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natural resources defense council
How You Can Help Save Boreal Forests in 2026
Want an easy New Years' resolution? Buy 100% recycled or alternative fiber toilet paper instead of rolls made from virgin forest pulp.
Jan 01, 2026
North America’s boreal forests are crucial for wildlife and the climate, but we’re literally trashing them to make pulp for toilet paper and other disposable paper products.
Companies are clear-cutting a million acres a year, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The northern boreal forests are Earth’s largest terrestrial biome. They’re the breeding grounds for 3-5 billion migrating birds that populate our backyards. And they’re a key carbon sink, storing 20% of global forest carbon and 50% of global soil carbon.
Studies show these forests have been overharvested and degraded to such a degree that the ecological damage will be difficult to reverse. They’re increasingly beset by global warming, melting permafrost, fires (including multi-year, spontaneously reigniting “zombie fires”), and pests, which threaten to destroy them and release their carbon back into the atmosphere.
If every American bought just one roll of toilet paper made from recycled paper rather than a conventional forest-fiber roll, it would save 1.6 million trees, 1 billion gallons of water, and 800 million pounds of greenhouse gases.
The United Nations recently warned of an approaching tipping point that could turn them from carbon sinks to carbon sources. That would be catastrophic. The recent COP30 climate summit, held in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, was billed as “the forest COP.” But its outcomes were dubious for tropical forests—and nonexistent for boreal forests.
But if climate delegates don’t protect them, consumers can—by buying 100% recycled or alternative fiber products instead of toilet paper made from virgin forest pulp.
A market for these alternatives is emerging. The US toilet paper industry is worth $42 billion, but a whopping 68% of US consumers surveyed want eco-friendly toilet paper made from recycled pulp, bamboo, or cornstalks.
If every American bought just one roll of toilet paper made from recycled paper rather than a conventional forest-fiber roll, it would save 1.6 million trees, 1 billion gallons of water, and 800 million pounds of greenhouse gases—the equivalent of taking 72,000 cars off the road for a year, NRDC found.
Eco-friendly toilet paper start-ups have a $1 billion toehold on the overall market so far—little more than 2%. But they’re growing fast. Imagine how many trees, how much water, and how many emissions we’d save if they gained a 68% share.
The big paper companies are imagining it, too. Procter & Gamble (P&G) makes Charmin, the top US toilet paper brand. This year it launched a bamboo version. That gives the company a green-sounding talk point, and a theoretical way into the growing alternative market. But it isn’t really available in stores and doesn’t do anything to change P&G’s bad practices.
It’s well documented that P&G makes regular Charmin by clear-cutting Canadian boreal forests for pulp, cutting down old-growth groves that have stood for a century or more. Only about 20% of these old-growth trees are left.
Any remnant wood left (called “slash”) after logging gets burned, and the land gets plowed and sprayed with glyphosate (RoundUp), eradicating formerly diverse ecosystems that caribou and birds depend on. They’re replaced with monoculture plantations of softwood trees planted in tight rows, worsening vulnerability to wildfires.
Yet P&G has the chutzpah to claim its slash-and-burn practices “absolutely prohibit deforestation” and “incorporate sustainability.” No wonder the company is being sued for greenwashing, with plaintiffs demanding it be held accountable for “egregious environmental destruction of the largest intact forest in the world” and making “false and misleading claims of environmental stewardship.”
Ultimately though, the power to change practices resides with consumers, not courts. Some 90 million Americans buy regular Charmin—and another 5 billion consumers worldwide buy P&G products. Collectively they have enormous power, provided they’re alerted to the problem and aren’t fooled by greenwashing tactics.
But if those conditions are met, consumers can save the boreal forests, one roll at a time.
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'Victory for Everyone Who Pays an Electricity Bill': Judge Tosses Trump Ban on New Wind Energy Projects
"Get out of the way of the expansion of renewable energy," one clean power advocate told the Trump administration.
Dec 09, 2025
Clean energy advocates have scored at least a temporary victory after a federal judge on Monday threw out President Donald Trump's executive order that banned new wind power projects in the US.
As reported by CNBC, Judge Patti Saris of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts tossed Trump's executive order in its entirety after finding it "arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law," and arguing that the federal government did not provide a reasoned explanation for enacting such a policy.
The executive order, which Trump signed in January, halted all permits and leases for both offshore and onshore wind power projects.
