My office is piled high with books. Dozens more arrive each week. Many are thoughtful treatises on topics such as health, justice or the environment. What's surprising is that nearly all of them are printed on toxic, chlorine-bleached paper made from virgin timber -- much of which was harvested from North America's few surviving ancient forests.

Ninety-five percent of the paper on which U.S. books are printed is made from virgin fiber. That added up to almost a million tons of paper in 2001, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.

That's about 19 million trees.

"Publishers are progressive. They help to spread creativity, information, and new ideas," said Tyson Miller, who directs the Green Press Initiative. "What isn't progressive is harming endangered forests to print books."

This shameful story brightened just a bit during 2003, when one edition of "Harry Potter and the Order Of the Phoenix" was released on recycled paper. British author J.K. Rowling asked that her bestselling novels be produced on recycled paper. Her American publisher, Scholastic Inc., ignored her request. (Apparently, Scholastic's mission to "educate, entertain and motivate children" does not include enlightening them about real-world woodlands.) But Rowling's Canadian publisher behaved like a wizard. Vancouver-based Raincoast Books released "Order of the Phoenix" on 100-percent post-consumer recycled paper.

Post-consumer means the paper has been remanufactured from office and household waste, such as that collected through neighborhood recycling programs. By using post-consumer waste -- rather than the mill trimmings from which many deceptively labeled "recycled" papers are made -- Raincoast closed the loop from producer to consumer and back. "Order of the Phoenix" became the first high-volume title ever released on post-consumer paper. With an initial pressrun of 935,000 copies, the first printing alone spared an estimated 30,000 trees.

A gaggle of other authors likewise nudged their books onto recycled paper in 2003. Alice Walker's "Absolute Trust In The Goodness Of The Earth" (Random House), Barbara Kingsolver's "Small Wonder" (Perennial), and Julia Butterfly Hill's "One Makes The Difference" (HarperSanFrancisco) were each printed on post-consumer paper. And Eckhart Tolle's "Stillness Speaks" (New World Library) was printed on partially recycled paper. Other authors who have committed to releasing future books on post-consumer paper include Fritjof Capra, Paul Hawken and Andrew Weil.

Publishing houses hold far more power over printing than authors, however. About 50 small and mid-size U.S. publishers have promised to convert their lines to post-consumer paper during the next five years. Leading signatories to the Green Press Initiative include Berrett-Koehler, Chelsea Green, Island Press, New World Library, Seven Stories, Sierra Club Books, South End, Snow Lion and Wisdom.

Those publishers deserve our support. Unfortunately, their production represents but a sliver of the million-ton industry total. No major U.S. publisher has joined them. Said Tyson Miller: "Despite the same fiscal considerations, it's the small and mid-size publishers that are innovating their industry and helping to reduce pressure on endangered forests."

Monte Paulsen edits book sections for Dragonfly Media magazines (www.dragonflymedia.com).

What would you do differently if you knew you would run out of oil in your lifetime?

That's the chilling question posed by two recent books, both of which flow from the work of geophysicist Marion King Hubbert. Born in the Texas oil patch and educated at the University of Chicago, Hubbert observed that the production histories of most oilfields follow a similar pattern. Output climbs slowly after discovery, rises steeply once the reservoir is mapped, slows during the peak-production years, and then declines steeply once the easy-to-get oil is gone. When plotted on a graph, this looks like a bell curve.

Hubbert poured his own most productive years into directing research for Shell Oil, where he knew that the discovery of new U.S. oilfields had peaked in the 1930s. Hubbert factored this data into his bell-curve model, and predicted in 1956 that production of crude oil in the contiguous 48 states would peak sometime between 1966 and 1972. The oil industry dismissed his prediction and discredited his work.

U.S. crude oil production peaked in 1970, and has fallen steeply ever since.

Hubbert became a legend, and his prediction became known as "Hubbert's Peak." In the past decade -- as the rate of discovery of worldwide oil reserves has slowed to a trickle -- a flood of Hubbert followers have tackled the obvious question: When will global production peak?

