can do that. But what if the person who gave up their books drove it to the bookstore? Or what if the books were shipped to the bookstore from far way? That's not good either! And really, with all the online book buying I do we do not want to go there. Erm...and seriously let's not talk about the books I shipped back home from Europe earlier this year because they made my luggage overweight (and some of them were museum guides with glossy page and lots of colours and I'm pretty sure I don't want to know too much about the chemicals used for to create those...).
While I say much of this with tongue firmly planting in cheek, it reflects valid concerns.
Andi recently posted at BiblioBuffet about how as a booklover, it's not easy being green.
My house is equipped with those cool twisty light bulbs that last for ten years, I recycle religiously, and I rarely turn on the lights during daylight hours. I carry reusable shopping bags on grocery runs, I take short showers, and I teach hybrid/online courses so minimal paper changes hands. Are you convinced yet? Are you? Did I forget to mention my huge book collection? The nearly 400 books that I own and haven’t read, and the 150 “favorites” that I choose to keep? Is tree-hugging book lover an oxymoron?
Andi also just launched a new blog called Unlikely Activist and is a contributor at The Environmental Blog.
On Lisa L's Gather page, she presents some arguments in favour of the e-books over traditional books.
1. eBooks kill far fewer trees. I can't say NO trees, since the companies and authors producing them do likely use paper for marketing and correspondence. Still, eBooks are much more environmentally friendly than traditional, mass print run methods. POD (print on demand) improves on this approach
