Weyerhaeuser’s Evil Vision for the Future
I’ve been laughing all morning over Weyerhaeuser’s new website GrowingIdeas.com. It’s comically evil—and illustrates better than we ever could just how out-of-touch they are with reality.
I clicked on “What Can a Tree Be?”, wondering why being a key part of a diverse ecosystem, like providing shelter for animals, preventing erosion and producing oxygen was evidently not good enough. The next page treated me to an important looking person (you can tell because he’s wearing a suit) talking with an accent that a co-worker described as “just British enough to seem smart, but not so British as to seem foreign”. In essence, it’s the “Evil Accent” spoken by the Empire in Star Wars or the Romans in less-than-accurate Hollywood depictions.
Anyway, he admits that Weyerhaeuser looks at trees “a little differently” and urges me to click on some of the things that they’re busy turning trees into. Here are my favorites (sorry I can’t link directly, but it’s a Flash website).
- Food! Yes, they want to grind up habitats of endangered animals to create cellulose additives for ice cream. I feel that needs to be said again in italics: Weyerhaeuser wants to put trees in ice cream.
- Biofuels! Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. Do we really want to trade oil wars in the Middle East for Weyerhaeuser’s brand of clearcutting trees, jobs, and communities? Oh, and solar and wind power don’t cause homeless caribou.
- Trees! One of the things Weyerhaeuser is turning trees into is “even better trees”. That’s code for genetic engineering, my friends. Weyerhaeuser must have skipped the part in their history textbooks about monoculture farming and the potato famine, I guess. Monoculture plantations are like a baseball team with nine pitchers.
Moments after taking a chainsaw to an “idea”.
Image after image of tree technician complete with test tubes, latex gloves and safety goggles gets the point across pretty plainly. This company has nothing but contempt for nature as it is now and is completely dispassionate about twisting it into whatever will make them money. Plus, what’s so dangerous that they need safety goggles? The ice cream?
Considering how important forests (by which I mean complete ecosystems, not tree factories producing the straightest sticks modern science can muster) are to global ecology and how incredibly short-sighted it is to turn them into assembly lines to feed our overconsumption, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that, quite literally, Weyerhaeuser can’t see the forest for the trees.
10 Responses to “Weyerhaeuser’s Evil Vision for the Future”
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August 6th, 2007 at 11:33 am
I doubt this comment will be posted because it doesn’t agree with your view of the “evil” empire or your laughably simplistic view of complex issues. (Speaking of not seeing the forest for the trees!)
Products would not be made for profit if there were not demand for them. Every substitute for wood in products necessary for our society have far greater environmental impacts than well-managed forestlands (which represent a small percentage of forestland in North America by the way). Plastics and steel are not the answers for construction currently done with wood. Once you determine to cut a few trees (Weyerhaeuser as an example currently logs approx 2% of its forestlands per year) to provide what society needs, you might as well look for other uses for the by-products so you minimize waste.
I recognize you would prefer that no trees be cut, but until you have viable solutions that can serve society (I can hardly wait to drive my wind or solar powered vehicle to the grocery store!), how about if we compromise on being as responsible as possible in the way that trees are cut, used and replanted. By the way, Weyerhaeuser has been planting trees for over 100 years - I think they have solved the “monoculture farming problem”.
It is easy to sit back and criticize, but your energies would be better applied to solving issues in realistic ways.
August 6th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
So, “Every substitute for wood in products necessary for our society have far greater environmental impacts than well-managed forestlands”
Really? So we need use wood in ice cream? And soup?
Are you really saying that it would hurt the environment more to eat soup with no trees in it?
hmm . . . sounds suspect to me John.
August 6th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
“Products would not be made for profit if there were not demand for them.”
First, this is not true. Companies say it all the time but it doesn’t stop them from having marketing departments. Do you think anyone would buy Tag Bodyspray if it wasn’t accompanied by commercials featuring dorky guys getting all the girls?
Second, to the degree that this is true, it’s easily manipulated. For instance, Weyerhaeuser’s subsidiary Quadrant Homes markets the houses they build as “Built Green” even though the wood is stolen from Grassy Narrows’ traditional territory. Other green builders shudder at Quadrant, saying they’re diluting the “green” label.
There’s demand for environmentally friendly wood that doesn’t come bundled with human rights violations but Weyerhaeuser has realized it’s easier to stick a “Green!” label on something than actually make it sustainable. They might as well spray it with some Tag, too.
August 7th, 2007 at 10:38 am
John, your IP address indicates you work for Weyerhaeuser. Please get back to work and think about changing things from within. Please remind “Matt” to do the same.
August 16th, 2007 at 8:33 am
^Haha! I figured he had to have some financial interest in the loggging industry.
August 16th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
As usual, you radical liberals have misconstrued the efforts of the last honest forest company in the industry. I see that you left out the part where they produce paclitaxel, which has saved thousands of lives that would have otherwise been lost to breast cancer. Also, they could have given into the financial pressures of Wall Street and sold their land to a REIT instead of managing it in a responsible way. But why bring up any objective evidence? After all, isn’t your whole reason for being to construe the facts in such a way that you can manipulate others? Why don’t you go back to what you are good at: climbing trees in protest as though they were your own personal soapbox to scream about injustices that are poorly thought out so you can feel better about yourselves.
August 17th, 2007 at 8:27 am
You’re right, HHM, any company that sells a product used to treat scary diseases should be given a free pass on the environment.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Luke, you obviously didn’t take the time to do your homework or even watch the video. If you listened, they stopped the yews from being destroyed by people who were stripping the bark. they are growing 3-5 year old trees in a greenhouse for the drug. Hardly a pass on the environment. You people would have a lot more credibility if you educated yourselves on these things.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Seriously, SWAB, what does that have to do with anything? They grow trees in greenhouses? Great. They stop people from destroying their trees, because they plan to destroy them instead? Great. Now tell them to stop destroying the homeland of the Grassy Narrows First Nation. And to use a real forestry certification instead of a fake industry greenwash. Who is it that needs to do homework?
September 7th, 2007 at 11:57 am
WOW! You can talk to trees!