David: The protesters seem, I think, to be sincere in their rage and their affection for the environment. What do you make of these - albeit loud and sometimes offensive - dedicated, green-hearted folks?
Mark: One thing that I definitely think is true is that 99.9 percent of those people, who are all adamant about protecting old-growth, and we can't cut down the old-growth, and blah-blah-blah - they wouldn't recognize an old-growth forest from a new-growth forest. I mean, it's an easy topic to rally people around, but the reality is, first of all, old-growth trees, in terms of the greenhouse effect, they absorb less carbon dioxide than young trees. Economically, it makes sense to cut trees down and have them grow back, and have a vibrant industry around them, but at the same time, okay, they've got an area there they're going to preserve, and hopefully people can go in and take a look, that's fine. David: You mentioned the people that - these areas that they go up to and they protest about, and they wanted this Great Bear Forest or something - they probably never visit that place ever again, probably never plan to. I was wondering, they did make a strong force when they were protesting. I was wondering if you know - I mean, I always wonder, "Who are these people? Are they passionate about what they're protesting about?" Are they genuine in their outrage, do you think? And who are they?
Mark: Yeah, you know, I don't know. I mean, obviously, they're out there protesting, so at a certain level, they have to believe that they're doing something good, and they feel that they're - they've somehow convinced themselves, or been convinced, that the action that they're taking is necessary to protect this terrible catastrophe from occurring. You know, I remember up in the Queen Charlotte's there, whatever his name - Kennedy, one of the Kennedy brothers from Massachusetts flew in or whatever. You know, I'm like, "He's doing more harm to the environment flying up here." You know? Stay where you are, they're just trees. Anyway, as I said, if they want to protect an area, that's fine. But it just seems like, okay, that the forest industry continues to be a target because they're able to scare people into thinking the wilderness is disappearing, we have to save the wilderness. We have to prevent logging, or there'll be no - and people, of course, have fond memories or images of the wilderness, and nobody wants the wilderness to disappear. So what it ends up being is just a tactic for collecting money by the environmental companies, or - well, they are companies, but the organizations. I mean, they're motivated to collect money from people so they can pay themselves. That's the number one motivation, I believe, for most environmentalists, because they don't work for free. They're not doing it for free, and very few people do do things for free. You know, we've tried to advertise in libraries - "No, no, you're for profit," like "for profit" is a bad word. Well, do the people in the library, do they work for free? It's that whole sort of leftist mindset, "I work for a non-profit; therefore, I'm holy. You are for profit; therefore, you're bad." It's a sickness in our society, to be honest. And they feel good about themselves. "I'm holy, I'm not-for-profit." David: As I mentioned before, it does seem to be quieter. I'm not sure if I'm just not reading in the right papers or something, and I'm wondering, has there been some sort of truce? Has there been some sort of yielding on other side to talk about how the forest industry can make some subtle changes to appease the environmentalists, or has one side won? Did the lumber industry win and shut them up?
Mark: I think part of it is people get tired about hearing about the same thing all the time. Also, I mean, yeah, they have had an effect. Forest industries are, on the whole, better environmental stewards now than they were fifteen, twenty years ago. They have to really search hard to find some new issue related to the forest to try and beat the drum around, but I don't think anybody won, and they still are trying, like they published a full-page ad in the New York Times, some environmental - some bunch of kooks - about the Victoria's Secret catalog being published, or they send out I don't know how many millions of catalogs, and they don't recycle the fiber or something. A full-page ad in the New York Times. How much paper did they waste? I mean, if we're really going to start splitting hairs like that, don't be silly, you know? We cut down trees, we got paper, we do other - a lot of paper gets recycled, I mean, yeah. A perfect scenario is that all the people disappear. Maybe the environmentalists should lead the charge.
David: Thank you very much, Mark. This was an entertaining conversation. Thanks.
Mark: Thank you, David.
