10 Why can't we just keep using trees? (Hemp)
Description
This article is from the Hemp / Cannabis / Marijuana FAQ, by Brian S. Julin verdant@twain.ucs.umass.edu with numerous contributions by others.
10 Why can't we just keep using trees? (Hemp)
The chemicals used to make wood chemical pulp paper today
could cause us a lot of trouble tomorrow. Environmentalists
have long been concerned about the effects of dioxin and
other compounds on wildlife and even people. Beyond the
chemical pollution, there are agricultural reasons why we
should use cannabis hemp instead. When trees are harvested,
minerals are taken with them. Hemp is much less damaging to
the land where it is grown because it leaves these minerals
behind.
A simpler answer to the above question is:
Because we are running out! It was once said that a
squirrel could climb from New England to the banks of the
Mississippi River without touching the ground once. The
European settler's appetite for firewood and farmland put an
end to this. When the first wood paper became a huge
industry, the United States Department of Agriculture began
to worry about the `tree supply.' That is why they went in
search of plant pulp to replace wood. Today some
`conservatives' argue that there are more forests now than
there ever were. This is neither true, realistic nor
conservative: these statistics do not reflect the real
world. Once trees have been removed from a plot of land, it
takes many decades before biological diversity and natural
cycles return to the forest, and commercial tree farms
simply do not count as forest -- they are farm land.
As just mentioned, many plant fibers were investigated by
the USDA -- some, like kenaf, were even better suited than
cannabis hemp for making some qualities of paper, but hemp
had one huge advantage: robust vitality. Hemp generates
immense amounts of plant matter in a three month growing
season. When it came down to producing the deluge of paper
used by Americans, only hemp could compete with trees. In
fact, according to the 1916 calculations of the USDA, one
acre of hemp would replace an entire four acres of forest.
And, at the same time, this acre would be producing textiles
and rope.
Today, only 4% of America's old-growth forest remains
standing -- and there is talk about building roads into that
for logging purposes! Will our policy makers realize in
time how easy it would be to save them?
``The Production and Handling of Hemp Hurds'' by Lyster H. Dewey in
"USDA Bulletin" Iss. 404 pp. 1-6. pub. United States Department of
Agriculture.
``Hemp'' by Lyster H. Dewey pp. 283-346. pub. United States Department
of Agriculture, 1913.
Continue to:
My Books
