Lots of well-intentioned attempts at doing something environmentally
friendly end up backfiring. Someone decided that palm oil was a good
substitute for fossil fuel and encouraged people to use more of it, and then
people started cutting down thousands of acres of rain forest to grow more
palm plants. Chris Goodall (google him to find out more) has suggested that
walking a couple miles and drinking a glass of milk to get the energy to do
that walking can end up using more energy in the process of manufacturing
the cow and the milk and getting it from the cow to the glass, than what you
would use if you just got in the car and drove that couple miles. As for
cutting back on toilet paper ... well there are places where toilet paper is
rarely or never used. In such places, you're likely to find a large portion
of the population suffering from diarrhea, dysentery, and other digestive
diseases. It's not hard to figure out that some of what comes out is getting
recycled and going back in. Now lets look at the environmental cost of a
large population of people constantly suffering digestive ailments. They'll
be generating a lot of output, creating even more opportunities for illness.
The'll need more water to keep from getting dehydrated. They'll spend less
time working. So far as I know, there are no accurate statistics, but I
wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the net environmental cost of a
paperless or low-paper consumption society will be higher than what we have
now.
|