Trees vs fossil fuel

The word ‘organic’ and the phrase ‘environment friendly’ are arguably used more for style and less for pragmatism. But they’re there and we hear and read them without much notice.

I was at a Nike store during the Black Friday sale event in America. There was obviously a long queue because people had to buy these essential items such as sneakers with Air written at the bottom as well as socks, which could also be used by midgets and The Smurfs because they reach just barely touching ankles. That’s not how I know about socks from my growing up in Pakistan. Socks used to reach well above.

Anyway, Nike belongs to that category of brands that are very aggressive about keeping up with the trends such as handing over customers their merchandise in paper bags. That appears very trendy and climaty, if you will.

But then it occurred to me: someone is cutting a lot of trees to make those paper bags. And Nike has its hands dirty in this. But there’s a dilemma: plastic bags are bad because plastic can’t be destroyed easily. An enormous amount of plastic is in the oceans. Even fishes have been found to have plastic in them. We humans have plastic inside of us. Not only can it not be destroyed easily, it’s actually the byproduct of fossil fuel. Having plastic means keeping fossil fuel in business, which, we shouldn’t forget, is the main culprit in the story of climate change.

Now, as mentioned above, paper bags need trees to be cut. So, what is to be done? Should we just take our newly purchased shoes home holding them in our hands? Or should we tolerate paper bags and get rid of plastic or vice versa?

Let’s delve a bit deeper. Trees when cut release all the carbon dioxide it has ever consumed during its lifetime. Growing another tree in its place would take time. But here’s the kicker: having trees and growing more trees is good but it alone isn’t the answer to climate change. To tackle climate change, we must stop the use of fossil fuel. The burning of fossil fuel results in carbon emissions, which stay in the atmosphere up to a millennium. They trap the heat that comes to the earth from the sun. That heat results in the melting of the ice caps, rising oceans, global warming, and all sorts of other known and unknown threats.

If that trend continues, rest assured trees alone won’t save us. As outlandish as it may sound, I’d take the cutting of trees anyday if the bargain is the end of fossil fuel usage because nature finds a way. Trees would grow again and the planet can be healthy again if we stop adding more carbon to our atmosphere. But more trees and more carbon would result in carbon winning the game by their sheer parts per million (ppm) in the earth atmosphere versus trees on the earth surface. The carbon dioxide will put up a fight against the trees sucking carbon for mellennia. Until which time, we’d all be extinct.

Therefore, our efforts should be focused more on ending the use of fuel combustion engines as well as decarbonising our grid instead of shedding tears over cutting down trees only. Furthermore, carbon suction technology could play a good part in reducing the amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere but even in that scenario we have to suck more carbon than how much we are adding. Carbon symmetry here can be lethal.

In a nutshell, Nike can continue to hand over customers their purchased merchandise in paper bags just as long as they’re not using dirty electricity in their factories and warehouses. Just as long as they’re not using fuel combustion engines to transport their products. Anything short of that; those paper bags are merely for looking cool and for hashtags.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18^th, 2022.

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