I know of 4 saw mills that have closed here in Humboldt county since 2000. With no timber coming off the National Forests the small mills were squeezed out and the large mills can charge more for their product...
So do environmentalists possess a brain? Not a particularly useful one. Here is why I say that: In their worldview, cutting trees is evil! So, how is the typical environmentalist supposed to get wood to get their chopsticks which they will use to eat in that fashionably liberal Thai restaurant? After all, using wood is evil, you know. So, what is left? Well, howsabout plastic! Of course, plastic chopsticks are reusable, that should be good for the environment, right? Ooh, but wait. Plastic is made from oil. Big oil. Haliburton. Bush. So no, no worthwhile environmentalist would dare use bigoted, hateful, dumb oil-based chopsticks. Okay, so now what? Aluminum, yeah, that will do. Recyclable and everything. Oh wait, somebody somewhere showed me a fax of an e-mail of an article on the internet that claims that aluminum cookware eats your brain. No, can't use that. Aha! Ivory! Ivory makes positively exquisite chopsticks! Uh, ivory comes from where? Elephants? Uh, I hear the phone ringing. It's somebody from ALF. They are calling me all sorts of obscenities. I guess ivory is out. So, well, can't use wood because that kills the old growth forests. Can't use oil because oil is Republican evil. Can't use ivory. What about glass? Well, that might be a possibility. How much electricity does it take to melt glass in a furnace? Where does the silica for glass come from. The beach! Oh the pristine beaches of Mother Earth! Well, maybe I can dig a used pair of chopsticks out of the trash and carefully wash them off...