A couple of days before I started reporting this story, I ordered a cat scratcher from Amazon. When it arrived, I immediately felt guilty. The scratcher was made entirely of cardboard. It came inside its own cardboard mailing box. And that box had been stuck inside another, much larger cardboard box and surrounded by bubble wrap. All of that, just to deliver intact something whose sole purpose is to be destroyed. I had to wonder: Did the way I acquired it help destroy the planet, too?