Every year, Americans buy somewhere between 35 million and 50 million Christmas trees, and many more pull an artificial tree out of storage for the season. In all, about three-quarters of U.S. households typically have some kind of Christmas tree, surveys show. When Christmas trees are alive and growing, they pull carbon dioxide from the air and use it as the building blocks of their wood. That keeps the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere, where too much carbon dioxide contributes to global warming. If you live in Mississippi, like I do, buying a noble fir (Abies procera) means your tree probably came from the Pacific Northwest. That's a long drive, and transportation is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. However, in a truck with several hundred trees, each individual tree's transportation emissions are pretty minor. The most common Christmas tree varies by region: Douglas-fir is also common throughout the Mountain West. Scotch pine and balsam fir are regularly grown in...
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