There has been a lot of dispute on the question of whether or not the world should go paperless. There have been many strong arguments on the case that the world should go paperless. But what about the other side to that?

There are many reasons to not go paperless, one of which is that while trees do absorb CO2, they must fill up one day. We have to recycle our trees by harvesting them. Probably the best way to do this without a major negative impact on the environment is to stagger harvest. This concept is when a group of trees is planted and allowed to grow. Some time later (for instance, a year later) another group of trees is planted next to the first group. Some time later another group of trees is planted next to the ones that came before it. After many years when the trees have reached maturity they are harvested in the order they were planted in, with the same time span between planting. This will allow only mature trees to be taken while still keeping our forest coverage at maximum. These trees would then be worked into paper. While some may say that this method requires large workforces and more effort, haven’t we as Americans been complaining about unemployment since the early days of our country? Returning to trees, papermaking allows CO2 to be trapped.

According to www.motherjones.com, “Paper can, even after manufacture, printing, distribution, and eventual disposal, still carry a significant carbon credit, in some cases equal to 200 kilograms (440 lb) of carbon dioxide per tonne of paper. Basically, trees take in water and carbon dioxide, breaking it down through photosynthesis to produce energy and releasing oxygen as a waste product. The trees hold on to this carbon, even after they are cut down and made into paper.” Compare this to clearcutting or slash-and-burn techniques where the trees are simply burned. According to www.climateandweather.net, “the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere as CO2 if the wood is burned or even if it is left to rot after the deforestation process.” That is great, but now there is another problem: nutrient deficiency on those tree farms.

Trees need a lot of nutrients. That is easily understood. When a tree is cut down, the ground is very low on nutrients that would be needed to grow another tree. One solution to this nutrient deficiency changes one of the biggest downfalls of sticking with a paper system: waste.

“U.S offices use 12.1 trillion sheets of paper a year. With all the paper we waste each year, we can build a 12 foot high wall of paper from New York to California.” (see “Paper comes from Trees…” at www.theworldcounts.com ). All that waste could be used as compost. Or we could build Trump’s Wall in Texas out of paper instead of concrete...

Compost is organic material (plants, animals, and products made with these) that has decomposed with the aid of microorganisms into high quality fertilizer. Paper can be composted along with almost all food products. With widespread effort, paper and other compostables would be collected from consumers. The materials could be sent to facilities that keep the materials in the proper conditions. After the microorganisms have done their work, the compost would be transported to stagger-harvesting tree farms, large farming operations, and greenhouses. Yes, the compost would have to be tilled into the ground and you could argue that this removes valuable topsoil, but that topsoil is being replaced by completely organic fertilizer that improves almost every aspect of farming (from moisture retention to yields) that doubles as paper recycling.

One problem with that: transporting all that compost (which weighs a lot, by the way) requires that we burn fossil fuels in big trucks. A possible solution: air-powered cars. There is already at least one company dabling with this technology. Zero Pollution Motors by Motor Development International has already developed a car run completely by compressed air, the AirPod. The latest version (currently not on the market), the AirPod 2.0, seats 2 and has a top speed of 45 miles per hour for 92 miles without enhancers and can carry 132 lbs. of cargo. Plus, this car currently costs ⅓ of what the average new car price in America is ($36,113 as of 2017 [see “Average New- And Used-Car Prices, And The Advantages Of Flexible Financing at roadloans.com”]). This car is still pretty modest in its capabilities, but if everyone catches on and starts researching and developing this technology we could eventually reach industrial-size shipping vehicles and deliver our things on air.

I bring up pollution and carbon absorption because they are tied so closely with our trees, which are also tied to our paper production. Paper recycles our trees so that we have maximum tree coverage throughout the nation to help eliminate our growing greenhouse gas problems because we really need to make a better effort to control our emissions. According to The Business Insider, “There isn't enough space on Earth to plant the amount of trees it would take to prevent the climate from warming by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.” (see businessinsider.com/so-much-co2-planting-trees-cant -save-us-2017-5). That is if we just leave the trees alone, let them grow, and continue to pump greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. However, if we recycle our trees we could be able to negate that statement.
This means that among other things, we have to cut back on our CO2 emissions. This will help our trees so that they can actually make a difference that isn’t offset by our ongoing emissions. How to do that?

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, 56% of the emissions in the United States come from transportation and electricity generation (gathered from data in Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions available at www.epa.com) with both in the 25% to 35% (50% to 70% together) range for a number of years. Which is yet another reason to go with the AirPod 2.0 and others of its kind. It takes very little electricity to compress air. And if you use sustainable sources of energy (solar energy, river current energy, wind energy, etc.) to generate your electricity, there are absolutely NO emissions of any kind. No coal burning and no exhaust helps clear up that 58% of emissions coming from transportation and electricity generation (which is predicted to soar if electric cars became the standard). And the basic principles of the AirPod could be applied to factories, another major source of pollution. Air turbines and rams could run engines, compress materials, and other things currently done through the burning of fossil fuels. But I get off track.

There are other non-environmentalist reasons to stick with a paper system. One of them is that paper increases jobs available. With more desk jobs for filing, recording payments/income, and doing general paper work, employment is increased in businesses. This pushes overall employment rates up. This also increases the need for literacy. If you can’t read the papers at your work, you can’t have that job. If you know that your children won’t be able to get a job if they can’t read, write, or do basic math, you will most likely put more effort into making your children pursue an education.

Another is that computers aren’t hack-proof. This a severe problem, especially with medical, financial, and government information. Imagine if your medical information was changed drastically by someone other than your doctor and an unknowing doctor gave you a medication that could hurt or even kill you. Or if someone accessed your bank information and transferred large sums of money to their account. Or if government information that could keep you safe was seen by another country who wanted to hurt you.

So really, is paper all that bad? With the boost in employment, greater information safety, reduced carbon emissions, more nutrients in the farming soil and general improvement of the world around us it seems clear to me that paper is the best investments we can make into our future.