Suggesting limits on how many pieces of toilet paper people use – as singer Sheryl Crow has infamously done, perhaps in jest – is dangerous because it deflects attention from more serious steps. Producing toilet paper does have environmental consequences, but these pale when compared to the effects of driving cars, using electricity from coal-fed power plants, and making compact discs, for that matter.

Consider these helpful facts from toiletpaperworld.com, the Web site of a cleaning supply company. On average, consumers use 8.6 sheets per trip. That’s an annual total of 20,805 sheets, based on a survey of Charmin customers. There are about 200 sheets of 2-ply tissue on a standard household so the average person uses just over 100 rolls of toilet paper a year.

Based on rough calculations, producing this much TP results in about 10 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year. The impact is likely even less since much tissue is already made from wood scraps.

If, on the other hand, you drove less, you’d make a real difference. For every gallon of gasoline that is consumed, approximately 24 pounds of global warming pollutants are released, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Drive half as much and you’d cut your emissions in half.

As the EPA notes in a poster on the lifecycle of CDs and DVDs, the disks and their packaging are made with plastic, lacquer and dyes, all petroleum products, as well as aluminum and gold, both mined from the earth. The raw materials and the finished CD must be transported, requiring gasoline and emitting greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not exactly an environmentally friendly process.

Perhaps, however, this was all a misunderstanding. Maybe Ms. Crow was referring to the toilet paper used by Chinese emperors centuries ago. In China in 1391, according to toiletpaperworld.com, the Bureau of Imperial Supplies began producing 720,000 sheets of toilet paper a year for use by the emperors. Each sheet measured 2 feet by 3 feet. Today, a typical sheet of toilet paper is 41/2 inches square.