In The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (New Society Publishers, $18), author Richard Heinberg drills into the work of Hubbert disciples, such as Colin Campbell, as well as detractors including Peter Huber and Bjorn Lomborg. Heinberg rousts a consensus that global production peak between 2006 and 2015.

Kenneth S. Deffeyes was also born in the oil patch, and worked as a geologist for Hubbert at the Shell lab in Houston. And his Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage (Princeton University Press, $20) predicts a peak between 2004 and 2009, though he notes that it won't be until several years afterward that we will know when the peak actually occurred. Deffeyes' book is reverent where Heinberg's is shrill. His anecdotes about Hubbert and his detailed passages about where oil deposits are found echo the style of John McPhee, with whom he worked at Princeton.

Ironically, neither book startles as much as one line in the preface to the revised edition of Hubbert's Peak, which states: "The year 2000 very likely will stand as the year of greatest oil production."

Production fell in '01 and '02, and looks likely to fall again in '03. In other words, the zenith of the Oil Age may have already passed.

Which brings us back to that thorny question. Here in North America -- where most of us consume more than our own body weight in crude oil each week -- what drastic measures would you deem reasonable if you were certain that every last drop of crude has been found, that half of it is already gone, and that at the current rate of consumption the other half won't last 50 years?

Develop alternative sources of power? Both books propose immediately investing billions of dollars in alternatives such as wind and solar. But at present, fossil fuels provide about 85 percent of our energy. It will be a horserace to see whether alternative power can be brought to market before oil runs out. "The Party's Over" concludes we'd need to immediately begin building 20,000 wind turbines a year just to tap the wind power slice of the alternative power solution. That's five times greater than the total now standing. Deffeyes is even more sanguine: "...no initiative put in place starting today can have a substantial impact on the peak production year... no renewable energy projects can be brought on at a sufficient rate do avoid a bidding war for the remaining oil. At least, let's hope that the war is waged with cash instead of with nuclear warheads."

Go after new types of fossil fuels? The U.S. government recently reclassified Alberta's frozen tar sands as "recoverable" oil, instantly transforming Canada into the world's second most oil-rich nation (behind Saudi Arabia). But because it takes an estimated two barrels worth of energy to scrape one barrel of usable crude from tar sand, Canada's gooey treasure will not fill the global gap. And since tar sand is scraped out of open pit mines then washed with water, its extraction threatens to transform northern Alberta into one of the world's largest environmental disaster zones.

Or perhaps you would be willing to seize what's left before someone else does? If you knew about Hubbert's Peak a decade ago -- as oilmen Bush and Cheney surely did -- perhaps you would regard occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq as an ugly but necessary price to pay in order to secure sufficient time for the U.S. economy to convert?

Invading Iraq, writes Heinberg, "was more understandable -- if no less morally and tactically questionable -- when viewed in light of a single piece of information to which the administration was privy, but which was obscure to the vast majority of the world's population. That crucial fact was that the rate of global production was about to peak."

Monte Paulsen is editor of The Dragonfly Review of Books. He rides his bicycle to work.

Sunday, July 30 -- For the 2,066 actual delegates at this week's Republican National Convention, the pilgrimage to Philadelphia is about much more than politics -- it's about booty. Upon their arrival, delegates, alternates and GOP bigwigs were presented with a suitcase worth of loot, including a tin of Altoids, a package of elephant-shaped Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, and a genuine Convention Barbie.

Convention Barbie -- a limited edition of the popular plastic doll by Mattel -- sports high heels, a convention badge and a Nancy-Reagan-red suit with pearl buttons and matching earrings. She comes in African American, Asian American, Latina and Caucasian versions; all feature the traditional Barbie shape and stance.

Democratic National Committee spokespeople would neither confirm nor deny allegations that Barbie's absurdly stiff posture was inspired by Al Gore. But the Philadelphia Direct Action Group, a protest organization, issued a press release claiming Convention Barbie represents everything the Republican party wants a woman to be: "undernourished, dressed to kill, and inanimate."

THE BIRTHPLACE OF LIBERTY, AND TELEVISED CONVENTIONS

The conventional wisdom among TV pundits is that this time around the GOP fete has been stage-managed to the point of becoming one long infomercial. (They are shocked. Shocked!) Nevermind that this is a bit like the pot calling the kettle a George Foreman fat-reducing grille -- the fact remains that Philly is the birthplace of the televised political convention.

