oh, those desperate, silly fake tree peeps

Apparently fake tree sellers are incapable of admitting defeat. The proverbial ship has left the harbor on the environment issue when it comes to choosing a fake, plastic tree over a real, farm-grown one. Even decidedly pro-environmental groups have recommended for years to use a real Christmas tree instead of a fake one ...for example, treehugger.com http://www.treehugger.com/files/2004/12/how_to_pick_a_g.php

And many environment and health groups recommend avoiding products made of PVC, the plastic that makes up most fake tree needle simulations.
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/how-to-find-and-avoid-toxic-vi

But, undeterred, the fake tree people last year paid a company who does research for the vinyl industry to do a "study" concluding that buy a tree from a farm was worse for the environment than buying a plastic tree made in China. It got little news coverage, what there was mostly ridiculed the very notion. But they are at it again:
http://www.plasticsnews.com/blog/2009/09/are_pvc_christmas_trees_green.html

Seriously, this issue should be put to rest. Christmas tree farms in North American planted an estimated 42 million new trees in 2009 and there are close to 350,000 acres in the U.S. alone producing Christmas trees. You get an average of about 1,000 trees per acre so that means U.S. farmers are currently growing around 350 million trees. Can anyone seriously think a factory in China spewing out hunks of plastic and metal is a better environmental choice?