28 VIRGINIA FORESTS PRESIDENT’S COLUMN, continued from page 5. consequences. This is one of the underlying reasons it saddens me to see our beautiful countryside and way of life whittled away by those who don’t live there, and who think they know better than we do what to do with our forests that we live, work, and play in. For example, I checked an account online a few days ago, and a warning screen popped up saying that I am a bad person for getting paper statements in the mail, and I should “go green” and enroll in paperless statements. (Okay, I admit it didn’t exactly state that I am a bad person, but that’s how I remember reading it.) I’m not knocking anybody that handles their business online; I do plenty of that myself and find that it can be quite efficient. But I know that we, the forestry community, are writing the book on what being green truly is. What powers all those data centers that send us emails and online statements and run all that cloud storage? Let’s just say that I wish that a whole lot more of it was generated from sustainable, renewable, green biomass sources instead of at the expense of losing our lush, green, carbon-craving, oxygen-producing forestlands. Whoops, now I find myself complaining, so I will spin it to a positive message here: When asked to “go green,” let them know you already are green and you want to stay green! Like the diminished tree species that we miss so much and strive to bring back, let’s work on bringing back our diminished positive roots, too. Be supportive. Be encouraging. Be content and don’t be the one who gets labeled as a chronic complainer. Meter your expectations and you might find that you and those around you will be much happier. Somebody always has it worse than you do, so count your blessings and look on the bright side. We might be surprised how good positive vibes will make us all feel! Your VFA Staff, Board, Segment Councils, and Program Committees have all been hard at work continuing to fend off negativity to protect and promote our goals to support responsible forest management in Virginia. You can bank on some positive things coming out of our joint Board and Segment Council strategic planning meeting in the scorching mid-August weather at the Rosyln Conference Center in Richmond, Va. I hope I don’t hear somebody complain about how cold it is in there because the thermostat is set too low. I’ll be the old-school guy sitting there grateful to have A/C and reminding myself how fortunate I am to be sitting in it. And, yeah, the neighbors better look out—I’ll be burning up that last mile of road when I head home later. CORRECTION: This photo by Kyle Smith was credited incorrectly in our winter issue.
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