This morning, I am going to host a Boy Scout wood cut to act as a fundraiser for my Eagle Project. I got really lucky… a tree fell down in our backyard, and it’s pretty big. That makes for a lot of wood to cut and sell, and thus have money to fund my Eagle Project. So all I need to do is some splitting, hauling, and selling, and then some people have firewood to burn in their fireplace, and I have some cash. It works out for everybody.

Meanwhile, I am reading Jared Diamond’s book Collapse for school. It’s a book about how a bunch of societies collapsed when they failed to solve their problems. For example, the ancient societies of Easter Island and the Anasazi partially fell because they had cut down all their trees, and had thus damaged the environment too badly. Plus, other places today are also cutting down too many trees, like in Haiti, Australia, and in the rainforests. Diamond argues that something should be done to help manage our forests.

Its funny how these things work out. I would like to consider myself pro-environment, but then I see myself profiting from damaging our forest. While I would like to say that we should conserve on products made from depleting natural resources, I don’t necessarily practice it. I use oil all the time, I use a lot of paper, and I build stuff out of wood. My habits may not necessarily be conservative.

That’s something I kinda wonder about whenever I think about environmental damage. Sure, I can complain and say that other people should be clearer. But in the end, am I (and other people as well) willing to give up some creature comforts we have grown used to as First-World citizens in order to ensure that the environment remains clean and whole?

As for my woodcut, it really isn’t that bad. The tree has fallen down, and we’re only taking one out, leaving plenty of others growing tall and possibly room for new ones to grow. It’s just the general idea of profiting I wonder about.