No good intention goes unpunished: Going Paperless
A righteous man will always think of how his actions are going to affect others. While an ego driven man will think of ways of how to turn a buck, with no regard as to how his actions will affect others.
What is good about going paperless? Rain forests are going to be saved? Seriously? You think they use Burmese Teak or 100 year old Cedars to make paper? And this is what I really don’t get – that this paperless brigade is mostly prevalent in North America. Aren’t most houses, and even some apartments, built mostly of wood in North America? Yeah, all those 2 x 4’s and 4 x 6’s.
Going paperless is like telling a smoker to quit smoking because its bad for his health, while supporting industries that spew billions of tons of pollutants into the air. Finger pointing? Telling someone they have a splinter in their eye so as to detract from the fact you have a log in yours?
And who does going paperless benefit? Not the lumber industry workers, not the printing industry workers, not the postal service workers, etc. However it does benefit the companies that advocate going paperless because going paperless boost their profits. No more mailroom employees – no more mailing expenses, etc. Get rid of more employees so I can boost my profit. Yeeeehaaaaa. I’m livin’ the dream and fuck the rest of you.
January 10, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Actually, most harvested trees are converted into pulp for paper. Especially in temperate and boreal forests. While using wood structurally, especially if it comes from well-managed forests, is a sustainable renewable resource the process of converting pulp into paper uses extremely toxic chemicals and very high amounts of energy. The chemicals are typically discharged into local river systems with very little treatment. Additionally, the rainforests are not being lost due to harvesting of trees for lumber… often, plots of land are being cut down to plant eucalyptus, especially in Asia, which adds biomass much more quickly, and is used for pulp production.
Additionally, the change of mail-room, packaging, and other such professions… these tend to be extremely low pay and low skill with little to no opportunities for the employees to move up. With a switch to paperless, though these positions are lost, there is an equivalent increase in IT positions which offer a living wage and opportunities for advancement.
Just sayin’.
January 10, 2012 at 2:36 pm
And you’re entitled to your “just sayin” like everyone else is.