Smoking/Cigarettes kill trees 19 ways worldwide

This is intended to be a summary of ways the HBOM hot burning overdose monoxide cigarette "format" promotes deforestation, and to support the advocacy of the smoking cessation article, which proposes replacing today's typical commercial 700-mg-per-lightup cigarette "format" with a mass-produced and -distributed 25-mg-serving-size screened microtoke utensil, the flexdrawtube oneheater. Please add additional points as warranted!

Firewood for "mild" fascism

The strong-flavored tobaccos in pipes and cigars are generally considered too harsh to inhale, rather the inpuffed material is pumped around through the user's oral and nasal cavities in order to absorb nicotine directly into the brain through the mucous membrane. In contrast, the "milder" tobacco used in cigarettes is designed to be inhaled.

With a cigarette, users impatiently seeking a faster, more intense "effect"-- i.e. rise in blood sugar (alias "plea-sure")-- suck hard in massive gulp-like "puffs", often driving the burning temperature to over 1000 degrees F., but without causing a coughing fit-- due to the heavily advertised protective mildness of the special cigarette tobacco and various "addi(c)tives". That same mildness thus also helps "medicate" against social anxiety, by enabling users to indulge painlessly in a dramatic, "fire-breathin'" gesture (authoritarian leadership self-advertisement) which relieves inner social anxieties by creating a feeling that one is defending oneself, or one's private possessions and prerogatives, through a show of toughness and control which cows others nearby. (There is nothing more addictive than a drug or procedure which relieves social anxiety.)

This mildness is achieved by a "curing" process which includes exposing the tobacco leaf to 160 F heat for up to a week (source: Peter Taylor, "The Smoke Ring", 1984). Especially in developing countries of the Third World, such heat is provided by burning wood logs in massive fires inside "curing barns", resulting in extensive deforestation. (Two sources have estimated that an eighth of all lumber cut each year worldwide is solely for this purpose of curing cigarette tobacco.)

Forests replaced by tobacco crops

Since about 1619 European-origin planters in Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and other places have known that the rich soil created by old growth forests was very favorable for tobacco-growing. Landowners "cleared" the land for tobacco crops-- and received a cash bonus by selling off the lumber. Over the past two centuries this has resulted in devastation comparable to the more recently reported conversions in Brasil to crops eaten by slave cattle destined to be butchered, or in Indonesia for oil palm planting.

Wildfires

Sources cite careless cigarette disposal as one of the three top causes of forest fires-- along with neglected campfires and lightning. The supreme carelessness of how one "disposes" of a cigarette is "part of the act" of impersonating a certain kind of adult authoritarian fuehrerperson; it gets massively rehearsed and becomes a reflex action performed thoughtlessly-- "you're playing with fire".

Building fires

Cigarettes (especially smoking in bed, when a user dozes off) are considered one of the top two causes of building fires-- along with electric system malfunction. When a building is destroyed which could have seen another century of use, a replacement building is soon enough erected, at cost of replacement lumbering to obtain new girders, rafters, studs, flooring, furniture, etc.

Winter heating for cold-vulnerable addicts drives deforestation worldwide

Health deterioration in long-time habitual smokers results in an increased demand for home heating. Whether coal, oil, gas or nuke has been purchased in a given instance, energy remains a single worldwide market, and any price rise created by increased demand for any kind of energy will tend to create increased demand for other, now cheaper alternatives. In third-world countries this may mean someone puts a gas stove out of service, sets up the wood-burning stove in its place, and starts buying logs!

Deforestation for clothing production

Smoking-induced illness and poor health can affect habits regarding clothing, where smokers buy and wear more and thicker winter garments-- increasing the demand to grow more cotton on land obtained by clearing forest, grow more wool obtained by replacing forest with grazing crops that sheep are willing to eat, grow more rawhide to be made into thick shoes after forests are replaced by crops for cattle grazing. Smoking also imparts a disgusting stench to clothing which may then be hurriedly thrown away and replaced, adding to replacement fibre farming on former forest land. Or laundered more often, increasing energy expenditure to heat washing and drying machines.

Junk food cravings associated with tobacco habit

Smokers are prone to crave sugary "fast foods" which are hurriedly swallowed to raise the blood sugar (~"plea-sure") level-- much as nicotine also does but by a different chemical method. Leading substances in this category of deforestation-for-cropland-for-junk-food-ingredient include high fructose corn syrup and palm oil. (The seductively advertised "big gulp" hurried overdose swallowing of sugary pop beverages mimics the "big puff" cigarette hit, or, as advertised to children, is a precursor to it.) This abrupt blood sugar increase is usually craved to relieve anxiety which may result from the sharp blood-sugar decline that has predictably occurred a few minutes or hours after the previous "sugar-hit" (rise)-- the famous "withdrawal" problem. Leading brands of sugary junk food are marketed in deluxe "convenience" containers designed to be thrown away after one use, increasing paper waste deforestation.

Cigarettes provide repertory of gestures to teach children consumer waste habits

Every child knows that a quarter to third of every cigarette winds up being thrown away. From a pack-a-day addict this can mean 7300 throw-aways a year (including a little of the tobacco, some plastic from the filter, and most visibly, paper, most often made from killed trees). Also 365 times a year the Pack is thrown away. Each such addict was indoctrinated, or self-indoctrinated, to behave in a way that can infect other, especially younger persons, increasing profits for oligarch owners of stock in tobacco companies. An attitude develops that the triumphant gesture of throwing something away achieves a vital part of the anxiety-relief package-- in the case of smoking it also provides the nicotine-induced "alertness" that addicted victims habitually count on to defend against ever-feared psycho attack from enemies and rivals.

Cigarettes are associated with ecocidal sedentary habits such as car driving

The car is perceived as a convenient and relatively safe place to smoke; many cars are bought for this reason (hard to smoke on a bike; forbidden to smoke on the bus; car manufacturers provide every buyer with quasi-obligatory ash trays). Cigarette companies essentially created a "modern" product which was more or less designed for use in cars, then sponsored stock car racing and other promotions to popularize increased use of cars. As perhaps a reminder, cigarettes are sold by the CARton at an impressively high price. The "side-stream smoke" from a cigarette psychologically mimics car exhaust and gives smokers a triumphant feeling that they are the "driver"/deriver/rider in command over a big, expensive, deadly "defense" weapon. (Invading the lungs of bystanders or passengers, as a gun bullet could invade their skin, is part of the gesture repertory of impersonating adult authoritarian fuehrerdom-- along with the deadliness too: "side-stream" smoke contains five times as much carbon monoxide as "mainstream" smoke inhaled directly by mouth from the "butt".)

Pollution and acid rain from cars kill some trees; drilling for petroleum kills others as acres are "cleared" for a host of structures around each oil well; trillions of young trees are plowed under each year to monopolize cropland for corn used to make ethanol fuel.