LSA sophomore Mike Thurston reported last Wednesday that the MPrint site was making him feel “weirdly guilty and responsible” for the devastating effects of deforestation.
The site, which contains a few blurbs telling its user how much paper they’ve used and what percentage of a tree it’s equivalent to, was described by many students as “guilt-trippy,” especially at a university whose endowment is tied up in oil reserve futures.
“It said I used 0.045% of a tree to print out my final thesis on mitigating the effects of climate change on the coral reefs or some shit,” reported SEAS senior Margaret Reilly. “I had no idea I was single-handedly responsible for the destruction of the Amazon.”
A few students have noticed that hovering over the environment blurb introduces even further detail: “Did you know there were eight families of endangered birds living in that tree? Your printing output just killed one-sixth of a baby bird.”
The latest reports indicate that the server power necessary to power MPrint is worse for the environment than all users’ paper usage combined.
