While I agree with the author that the paperless office has proved to be so much nonsense, he needs to check a couple of points before he gets indignant.

First off, he's assuming that the paper he's seen on the photocopier comes from old growth forests. How much of it is from plantations? If its a lot or most, then he may want to realize that his campaign will reduce the incentive to create and manage those plantations. That means fewer trees not more.

I know that after decades of reducing forestry cover in Aus, in the last few years its swung back the other way, at least last time I looked. I understood a lot of that was plantations but I'm prepared to be corrected on these matters

The trouble with linking saving paper -- or anything else -- to alleviating global warming is that global warming has been doing a perfectly good job of alleviating itself for the last fifteen years, during which paper use and most other economic indicators have risen rapidly. As a result, the potency of the 'Global Warming!' cantrip is fading; you'll have to look for a new scare to monger in attention-grabbing headlines.

How about: "Excess paper use causes cancer!" or "Overexposure to paper activates obesity gene?" Both have just as much credibility as any claim regarding global warming.

First, the destruction of forests is indeed a problem, so is the reduction in oxygen levels in the air we breath - that while "global warming" is a nonsensical politically-motivated myth, scaring nobody. Sticking to the former reasons should therefore enhance the article's credibility.

Saving paper is good, but far more effective is stopping the policy of keeping and planting oil-filled "native" trees, which seasonally light up, taking everything around along with them - Cut them up for paper and furniture, then plant safer types of trees in their place!

Also, a majority of government and other offices are unnecessary and can be closed, saving on paper, air-conditioning, commuting, etc. Paying those employees to stay at home and do nothing will save so many more trees.

Imagine the paper used to pass 'green' laws mandating % biofuel additives requiring the clearance of rainforest for palm oil. Must be lots of tons of paper used there.

Hang on... Maybe all the offices accept Toms has in fact become paperless and ... bingo.. An explanation for the lack of global warming for the past 15 um 19 um 23 years?

Ignoring the scoffing at AGW being an issue in several of the comments above (I thought we had moved past that but there still appear to be a few rusted on "flat-earthers" out there).

The paperless office, something after my own heart. The cost of storing all this dreck is enormous. I wonder if those opposing the papermill in Tassie handed out flyers printed on paper... that aside...

An anecdotal story, my first exposure to this was trying to move towards a paperless office in the early '90;s when as the IT officer on a mine site I set up the first intranet, complete with fileservers and interoffice email. At the time I set the receptionist up to receive all faxes as documents that were then mailed out as attachments. This was howled down by all the senior managers, the excuses went from the lame, they liked to walk over to the main office from time to time to stretch their legs, to the incredulous, they couldn't read from the screen and had to read a print out to the bizarre, they didn't check email as often as their in-tray. I was bewildered and disheartened, in the decades since, it's only gone downhill.

I noted curmudgeons comment was the only one that had an interesting point, that being forestry preservation. Plantations are sterile in terms of biodiversity, remediating them to a more "natural" woodland would (wood :) ) be far more preferable.

I put my hand up as a 'scoffer' as described above, with apologies. However, it is the recalcitrance of the 'denialists' such as the science guy, Flannery etc that drives my frustration.

The removal of plantation timbers and replacement with 'native' forests is an idealised furphy. Plantation forestry is one of the very few 'sustainable' industries providing essential material to our civilisation, a material each of us uses every day. A runny nose? Use wood, go to the loo? Use wood, make paper? Use wood etc etc etc.

Whilst plantations are not as rich in biodiversity as native forest, they do in fact have their own echosystem supporting a huge diversity of generally unseen biota. Endangered parrots in SA and Vic are delighted with the food source provided by plantations, in the absence of the more traditional alocasuarina oaks, to identify just one example.

I do agree however, the waste of any natural resource is objectionable/stupid and the observations/excuses provided by both the author and Valley Guy are (we're I a person of theological bent) sinfull.

I shall attempt to curb my 'scoff factor' in future, a lazy response to anyone having the guts to publish an opinion in a public forum such as this. Cheers.

Toilet paper is more linked to global warming than photocopy paper. Imagine a paperless society with that one. And consider the BS nonsense about CO2 linked to emissions trading commissions and making money from nothing. At least Online Forum Australia is providing digital space for albeit sensible debate.