This is the sixth time the Republicans have met in Philadelphia. After hosting three relatively unspectacular gatherings in 1856, 1872 and 1900 -- at which the GOP nominated the memorable John C. Fremont, Ulysses S. Grant and William McKinley -- Philadelphia provided the stage for the nation's first televised convention in 1940.

Unfortunately for Wendell Lewis Willkie, almost no one owned a television set in 1940. So almost no one watched his nomination, or the passage of a Republican platform that both opposed America's participation in World War II and deplored then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "explosive utterances."

Both the GOP and the Democrats held their 1948 conventions in Philadelphia, because the live TV equipment was too cumbersome to move from city to city. And by 1952, the conventions had begun the transformation from working meetings where parties chose a nominee to beauty pageants where parties began the arduous job of peddling their designated nominees to a suspicious public.

On Sunday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, a Republican and runner-up in this year's veep-stakes contest, begged forgiveness for his party's role in creating this quadrennial television event. "We were the first party 52 years ago to invite television cameras to cover our convention," Ridge told a reception of arriving GOP faithful. Ridge quickly added: "I apologize for that."

COME AGAIN?

The official GOP band on the convention floor has assembled an interesting repertoire of songs to entertain the delegates this week. Among them: John Lennon's "Come Together," which would seem aimed at the politically myopic Baby Boomers who George W. Bush is trying to lure into the GOP.

Liner note: Lennon originally wrote the song as a rallying anthem for his friend Timothy Leary, who was at the time mulling a run for Governor of California against Ronald Reagan. As he was writing the tune, President Richard Nixon's administration was working to deport the Beatle.

(No word at press time as to whether Ridge will be issuing any further apologies; Lennon and Leary were unavailable for comment.)

BIRDS OF PREY

In the unlikely event that Convention Barbie is unable to satisfy their passions, GOP insiders also had the chance to paw the latest military hardware. At taxpayer expense, the Pentagon has billeted an invitation-only arms show at the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

On display are an unmanned surveillance aircraft called the Predator, the latest amphibious vehicles designed for use during chemical- and biological-warfare, and the V-22 Osprey, a hybrid aircraft with rotors that swivel so it can take off like a helicopter but cruise like a turboprop commuter plane.

At least one convention attendee is likely to skip the weapons show, however. Throughout his tenure as secretary of defense, vice-presidential nominee Dick Cheney tried to kill the Osprey, an expensive aircraft that crashed repeatedly during testing.

THE BUICK AND SUV PARTY

In case you were wondering who pays the bills for distributing Convention Barbie and otherwise subsidizing the television industry's biggest game show of the year, you might be shocked to learn that after a small taxpayer subsidy, the Republican and Democratic conventions are sponsored by the same big businesses that fund everything else done by the major parties. Among the corporations donating a million dollars or more to this week's GOP convention include: AT&T, Bell Atlantic, Comcast and General Motors.

In a tradition that dates to the same era as the introduction of television (shocked?), General Motors loans a fleet of vehicles to each major convention. The GOP has received the use of about 400 cars, including Buick LeSabres and Chevy Suburbans. The Democrats, however, will receive Cadillacs. Maybe this was what George W. is referring to when he derides "limousine liberals."

