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How Christmas Trees Can Save The World
The shortage of 2021 is real. Trees are more expensive than ever, and some suspect they are bad for the environment. Should we pivot to artificial trees— or the other way around?
This past weekend my teenaged son and I ventured out into a chilly midwinter night to perform an annual ritual we share with over 30 million North American households: buying a Christmas tree.
If you live in one of them — or have read the news over the last few weeks — you will by now have learned that 2021 has been an odd year.
This is not the first time we’ve heard this story. Indeed, in recent years it appears that Christmas tree shortages in recent years have been, like Mark Twain’s misreported death, greatly exaggerated — or what the current zeitgeist would call “fake news”.
Yet 2021 appears to be different, at least for those parts of the continent that gets its trees from the Pacific Northwest. A multi-year drought, rising forest fires, and catastrophic flooding has sharply reduced the amount of product making it to market — a phenomenon which some believe will last for years to come.
My Gen Z children and their friends have been quick to jump on this perception as yet more…