In reality, toilet paper in sewage is feeding bacteria producing nutrients feeding ocean algae.
Algae in water has warmth retaining capabilities.
Unprecedented sewage nutrient pollution is being dumped in the world ocean ecosystem.
Evidence of substance indicates abundance of micro and macro algae in areas of ocean is now historically unprecedented and should be expected to be.
Ocean produced well over 50 percent of world oxygen.
Ocean covers the majority of our planet’s surface.
Ocean dominates control of weather.
Ocean not desert or ice provides water vapour that can be seen forming clouds that stream into a tornado, cyclone, hurricane.
Increased water vapour must be expected from increased warmth in oceans.
Increased water vapour due to photosynthesis linked to solar warmth in ocean algae plant matter has not been measured and assessed in AGW - Kyoto science.

Mindset on CO2 nonsense is time wasting and therefore dangerous, allowing ongoing unchecked collapse of world ocean food sustainability under impact of increased algae.
It’s what is written on photocopy paper or digitally that should be counted. And real life situations should be seen and not covered up.
Watch right now (6 March 2013) as water vapour appears picked up from the Great Barrier Reef lagoon to form a perhaps major cyclone. GBR waters are presently inundated with nutrient pollution from coastal sewage adding to the resuspended ancient and modern nutrient pollution loading from estuary seabed being excavated at Gladstone.

There is no science to prove such anthropogenic nutrient loading is not producing unprecedented algae and influence on weather.

First up, let me declare that I couldn't care less about the environment, ecosystems, biodiversity or preserving forests, but I can agree with the sentiment of the author with respect to the thoughtless use of paper by office workers of Australia.

Tom Lucas writes, "Every day this happens, in offices all over Australia and the world. Piles of paper are unnecessarily printed..."

And this from Valley Guy, "I was bewildered and disheartened, in the decades since, it's only gone downhill."

Absolutely correct in both cases.

I too, like Valley Guy, work in IT and am amazed at the lack of technological nous of people working in offices today. Paper, paper, paper is all they think about. I was amazed at their lack of understanding of how to use electronic data. It's sort of like they think computers are simply there as fancy tools to replace typewriters.

As for the author, I gather he works closely with academics, who in my opinion are probably amongst the worst. They write and publish "papers" and even when they do end up putting it into electronic format, they always use the clunky photo-facsimile format called PDF, which emulates paper based presentation. They can't seem to get their heads out of it. They style documents with a paper based layout, sometimes even in double columns (makes scrolling painful), they insert page breaks and even paginate it, despite there being absolutely no need whatsoever to do it in an electronic document!

I can only think that it's got to do with habits learned in schools and universities.

Exasperation.

Maybe the next generations might actually turn out electronically data literate because of tablets now beginning to be used in k-12 -

appleinsider.com
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/03/06/news-corp-to-challenge-apples-ipad-in-education-with-amplify-tablet

Cheers all.

Waste paper can be recycled so what exactly is the problem?
Care as raised in the post above, is another thing.
To not care about ecosystems is perhaps to be expected due to the 'cry wolf' reaction in some humans, due to the cry from radical greens about just about everything. CO2 nonsense comes to mind especially. The nonsense is driving people to be anti environment.
However, ecosystems support natural and rural food production and world food sustainability.

JFK Aus.

Well said that man!

I was more of a paper-waster before I had to buy my own! Now I print as little as I am able. And I'm not much drawn by the request to consider the environment, for all the reasons already given. If I had the time I would devise one that would work for me, but then it might not work for others.

Back to the first line. If you have to pay for the paper you use, there'll be a lot less wasted. And the paper I use tends to get re-used on its clean side as notepaper, and finally shredded for the worms, who like it, mixed with kitchen waste and leaves.

In "Global warming and our itchy printer fingers" Tom Lucas describes rage brought on by seeing uncollected printout by the office photocopier (I assume this is a multi-function device which prints as well as photocopies).

There are some simple measures which can help reduce paper use. One is to require staff to input a code at the printer, before their document will print. Any documents left in the queue for more than an hour or so are deleted unprinted. Another technique which is to have a quota and charge for material use. Even where real money is not charged, it still changes staff behavior when they know their resource use is being tabulated and reported.

This is a topic my students address in the course "ICT Sustainability", where I teach how to use less energy and materials, through better use of technology: http://www.tomw.net.au/ict_sustainability/introduction.shtml