Back in the 90s I calculated that the US could save the Amazon rainforest by cutting our meat consumption by 10% and legalizing hemp (not marijuana). I no longer have the math available but the gist of it was that a 10% decrease in beef cattle feed would cause a corresponding drop in demand for feed corn, and if that much cornfield land were converted to hemp (which would work agriculturally) and the hemp were used to make paper, demand to import pulp logs from SA would decrease enough to demotivate logging the rainforest - where most logs at the time were being harvested for pulp. As a side benefit, the paper would last a lot longer but wouldn’t be more expensive.
Took me a lot of time and effort to do the research for that. Dunno if it’s still valid in today’s economy.
Back in the 90s I calculated that the US could save the Amazon rainforest by cutting our meat consumption by 10% and legalizing hemp (not marijuana). I no longer have the math available but the gist of it was that a 10% decrease in beef cattle feed would cause a corresponding drop in demand for feed corn, and if that much cornfield land were converted to hemp (which would work agriculturally) and the hemp were used to make paper, demand to import pulp logs from SA would decrease enough to demotivate logging the rainforest - where most logs at the time were being harvested for pulp. As a side benefit, the paper would last a lot longer but wouldn’t be more expensive.
Took me a lot of time and effort to do the research for that. Dunno if it’s still valid in today’s economy.