Celebrate Earth Day by Reading Your Newspaper Online

Many of us are busy celebrating Earth Day. We're supposed to think about ways to help Mother Earth and ways to reduce our footprint on her.

A lot of what will go on today is laudable-cleaning up streams, picking up trash, marches, and rallies.

Unfortunately, most of us will not face the toughest issues that cause environmental problems, like global warming, wasting resources, and the like.

It is easy to tell big business to use scrubbers on their coal plants. We feel good that we are doing something good. And we are. But there are things closer to home that we all need to do.

Things like drive less, driver more efficient cars, and use those new fangled curly lightbulbs that use far less energy in our homes.

And give up reading the newspaper.

What?

Yes. Give up reading the newpaper--the print edition, that is.

Let's face it: newspapers are an environmental menace.

There could hardly be a more environmentally unfriendly way to get the news than be reading a newspaper. Seriously. It is so, well, 18th Century.

Look at the steps:

* Grow trees. Ok, that's a good thing for global warming. But...

* Fertilize trees. Not so good.

* Harvest trees. Not so good.

* Transport trees. Not so good.

* Process trees into wood pulp then paper. Not good at all.

* Process the wastewater that comes from these processes to remove (hopefully) all the toxins. Not so good.

* Felled trees on their way to the paper mill. More energy use. Not so good.

* Transport the newsprint. Not so good.

* Process the newsprint into newspapers. Not so good.

* Transport the newspapers to readers, subscribers, and re-sellers. Not so good.

* When finished, recycle the newspaper. Ok, pretty good. But...

* When finished, many people do not recycle the newspaper.

* Newspaper ends up in trash. Not so good.

* Trash transported to landfill. Not so good.

* Newspaper fails to rot in landfill because it has been "entombed." Not so good. Newspapers become zombies--they are undead--useless but still causing problems.

* Landfills have a chance of leaking into the ground water. Not so good.

* Landfills take over land that could be used for other, more productive purposes. Not so good.

Producing a newspaper obviously takes a lot of resources (paper, water, fertilizer, chemicals) and energy. It is an elaborate process for an end product that most people might look at for a day or two. It is wasteful.

What to do?

Read a blog or the online newspaper of your choice. You'll reduce your footprint on Mother Earth. And the planet you save may be your own.