[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Trees might be renewable, but the expenditure in energy and use of toxic chemicals needed to produce, store, transport and deliver paper products, not to mention the lessening of trees' ability to capture and store carbon and purify the air when they are cut down, make paper a surprisingly non-green (brown?) technology.

Bear in mind all of the other things wood products are used for besides paper, and all of the other uses for paper besides books.

There's an old joke:

Mrs. Petrovich calls for her son Ivan in their Moscow apartment. She opens her purse, hands him money, and says "Here is 70 kopeks. Go to the newspaper kiosk. Get Isvestia for me, Pravda for your father, and Cosmonaya Pravda for yourself!" "Yes, mama", say Ivan, and goes off to run the errand. On the way out the door of the building, he runs into his father, who asks what he is doing. When he explains, his father says "We don't need the newspapers, we have the radio!", and takes the money to buy a shot of vodka. Ivan returns empty handed.

When Momma asks what happened and Ivan explains, she sighs, opens her purse again, and hands him more money. ""Here is 50 kopeks. Go to the newspaper kiosk. Get Isvestia for me and Cosmonaya Pravda for yourself!" "But Momma", protests Ivan. "What about Poppa?" "What about him?" snorts Momma. "Let him wipe with the radio!"

You expend a lot of energy and resources to create one reader, but after that, you can read the equivalent of multiple thousands of paper pages, making e-book readers greener products than paper.

You can't wipe with a reader. And while a lot more stuff is now made with recycled paper, reducing the number of trees cut down, the fundamental process of paper making remains the same. Making trees into paper won't go away, unless you plan to forgo things like paper towels and toilet paper.

This is why I think e-books may not completely replace paper books, but they will most likely replace most paperback books, which have generally been considered by the industry as the "poor man's disposable" book. Better to have collectible hardbacks, and e-books as the disposable format, saving on a lot of paper production.

I somewhat concur, but ereaders have to get a lot cheaper, and ebook publishers have to agree on a standard format. I'm not holding my breath.
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Dennis