A group of 17 states, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, sued the Trump administration earlier this year to overturn the executive order, which they labeled "an existential threat to the wind industry" in the US.
In a social media post, James hailed the judge's ruling and called the decision "a big victory in our fight to keep tackling the climate crisis and protect one of our best sources of clean, reliable, and affordable energy."
Nancy Pyne, senior adviser for Sierra Club, declared the ruling "a victory for everyone who pays an electricity bill, is part of the clean energy workforce, and breathes air."
"Americans need cheaper and more reliable energy that does not come at the expense of our health and futures," Pyne added. "We are glad to see this illegal order get vacated, and we will continue to advocate for more wind energy projects across the country to lower the cost of energy and create stable, union jobs in our communities."
Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at Natural Resources Defense Council, also emphasized the benefits to US consumers of allowing more wind-power projects to move forward.
"From the beginning of its time in office, the Trump administration put a halt to the wind energy projects that are needed to keep utility bills in check and the grid reliable," Kennedy said. "In the months since, this action has been a devastating blow to workers, electricity customers, and the reliability of the power grid."
Kennedy added that the Trump administration should accept the judge's verdict and "get out of the way of the expansion of renewable energy."
The Trump administration has the option to appeal the judge's order, although it did not respond to questions from the New York Times on Monday about whether it had plans to do so.
Trump's war against wind power comes at a time when rising electric bills, caused in large part by increased demand from energy-devouring artificial intelligence data centers, have become a hot-button political issue.
A recent report from researchers at The Century Foundation and financial abuse watchdog Protect Borrowers found that the average overdue balance on utility bills has surged by 32% over the last three years, going from $597 in 2022 to $789 in 2025. The report also estimated that roughly 1 out of every 20 US households has utility debt that is “so severe it was sent to collections or in arrears."
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Trump Ripped for Multilevel Stupidity of Scrapping Automobile Efficiency Standards
"In one stroke, Trump is worsening three of our nation’s most vexing problems," said one critic.
Dec 03, 2025
President Donald Trump's administration drew criticism from climate advocates on Wednesday for taking a hatchet to fuel efficiency standards aimed at reducing US gas consumption and mitigating the damage done by human-made climate change.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed slashing former President Joe Biden's fuel economy requirements for new cars down from 50.4 miles per gallon down to just 34.5 miles per gallon on average by 2031.
NHTSA claims that the change in fuel-efficiency standards would slash up-front costs to cars by roughly $900, although it acknowledges that this would also increase US gasoline consumption, which could mean higher prices at the gas pump.
The move has the support of America's major automobile manufacturers, who said the new rules would give them more flexibility. Ford CEO Jim Farley, for instance, told the Washington Post that the rule change means that the auto industry "can make real progress on carbon emissions and energy efficiency while still giving customers choice and affordability."
Many environmental advocates were quick to hammer Trump for making what they described as a shortsighted policy decision that cost Americans more over the long run in terms of both higher gas prices and carbon emissions.
Kathy Harris, director of clean vehicles at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that Trump is "sticking drivers with higher costs at the pump, all to benefit the oil industry" and predicted that "drivers will be paying hundreds of dollars more at the pump every year if these rules are put in place."
The rule change also drew a scathing review from Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Safe Climate Transport Campaign, who said that the Trump administration's actions were self-destructive on a number of levels.
"In one stroke, Trump is worsening three of our nation’s most vexing problems: the thirst for oil, high gas pump costs, and global warming," he said. "Trump’s action will feed America’s destructive use of oil, while hamstringing us in the green tech race against Chinese and other foreign carmakers. The auto industry will use this rule to drive itself back into a familiar ditch, failing to compete."
The move on fuel-efficiency standards wasn't the only climate-related policy move the administration made this week, as Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that the US Department of Energy also began unwinding a Biden-era program aimed at decarbonizing the building sector by allowing for the certification of "zero emissions" buildings.
Amneh Minkara, deputy director of Sierra Club's Clean Heat Campaign, said that repealing this program was particularly nonsensical since it was a voluntary standard that "did not place any additional burden on builders or owners," and instead represented "a clear way to meet consumer demand for pollution-free buildings."
"Defining what makes a building ‘zero emissions’ gives consumers certainty that when builders or sellers say a building is clean that it actually meets a specific set of criteria," Minkara emphasized. "It also would reduce energy waste, at a time when energy demand is at an all-time high, and lead to lower utility bills."
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