The united States is a net carbon sink, the largest in the planet (Science 1998) because of the four fold plus increase in forested land since colonial days. The increase is due to managed planting by the paper and wood products industry. Increasing recycling de-incentivizes wood farmers from planting by reducing the market for their products. Ergo, we have another case of well meaning, logical sounding policy with mostly negative unintended consequences. So please refrain from recycling paper

Another problem with recycling paper: lots of bleach and other chemicals used to de-ink the paper, and the result is a chemical/ink sludge that must be disposed of. I think I recall reading years ago that some state with lots of paper mills was using that sludge as road tar, but of course it has never been analyzed as to whether it might leach toxic stuff into the groundwater when it rains.

Trash from renewable resources - such as paper and wood products - ought to be incinerated in trash-to-steam plants equipped with the latest in stack scrubber technology.

As for printed newspapers, I was joking - I'm not going to subscribe. I'll continue reading my news online. We can help the environment by hastening the death of printed newspapers by reading more news online - especially blogs, of course.

Which leads me to my next idea: News Offsets. If you continue to read your newspaper printed with ink on paper, you can assauge your environmental guilt by dropping $10 every month in my PayPal tip jar, and I'll continue to:

1. Read my news online, saving trees and thus the planet.
2. Blog about the news online, encouraging more people to forsake paper newspapers, thus saving trees and thus saving the plant.

News Offsets. Buy' em now, before they become Hollywood trendy and the price goes up!