Cool world, cold future for mill towns

The Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, a think tank in Annandale, Va., trying to keep the planet from overdosing on greenhouse gas emissions, thinks the Internet is a key to staving off global warming. That’s good news for Mother Earth, but not a great prognosis for Maine paper mill towns like Rumford, Bucksport and Millinocket.

News, ideas and business transactions composed in digital packets on the World Wide Web fly across time zones and national boundaries in seconds, unencumbered by bad weather, traffic jams or the high cost of diesel fuel. This new lightening fast, low-energy e-commerce is exploding around us. It took radio 50 years to reach 50 million households. Television breached the 50-million threshold in 13 years. The Internet reached that plateau in just four years.

A CECS study released last week concludes the Age of the Internet has already led to a major restructuring of the U.S. economy. Historically, energy consumption has increased pretty much in lock step with Gross National Product. Not so for 1997 and 1998. Although GNP rose more than 9 percent and energy prices were cheap, energy consumption actually declined and green house gas emissions were substantially below earlier projections, the study noted.

For those concerned about global warming, this is wonderful news. The trend toward e-mail over the U.S. Postal Service, and to Internet shopping over driving to the mall, seems to be making Planet Earth a substantially “cooler” place than global warming projections of just a few years ago.

Now for the downside.

The global warming folks view paper-making as one of the green house gas dinosaurs of American industry. Going into the woods and chopping down trees; hauling trees on big trucks; running trees through large vats of chemicals; heating and pressing tree fiber into rolls of paper; trucking rolls of paper to printing companies and newspapers; distributing newspapers, magazines, books, catalogs, etc. Is this method of communication going to last very long in the next millennium, they ask?

Dr. Joseph Romm, a former Department of Energy official and director of CECS, believes the economy of the next century will be driven by electrons over the Internet, and thus will require far less paper. Romm cited a study by the Boston Consulting Group predicting a 2.7 million ton, or roughly 3 percent decline in world-wide paper consumption by the year 2003, and a potential doubling of that slide by 2008. In terms of green house gas emissions, a 2.7 million ton paper reduction would equal taking 2 million automobiles off U.S. highways.

The move to “cool” poises a big problem for Maine’s paper industry, which already has eliminated 4,100 jobs — a 23-percent reduction — causing once prosperous cities like Rumford and Millinocket to experience staggering population losses. At two recent seminars called to sort out the future of Maine’s paper-making industry the debate focused on parochial issues such as clear-cutting, environmental and forestry regulations, and Maine’s high-tax infrastructure.

House Majority Leader Mike Saxl, D-Portland, who moderated one session, said there was little discussion about the Internet factor. Perhaps for a good reason. Herb Krupp, an economist for the American Forest and Paper Association in Washington, said global market changes have caused up and down cycles in paper demand, but the industry’s latest projection shows a steady 2-to-3- percent annual increase in paper consumption over the next few years with or without the Internet. Far from declining, per-capita paper consumption has risen from 183 pounds in 1989 to 226 pounds per capita this year, Krupp said. The Asian rebound will keep that trend going, he predicted.

Jeff Toorish, president of the Maine Pulp and Paper Association, said the ownership transfer of several Maine mills and sell-off of state forest holdings were caused by factors like the recession in Asia, financial crisis in Brazil and recent conclusion by Wall Street that paper companies operate more efficiently not having to manage their own timberlands.

“I have a computer at home. I buy more paper now than I ever did. … I buy more magazines,” Toorish said. The key to the future of paper-making in the state rests on whether the industry chooses to modernize its Maine mills, Saxl said.

In the short-term, probably yes.

Fifty years from now, however, with leading politicians like Vice President Al Gore committed to recycling and halting global warming, making paper from trees may be something you only read about in history books.

John S. Day is a Bangor Daily News columnist based in Washington, D.C. His e-mail address is zanadume@aol.com.