Where HAS my brain been? All this time, I've been merrily skating along, completely, stupendously and unfathomably ignorant of what a dire ethical and environmental quagmire - yes, quagmire - is posed by having a Christmas tree in one's home.
Still confused?
Here's today's SF Chron to unconfuse you. Uh, maybe.
The cultural minefield of December has another politically loaded question to tiptoe around: Will you purchase a real tree or an artificial one?...The choice between real and not real is especially painful for some environmentalists. Either they desecrate the Earth and chop down a tree or buy a fake one that's full of landfill-clogging polyvinyl chloride, which is kryptonite to greenies.Salting a tree with pesticides, then chopping it down for a mere two weeks of display time isn't a great option. Ask San Francisco forest activist Kristi Chester Vance.
When she invited friends to a party at her place this month, she warned her environmentalist pals on the guest list: There will be a tree here. "I'm a forest activist, and there's a dead tree in the middle of my house," she said. "Geez, if I have a tree, why not nail the last snow leopard to the wall, too?" She acknowledges, though, that most Christmas trees are farmed like an agricultural product. "It's kind of like corn," she said. "It would be best to get an organic one, of course."
As an alternative, Sierra Magazine, a Sierra Club publication, suggests: "For a natural look, try making your own tree of trimmed evergreen boughs, a storm-felled branch, or a piece of driftwood." San Francisco's Department of the Environment began a program this year for those averse to stringing lights on driftwood. For $90, the city will bring a live, 7- to 9-foot potted tree to your home for you to decorate. After Christmas, the city will retrieve it and plant it in one of San Francisco's tree-starved neighborhoods, like Bayview-Hunters Point.
.....San Francisco curbside recyclers collect about 775 tons of Christmas trees each year and chip them into mulch, make them into compost or use them for biomass fuel to generate electricity....
Sounds green enough for me. Our Christmas tree, which we'll be getting this weekend, will probably be a noble fir, draped with ornaments made from painted pork rinds, and mini-Menorahs.
TECHNORATI TAGS: SAN FRANCISCO, CHRISTMAS TREES, ENVIRONMENTAL
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at December 15, 2005 01:20 PM
By the way, an Australian study has discovered that Christmas harms the environment by stimulating consumption.
Posted by: Van Helsing at December 15, 2005 02:27 PMHa! Matt, I was going to email you that story but you've beaten me to the punch. Journalistically, this is not written as a news story but rather as an opinion piece in news clothing.
The lede should be something like" "For some people..." emphasizing that this is not a widespread concern.
But of course, it's the Chron, and it's San Francisco.
Posted by: Dave Jackson at December 15, 2005 05:23 PMthanks matt...for the laugh! and this "forest activist" who felt that she had to point out that there was a dead tree in her living room.........
just what does she think her house is made out of?????