As a fanciful child, my favorite junk mail was undoubtedly Publisher’s Clearing House, with it’s promises of untold millions. I’d sift through their list of magazines fantasizing about the white van, the people holding microphones, and the surfboard-sized check that would catapult me over the moat and into the castle I imagined myself one day reigning in. Well, now that Greenland is melting faster than the ice cream snickers I forgot about in my backpack last summer, I’ve given up on winning millions through PCH and now view their tantalizing enticements as tantamount to environmental terror (well, perhaps not that severe, but the phrase has a certain ring).Environmental terror you ask? Each year, American consumers get 19 billion catalogs in the mail. But only 2 percent of those catalogs ever spur a purchase — most go straight to the trash. And in order to make the paper for those catalogs, it requires about 53 million trees. Not to mention the emissions from processing that paper. The amount of energy that goes into it is roughly the equivalent of the amount of energy used by 1.2-million American homes — and of course, it’s all fossil fuels.That’s where Catalog Choice comes in. The National Wildlife Federation and several environmental groups have launched a new, free service. Go online to www.CatalogChoice.org, pick the catalogs you want to block (block them all!), and the service contacts the merchants for you.Though this cuts you out of the running for any billion dollar sweepstakes, I’m fairly certain everyone will be better off in the long run.happiness and virtueck swett