Word: firs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Granted, this is only my second Christmas season away from home, but for two, yes, two consecutive years a fully-decorated 3-foot plastic fir has arrived at my doorstep...
There is plenty of clutter in the spacious office of William Gates. Overlooking a 260-acre campus dotted with magnificent fir trees, the room contains a forest of paper. His desk is completely covered by scattered piles of documents; next to it the matching beige credenza is buried under small mountains of loose letters, memos and newspaper clips. Even the floors are littered with the stuff. But if the co-founder and chief executive of computer-software powerhouse Microsoft has his way, this pulp potpourri will soon recede. "I don't want to get rid of all paper," says Gates...
...sorry, Mr. President, our time is almost over. One final question, if I may. Suppose that you are a venerable Douglas fir somewhere in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. And further suppose that your upper branches provide home and shelter for the endangered spotted owl. And then one day you hear the sound of approaching chain saws. The owls start to flap around you in alarm. And then you see the lumberjacks approaching your trunk, and you realize that the foreman of the crew is actually Elvis...
...Europe during the 1970s and introduced in the company's seven U.S. stores as they opened, it works like this: for $20 -- a $10 deposit and a $10 rental fee -- and a signed lease agreement, a customer can walk out with a fresh 6-to-10-ft. Douglas fir from Pennsylvania. Last year the program was a resounding success: 20,000 trees were leased. IKEA expects to rent 30,000 this year. As a bonus this year, customers at most stores will get a coupon for a fir sapling they can pick up for planting in the spring. Once...
...state's 32.5 million acres of forest continue to shrivel. In the north, loggers blame environmentalists for "locking up" ancient forests by suing to ! protect the spotted owl and otherwise halt timbering, but with 90% of the original stands of redwood and Douglas fir already cut, loggers really have only themselves to blame. Says Richard Wilson, newly appointed head of the department of forestry and fire protection: "The loggers put money into buying more old growth rather than regrowing cut forests, and the trees are not there to feed the mills." To maximize short-term profits, many companies...