Renewable recources

This is about a quater of my fuel supply for this winter.

I do feel a tinge of guilt plundering the forest like this. A small tree, that has grown for decades is barely enough to keep us warm for a couple of evenings. The disproportion is staggering. How come is it that I deserve to benefit from the energy which this creature has gathered by some miraculous process, which I do not understand, do not have a close connection with, do not aid or support*. I don't actually commit the cruel murderous act of selecting and bringing down the poor little living things. The forest management agencies, whoever they might be in various locations, have a program of thinning the forests to allow for healthier growth of more widely separated individual trees and to prevent horrendous and destructive forest fires which occur when the growth is too dense.

Still, I do feel undeserving.
I really should live in a city where unseen, barely smelt substances travel in pipes under sidewalks and don't even glow within sight as you crank up the thermostat on a chilly evening. It must surely be comforting to realize that you are abusing non-renewable resources since this gives being, and being comfortable, a bracket in time, a defined schedule for this civilization with a calculable deadline for decline and fall.

*I remember now: its the Judeo/Christian ethic -- "man's" dominion over all. Just say no! to chilly evenings...