Well, That's a Bummer...

Hi, guys!

The "Save the Planet" people just keeping getting loonier.  

I love this planet -- it's the only one I will ever inhabit, so it feels like home.  God made it for us and we should take care of it.  But there are some limits.

Here's an article from London in today's Daily Mail.  Some highlights in green.  I'm not making this up.

Luxury toilet paper is more harmful to the environment than gas-guzzling cars

By Ryan Kisiel

Last updated at 1:51 AM on 27th February 2009

More than 98 per cent of toilet paper in the U.S. comes from virgin forests

Extra-soft toilet paper is more harmful to the environment than gas-guzzling cars, campaigners claimed yesterday.

An obsession by Americans for the expensive quilted and multi-ply paper means that thousands of trees are being cut down for the U.S. market every year.

More than 98 per cent of toilet paper in the country comes from virgin forests and uses hardly any recycled materials. 

Toxic fumes are also released into the atmosphere because of the chemicals used in paper pulp manufacture.In Europe, up to 40 per cent of toilet paper comes from recycled products.

Scientist Allen Hershkowitz of the Natural Resources Defence Council, said: 'This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous.

'Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age. 

'Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution.

'I really do think it is overwhelmingly an American phenomenon.

'People just don't understand that softness equals ecological destruction.'

Greenpeace has launched an ecological guide to toilet paper in an effort to counter the multi-million pound marketing budget of luxury toilet paper manufactures.

Lindsey Allen, Greenpeace's forestry campaigner, said: 'We have this myth in the U.S. that recycled is just so low quality, it's like cardboard.'

Americans use more paper than paper than any other country - about three times more than people in the UK, and 100 times more than the average person in China.

Toilet paper manufacturer Kimberly-Clark denies that its products are damaging the environment.

Spokesman Dave Dixon said his company used paper from sustainably farmed forests in Canada.

He added: 'For bath tissue Americans in particular like the softness and strength that virgin fibres provides

Well, a thought or two on the above.

1.  I now understand why Europeans always seem so dour and downbeat.  Hemorrhoids can do that to you.

2.  The three seconds that Europeans use toilet paper may also be as a result of the pain of wiping with the recycled cardboard or corn husks or whatever that stuff is made of.  Have you ever used European toilet paper?  Not pleasant, let me assure you.  

3.  The three second wipe must also mean only one or two "sheets of pain" are used very quickly by Europeans, which may, perhaps, ofter some insight as to the smell on the Metro in Paris or the Tube in London.

4.  Since Eurpeans apparently do not cut down trees nor use chemicals to process pulp, just how exactly do they get paper?  The husks and cardboard answer is beginning to make sense.

5.  Since "luxury toilet paper is more harmful to the environment than gas guzzling cars,"  perhaps we should elevate hydrogen sulfide to become the "leading greenhouse gas," replacing the evil CO2.

Somebody go ask the bears - you'll usually find them with their roll of corn husks, in the woods on the high ground.