Bay Foundation Endorses Agriculture

At least for Christmas trees

Tis’ the season for a yuletide debate: Should you buy a real or fake Christmas tree? Which is greener from an environmental standpoint? On one hand, artificial trees can be re-used year after year. But on the other hand, most are molded from plastics that do not biodegrade. Moreover, most people who buy real Christmas trees buy them from tree farms, which re-plant trees every year, so forests are not being harmed by cutting them down.

Supporting tree farms supports local agriculture, which is good for the local economy and discourages suburban sprawl. And natural trees themselves absorb carbon dioxide pollution from the atmosphere, and filter and clean the water with their roots.

Given the Bay Foundations usual antipathy to agriculture as a source of nutrients and other pollution for the Bay, I'm shocked, shocked that they support growing trees to cut them down for a neo-pagan holiday.  But then again, the petrochemicals to make the fake trees might come from fracking, and we can't have that.

As usual, Georgia and I will defy environmental orthodoxy and put up our grove of small fake trees, and worship like druids (I can't seem to find a golden sickle on Amazon, though).