Choosing a real Christmas tree instead of an artificial tree is the most ecofriendly choice, advises Pomona College Professor of Environmental Analysis Char Miller.

“Artificial trees are made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a derivative of petroleum, and even more fossil fuels are burned to ship or truck the fake tree to the American consumer,” he said, adding that 85 percent travel far, from China.

“The petroleum that goes into producing fake trees and transporting them is on a carbon scale much worse than a locally sourced tree. Just as we are interested in locally sourced food, here is another item that it is best to buy much closer to home.”

While some tree farms use pesticides and herbicides to fend off damaging insects and weeds, a natural tree, especially those grown close to where a buyer lives, is best for the environment, even amid a drought, said Miller, an expert on environmental and forest history.

“Buying local at an organic farm or chopping your own tree is the greenest choice,” he said.

Real Christmas trees are rooted in the soil and are able to sequester carbon. Even when harvested, and only 10 percent of them are cut a year, this essential air-cleaning process of absorption is maintained.

Moreover, growers immediately replant, often at a ratio of two or three for every one tree cut down, allowing this industry, with more than 400 million trees in the ground, to operate on a sustainable basis, Miller said.

“Besides, pine-scent is divine!” Char Miller is the director and W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona College, author of Public Lands, Public Debates: A Century of Controversy, and Seeking the Greatest Good: The Conservation Legacy of Gifford Pinchot. He can be contacted at char.miller@pomona.edu.