Tobacoo and deforestation

[MJM]

http://new.globalink.org/tobacco/docs/misc...restation.shtml (http://new.globalink.org/tobacco/docs/misc-docs/9712deforestation.shtml)



How much deforestation is caused by tobacco curing? Startling claims featuring wide disparities have been made about the extent of deforestation caused by felling wood to cure tobacco. In 1976 Muller claimed that wood fuel curing requires about one tree per 300 cigarettes8, a claim repeated in a WHO publication9. Madeley3 suggested that 12% of all world deforestation was caused by tobacco curing, plainly an extravagant claim. An Earthscan report claimed that the crop from a hectare of tobacco requires the felling of one hectare of the adjacent savannah woodland each year10. Another report suggested double that ratio ("Trees from a hectare of land are needed to cure half a hectare of tobacco")11. The latter report made the plainly astronomical claim, without evidence, that one tree in every 12 cut globally for all purposes was used to cure tobacco, a figure that has been repeated in numerous press reports. It also stated "Kenyans are going hungry because millions (sic) of hectares that could grow food are given over instead to growing trees for the curing barns", adding that twelve million trees are cut each year in Kenya to cure tobacco and that "the country is in danger of being turned into a desert". However, even in 1993 Kenya had only 8,805ha under tobacco cultivation6!




The above review and the three case studies that follow show that there is ample evidence, even from the cautious writings of tobacco industry journals and commissioned reports, to suggest that the tobacco-caused deforestation problem is of major proportions in particular parts of the developing world, most notably in Malawi, and in parts of Brazil (Rio del Sol), Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. The situation in China and in other tobacco-growing parts of Asia remains unknown, although ominous. However, our information on the extent of the problem, the rate at which it is changing, and the real impact being made by efforts at reforestation is extremely poor. This is a very neglected area for research in tobacco control and one that seems likely to prove of immense strategic importance in the years to come.

[redstar2000]

The "noble crusaders" against tobacco will clearly reach for any argument they can, no matter how absurd. A "neglected area of research in tobacco control" (prohibition) indeed!

Ok, MJM, here's my carefully researched and well-argued response: FUCK THOSE NEO-PURITANICAL BASTARDS!

And if you agree with them, the same to you!

:cool:

[MJM]

Chill out redstar, I don't give a shit if people want to smoke.
I know how hard it is to quit and some people need external forces to help.
I hated the fact that I was supporting the tobacoo corporations and it aided me greatly in giving the old cancer sticks up.
Personally I found tobacoo nowhere near as addictive as everyone claims it to be, I gave up in a day and now hate the thought of cigarettes, although I smoke the occasional cigar.
I think the main addiction is mental, it doesn't help everyone saying how hard it is to quit. Once the mind wants to give up it will- or more likely can.
I'm guessing you're a smoker, by the response you gave me.
Have you ever tried to give up?

(Edited by MJM at 5:14 pm on Jan. 28, 2003)

[redstar2000]

Of course, I am a smoker and no, I have never tried or even wished to stop. Why should I? I enjoy it!

MJM, every damn thing you buy profits some corporation, somewhere, somehow. That is a totally illegitimate argument. To be "morally pure" and "beyond reproach" you'd have to live in a fucking cave and subsist on roots and berries!

But that's not why I'm hyper-pissed...it's the naked cynicism of the documents you posted. They admit that they have no idea how many trees are cut down to cure tobacco...so, what the fuck, make up some numbers! The important thing is to have a new "area of research in tobacco control"--that means: apply for and receive new "research" grants; it means a new "weapon" to use against smokers..."guilt" for all those cut-down trees; it means a new "argument" for their ultimate goal--total prohibition of tobacco (except for the rich)--outlaw cigarettes and "save the trees".

If their bullshit numbers meant anything, there wouldn't be a tree left standing in Virginia, North Carolina, or Kentucky. People have been growing and curing tobacco there for more than three centuries.

