First, let's look at paper. Paper is produced from trees. Everyone knows that. It takes 24 trees to produce a ton of paper. In this, the age of global warming, we need trees.
Trees act as a carbon sink.
They extract carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, from our atmosphere and use it in photosynthesis. Those 24 trees that went into the ton of paper could also be used to remove 250 pounds of carbon dioxide every year. Furthermore, we are losing strands in the web of life at a rate unprecedented since the extinction of the dinosaur. This has some people rather concerned about humanity's future to feed itself. The forests aren't just carbon sinks for a species gone mad over fuel-inefficient vehicles.