Environmentalists want people to stop using Christmas Trees

Some environmentalists are expressing angst during the Christmas season instead of joy, worried about what they view as the negative environmental impact of both real and artificial Christmas trees.

The Sierra Club, in its publication Sierra Magazine, recommends that people look for "a storm-felled branch, or a piece of driftwood" to decorate in their homes, instead of the traditional Christmas tree.

Eric Antebi, the Sierra Club's national secretary, also suggested that people consider celebrating Hanukah instead of Christmas because Hanukah is a more earth-friendly celebration.

Environmental activists also appear to be struggling over which type of Christmas tree to condemn the most.. . . .

Here is a question: do you think that more or fewer trees will be planted if people stop buying Christmas trees? It seems pretty obvious that there will be fewer planted and less total trees in the ground. If you think that you can make a lot of money selling the trees, you will set aside more ground to grow them. Land that might have been used at the margin for a whole range of other activities. Also as I have tried to point out before, for those who believe that man-made global warming is important, young trees absorb much more CO2 than older ones. This is because younger trees tend to grow at a much faster rate. If the trees are buried in a land fill, the CO2 will be taken out of the atmosphere for some time.