Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows of sustainable paper

By David Biello

I promise not to give anything away, just wanted to highlight a few facts about the impending mega-release: its first printing will consume 16,700 tons of paper (which, depending on whose estimates of tree per piece of paper you believe, equals roughly 400,800 trees), according to Scholastic.

Ah, but the printers have performed a little wizardry of their own, using wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. 260,520 of those trees were "sustainably harvested," which means the companies that harvested it took into account environmental and social factors (though it doesn't mean they didn't come from a plantation, just that this tree farm set aside some acreage for "natural forest cover." Oh, and the plantation species don't have to be native if "their performance is greater than that of the native species," according to the FSC website.)

Because the printing industry in the U.S. alone consumes at least 24 million trees a year, according to the Center for Paper Business and Industry Studies at Georgia Tech, any steps in this direction are to be lauded. After all, preventing the loss of forests could go a long way towards avoiding catastrophic greenhouse gas levels.

But any book that has sold millions of copies before it even hits the shelves (and despite leaks) is probably better suited to recycled paper--and a "deluxe" edition printed on recycled paper will be available. But why only 100,000? Granted, China is eating up the supply of waste paper at a galloping pace--preventing 65 million metric tons of the stuff from hitting landfills, according to a recent report--but surely there are a few sheaves left somewhere. And it shouldn't take wizardry to find them, nor cost an arm and a leg (though I hear wizarding might.) Zhang Yin, the "Queen of Trash" seems to be making a good living at it, muggle or not.

Useful links on the original article site, the Scientific American blog.

Harry Potter: the economics

By Megan McArdle

But there have to be generally accepted rules. Characters can't get out of the predicament the author is sick of by having the car suddenly start running on sand. Similarly, if your characters will be using magic, they must do so by some generally believable system.

Yet in the Potter books, the costs and limits are too often arbitrary. A patronus charm, for example, is awfully difficult - until Rowling wants a stirring scene in which Harry pulls together an intrepid band of students to Fight the Power, whereupon it becomes simple enough to be taught by an inexperienced fifteen year old. Rowling can only do this because it's thoroughly unclear how magic power is acquired. It seems hard to credit academic labour, when spells are one or two words; and anyway, if that were the determinant, Hermione Granger would be a better wizard than Harry. But if it's something akin to athletic skill, why is it taught at rows of desks? And why aren't students worn out after practicing spells?

The low opportunity cost attached to magic spills over into the thoroughly unbelievable wizard economy. Why are the Weasleys poor? Why would any wizard be? Anything they need, except scarce magical objects, can be obtained by ordering a house elf to do it, or casting a spell, or, in a pinch, making objects like dinner, or a house, assemble themselves. Yet the Weasleys are poor not just by wizard standards, but by ours: they lack things like new clothes and textbooks that should be easily obtainable with a few magic words. Why?

COMPLETE ARTICLE

Thanks to Chas Clifton

The Weasley Family's Arthurian Names

There is a running theme of Arthurian legend in some of the Weasley family names. The father is named Arthur; the daughter is named Ginevra, which is the Italian form of Guinevere; a son is named Percy, which is a shortened form of Percival, and the youngest son is named Ron, the name of Arthur's spear in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, and in the "Brut" poems of Wace and Layamon[3][4] (it was originally "Rhongomynyad" in Welsh legend).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasley_family

Elements of the Arthurian Tradition in Harry Potter
by Phyllis D. Morris

Elements of the Arthurian tradition are woven throughout Rowling's Harry Potter series. Both Arthur and Harry are heroes; both were taken from their parents and hidden for their own safety; both have wise, aged mentors; both are on a quest to fulfill their destiny and both have the potential to become immortal. This paper explores the parallels between the themes and characters in Arthurian legend and those in the Harry Potter series. Article

Last night (this morning?)I took my daughters to see the midnight opening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at the local mall. While they've been deeply involved with the books for years (we'll go to the midnight sale of the 7th book as well), I just haven't been terribly interested in reading any of them. I appreciate that JK Rowling manages to tell a good story, and I think it is fantastic to see how many kids have been turned on to reading because of the series. But I'm afraid the books are just too English boarding school fiction for me.