Should Your Christmas Tree be Fake or Real?

You want to have a "green" (ecological) Christmas, but you’d also like to have a tree that doesn’t need to be watered or have its needles vacuumed up from the floor. Also, isn’t it UNecological to cut down trees to decorate every year?

Plant biologist Clint Springer thinks that buying a real Christmas tree may not solve the world’s climate problems, but it’s a step in the right direction. He says, “At this time of year, choosing a real Christmas tree is one way that an average person can make a difference in terms of climate change. A study as recent as 2009 concluded that a 7-foot cut tree’s impact on climate is 60% less than a 7-foot artificial tree used for six years. So while cut trees are not carbon-neutral, in terms of carbon-use, they are better than artificial trees."

And "a home with a real tree does not usually show a higher rate of indoor air pollution than one with an artificial tree, because mold spores found on live trees do not usually become air-borne."

And there are the lights to consider too. Springer says that if you do purchase an artificial tree, you can help the environment by putting LED lights on it, rather than conventional kind, and by trying to keep it for as long as possible (and if those needles fall off, just sweep them up!)

What kind of tree would (or does) MOTKE have? When he burst into Whitley’s hotel room in 1998, Whitley asked him lots of things, but he didn’t get around to asking him that. However, Whitley DID take his advice and DID something about climate change!