SEATTLE (Dec. 5) -- The World Trade Organization slunk away from this riot-torn city after delegates from 135 nations abandoned their efforts to launch a new round of trade negotiations. Demonstrators danced in the soggy streets, celebrating after a week of mostly peaceful protests hobbled the ministerial meeting. But the Battle of Seattle that drew 40,000 activists to the streets paled in comparison to the quiet riot beyond the barricades.Working from plush hotel suites nestled high above the clouds of tear gas, WTO Director General Mike Moore and U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky were less troubled by the sea of protestors handing out "practice safe trade" condoms than the trickle of outraged delegates who, angered over how the U.S. and European Union were monopolizing the agenda, were threatening to pack their bags."This is absolutely the worst -- the worst -- organized international conference there has ever been," said Sir Shridath Ramphal, a silver-haired veteran of more than 30 years of trade negotiations and head of a joint delegation of Caribbean nations. "Mrs. Barshefsky is intent on forcing the process and having a declaration at all costs, almost as if it doesn't matter what the rest of the countries think about it. Well, that is not going to happen. The WTO does not belong to the United States." HOW WTO FAILEDThe WTO was set up in 1995 to monitor trade agreements and resolve disputes. The Geneva-based group operates by consensus, which means that every member nation must agree to proceed with a new "round" of negotiations. In practice, WTO leaders summon small groups of delegates to a "green room" -- so named because the walls of the first room used for this purpose were green -- where the agreement is hammered out. Once a few key delegates agree on a text, the rest of the ministers are pressured to go along with it in exchange for concessions on other issues.The fundamentally undemocratic nature of this negotiating process was among the complaints protestors brought to Seattle. It also proved to be the undoing of the ministerial meeting. Among the fatal flaws:-- The green room process provided no opportunity for interested parties to monitor negotiations. Neither the proposals, nor the debate, nor even the voting records were visible to the public, as they are in nearly every democracy in the world. This led to comical results in Seattle, where news reporters and representatives from non-governmental organizations turned to peering through peepholes and sifting through trash cans as they struggled to discern what was going on behind the scenes. WTO leaders stationed additional security personnel throughout the convention center in order to combat such amateur espionage. By the end of the week, the inside of the hall felt as much like a police state as the streets.-- Most less-developed nations were also shut out of the process. Delegates from economically powerless countries in Africa, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean spent most of the week wandering the halls, asking journalists and non-governmental representatives what was happening. The delegates -- nearly all of whom are high-ranking officials in their home governments -- were humiliated, and grew furious as the week progressed. Making matters worse, the riots prevented them from sampling Seattle's nightlife and kept them cooped up in their hotels. "There's too much behind-the-scene cooking," complained Namibian delegate Nokokure Murangi. "It's as if we do not exist."-- And when many were finally were presented with a draft agreement, they were simultaneously subjected to intense pressure to sign. None would discuss the specifics on the record, for fear of further reprisals. But Jamie Love, who has been tracking trade deals for several years as head of the Consumer Project on Technology, said the arm-twisting is frequently unrelated to trade. "It is this really ugly form of colonialism where everything happens behind the scenes." Love said that when Egypt was contemplating a pharmaceuticals policy that would hurt U.S. drug makers, for example, "They were told in plain terms that they would lose $500 million in U.S. aid if they challenged the U.S." Brent Blackwelder, head of the environmental group Friends of the Earth, agreed: "Delegates from the south are caving in to United States pressure ... The violence you see outside cannot compare to the violence being done inside."By late Friday night, it became clear to WTO leadership that there was no way to reach consensus. "We could have stayed all night, maybe for five more days, it wouldn't have mattered," said a weary Barshefsky, who as host of the failed conference will likely face intense criticism in the months to come. "The WTO has outgrown the processes appropriate to an earlier time," she added, " ... we needed a process which had a greater degree of internal transparency and inclusion to accommodate a larger and more diverse membership." WHAT NEXT?While the forces aligned against corporate-led globalization won the Battle of Seattle, the War over World Trade is far from over. The WTO plans to resume discussions early next year in Geneva. Moore and most of the humiliated trade negotiators believe that the WTO can be fixed -- possibly through the creation of a parliamentary style system -- and resume pursuing its free-trade agenda.But the labor, consumer, environment, human rights, and student groups who marched in Seattle are opposed to the core beliefs of the WTO, which they claim promotes not "free" trade but "corporate-managed" trade policies that threaten health, labor, the environment and basic human rights. Noted consumer advocate Ralph Nader, "There's never been an event in American history that has brought together more disparate groups."Both sides vow to fight again. The only thing certain is that it won't be in as comfortable a city as Seattle. When asked where he would schedule the next ministerial meeting, a former top U.S. trade negotiator suggested: "Someplace like Iceland, in January."Monte Paulsen is a freelance reporter based in Washington, D.C. He is a contributor to "The Buying of the President 2000" to be released next month by Avon Books.