What these documents represent is a gang of pesudo-scientific hustlers who want to get their piggy snouts into a government trough. May they die in a firey limo crash and taste their own blood!

:angry:



(Edited by redstar2000 at 9:44 pm on Jan. 28, 2003)


(Edited by redstar2000 at 9:48 pm on Jan. 28, 2003)

[socialist ballistix]

I think tobacco is a horrible drg. No offense to all you smokers, but it is destroying our people. here's an interesting idea: In the 1920s, the U.S had a prohibition on alcohol. This only furthered use among young people and promoted bootlegging. Heres my idea: if we had a prohibition on tobacco, would it encourage use, much like when alcohol was banned, or would it stop the use of cigarettes? I would also like to include that I dont think this will ever happen because Bush's economy is so dependent on tobacco for money.

[sin miedo]

If you wanna smoke, be my guest. But when some motherfucker lights up in public space and starts polluting my air, then I get pissed. And honestly, the idea that it directly helps corporations, why would you wanna do it? I understand that almost everything we buy helps corporations, but shouldn't we try our best not to support them, ie. buying fruit and vegetables from farmers markets, groceries from coops, etc. etc. And what does smoking cigarettes actually do for you? They only calm you down is because your body starts needing the nicotine to function. Why anyone would slowly kill themselves in this manner I have no idea.

[redstar2000]

What's a "public space", sin miedo?

An elevator? An office? A restaurant? A subway station? A football stadium? In America, smoking is prohibited in all such places.

As to air pollution, how many smokers does it take to equal one SUV? Think about it.

"Shouldn't we try our best not to help corporations?" No argument here. My cigarettes are manufactured in and imported from India (cheap!)...my retailer is a Native American Nation (no sales tax!). Tobacco, by the way, I believe (though I'm not absolutely certain) is one of the few crops still grown primarily by small farmers...not big corporate farms. If there were a way to cut the corporations out of the loop altogether, I'd be glad to do it. Tobacco is not grown anywhere close to where I live...and my guess is that very few tobacco farmers have cigarette manufacturing machines in their barns. So there you are.

If you want to reduce the role of corporations in your life, stop buying what you don't really need...cars, fancy expensive clothing, new furniture, state-of-the-art electronic gadgets, CDs and DVDs, resort vacations, etc. My personal finances leave me no choice in the matter...most of my money goes to the landlord, the utility, and the grocery supermarket. Cheap cigarettes and cheap whisky are about the only pleasures left that I can still afford. Threaten them at your peril!

The effect of nicotine is paradoxical: it both stimulates mental alertness and also reduces stress...there's a reason why the one place in an aircraft where smoking is still legal is the cockpit.

As to whether or not smoking is a method of slowly killing yourself, please see

http://www.lcolby.com/index.html This is the full text of Lauren A. Colby's In Defense of Smokers, an attack on the pseudo-science behind the anti-smoking crusade.

The likely effects of prohibition of tobacco can already be seen in our "war on drugs": millions of more people in prison (probably including me), an even more bloated, corrupt, and fascistic Drug Enforcement Administration, etc. It would not be pretty.

But it's what the neo-puritans want...and who's to say they won't get it? When they have the gall to plan a campaign of "stop smoking and save the trees"--a lie so big even Hitler would blush--who's to say what they won't try next?

:cool:

PS: I read this someplace and have no idea if it's really true or not. One of the biggest consumers of trees in the American Northwest is the Japanese industry that manufactures...disposable wooden chopsticks!

[Rastafari]

Tobacco IS a horrible and deadly drug, many times more dangerous than Marijuana. But, being from a state that makes its 2nd largest industry from it, I do have to say that I know for a fact that farm-cured tobacco does not take THAT much wood. I mean, obviously, 1 Tree per 300 cigs is a little out of hand, no. I think the Government should let people decide to take drugs on this level or not and should actually care more about real causes of deforestation instead of promoting this stuff to avert people's eyes. The mindless rant of a leftist enviro-southerner, doesn't have to make sense