It’s alarming that we contribute such a large part to the Anthropocene. Dating back to people that lives centuries before us. It’s been an on going problem that has shaped our world into what it is now.One part that we have done a major part in altering is with the trees and deforestation.
My project that I have chose to do is over the use of trees for paper and the release of carbons as to comparison if we would have used hemp for paper and all the other resources that hemp is available for. We cant because of the slander, propaganda, and lets not forget laws that keep us from doing these things. To get a better insight on what all I’m entailing here are some images and statistics…
- Each year in the United States, the paper thrown in the trash represents approximately 640 million trees, or roughly 915,000 acres of forestland. (upstreampolicy.org)
- It is estimated that more than 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide are released to the atmosphere due to deforestation, mainly the cutting and burning of forests, every year.
- Over 30 million acres of forests and woodlands are lost every year due to deforestation; causing a massive loss of income to poor people living in remote areas who depend on the forest to survive. (http://www.climateandweather.net/global-warming/deforestation.html)
- Hemp fabric was smashed down into thin sheets to make the world’s first paper. 75-90% of all paper in the world was made with hemp fiber until 1883. The Gutenberg Bible, Thomas Paine’s pamphlets, and the novels of Mark Twain were all printed on hemp paper. Both the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were drafted on hemp, and then copied onto parchment. (http://www.hemphasis.net/Paper/paper.html)
Looking at some of these statistics it really shows just how ignorant our country is. One of the main reasons hemp is illegal is for these vary reasons, back when paper was high demand and they were chopping down trees left and right, someone sought to find a new way to make paper and they did with hemp but the timber and other companies were in such danger of being taken over that they started the slander and propaganda against hemp. To think that today we could have a cleaner better world if someone wouldn’t have wanted to make a quick buck of a product that could be mass produced with less environmental disturbance. It’s shown through time that hemp is good and does wonderful things other then makes paper. This is where the domino effect comes into play.
As early as 17-1800’s hemp was used. For paper, medicine, and other household utilities. We saw the benefits; we even had presidents that grew hemp (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson). Everything through that time was using hemp in the right way, and form historical records from observation they were smarter as utilizing there resources then we are today. Then as time went on we went away from those practices and all because of money and power it went away and big manufacturing companies and timber mills took over and slandered the hemp name and ultimately pushed us into the world we are now.
———– Its time for change. Its time for the ignorance to stop. Time for the dollar to becomes less important and the lives of the billion start to come first. ——————–
I'm mutable 
I think this is a really important subject globally. The U.S. has seen an increase in forested areas, but most of the worlds forests are being cut down for wood products or land transformation for agriculture. If this product is so much more efficient at making paper…then why haven’t we converted back to it? I don’t want forests to be cleared to do this, but there is plenty of agricultural areas where this can be grown in smaller areas. Plus the more plants that are on the earth the more carbon sequestration out of the atmosphere that can occur. Another benefit of hemp!
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