If he really thinks it's that easy being green he ought to meet James Hurst, 54, a lumber mill owner in Eureka, Montana.

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His book is an engaging reminder that, cyber-Utopianism aside, the internet is as much a thing of flesh and steel as any industrial-age lumber mill or factory.

ECONOMIST: How the internet works

"It smelled like you had been inside a lumber mill: fresh cut from the houses that were destroyed, plus the trees that were just literally cut in half, " Limmroth said.

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His mother worked as a retail clerk and a waitress, and his father, who had ridden the rails during the Dust Bowl days, was a saw filer in a lumber mill, a storyteller, a depressive, and a blackout drunk, who died at fifty-three.

NEWYORKER: Rough Crossings

Later, as Asia's troubles threw this Pacific-coast province into recession, the government launched grand schemes to create forestry jobs, save lumber-mill towns, attract new aluminium smelters, build infrastructure and create a new high-speed ferry industry.

ECONOMIST: Canada