End of This Process

There is an excellent article in Wikipedia on the process of producing paper, it's history, etc. There is also this excerpt about environmental impact:
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The pulp and paper industry has been accused of being instrumental in forest destruction. Several major Asian producers, for example, with strong connections to their respective Governments and bureaucracy have been systematically stripping rainforest for many years. Often the logs are transhipped to other countries to disguise the damaging trade.

The Indonesian, Malaysian, Cambodian, Amazon rainforests are currently being subject to some of the worst excesses of environmental vandalism.

The processes by which paper is rendered white, in most cases, is also a source of concern. Many rivers have been badly damaged by the discharges from mills processing the wood pulp. These concerns are not merely side issues but rather display the comprehensive problems that occur when production dominates thinking. As in many problems over the years the mistaken belief is, and has traditionally been, that nature can cope. The short answer now is that nature cannot and increasingly the state of the ecosystems has been rendered such that the position has, and is becoming, terminal. The flow-on effect compounds and already disastrous position as in (for example) water quality.
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In conclusion, maybe the governments and religions aren't trying to protect us from books, but from all of the hazards involved in their production. It does seem a rather backwards way to do it especially considering....