In no way do I want to sound judgmental. This is meant as a neutral comment, not attacking anyone. But I didn't agree with something and I'd like to explain why..
It doesn't consume the world resources. A harmless addiction.
That's an interesting point of view. I used to think the same way about it, until my ecology teacher forced me to do some calculations and some research about the origin of stuff.
Take a look at where European peat moss, potting soil ingredients and turf come from.. Sure, we only use it in small amounts, but nonetheless it adds up to destroying the world. Those all are packaged in small handy bags, shipped, processed, repackaged, placed in stores that need heating, light and what not, then we take them home to use for maybe 10 years at most.
Also, don't forget about the miles of copper wire that we're not reusing. Recycling is one thing, but the stuff needs to be molten down, purified, refined, molten down again and shaped in to whatever it needs to become.
Or the sprays people use against pests and fungi, packed with nasty chemicals (see:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180308120621.htm).
Shipping pots from abroad means that you're basically spending petrol, gasoline and polluting the environment simply because some people want a japanese stamp on a pot they could've made at their own homes. Let alone the baking of said pots, how many joules are needed to heat clay to baking temperature? We could use recycled plastic, make our own, but those aren't that pretty.
Akadama? We love akadama from Japan.. I order 14kg bags of the stuff. Those need shipping from Japan, to my reseller, and from there to my home. It needs packaging too, of the durable kind.. It comes in a box, with a bag inside. But before that, it's been in 5 more boxes, all wrapped in plastics, possibly even in a ethylene gassed container during transport to kill bugs. Ethylene does grow on trees, but that's not the stuff they're putting in containers.
Taking a tree to a club meeting just for show, or just to work on it, doesn't sound very eco-friendly either. If you take a tree to a club 40km from your home (+/-40 minute drive), and you have a very efficient car, you'll still use up around 2 litres of gasoline. On the way back, again, 2 litres of gas. Do that three or four times, and you've added enough CO2 to the atmosphere as your tree will take up from it during it's lifetime (considering that the CO2 is stored as wood, in leafs it just ends up in the cycle).
Wikipedia says: 1 litre of gasoline creates 2.68kg of CO2.
4 rides back and forth (=8) times 2 litre (makes 16) times the 2.68kg/L means you'll be pumping roughly 32 kilograms of CO2 in the atmosphere. Now, I'm no expert on trees and weightlifting, but 32kg seems like a pretty big tree. That's 70 pounds. Half of my weight as a human. A little over two cubic foot of dry douglas fir wood, how much time does that take in nature to form? 15 years or so? While the drives shouldn't take more than half a day. That's just 4 times of going to bonsai clubs, needing 15 years to balance out in nature.
Think about that for a while.. Doing this calculation did make me think.. There's simply no justification for that kind of footprint, simply for 'shaping a tree' or 'putting it on display'. Or is there? If so, I'd like to know!
Let's stay honest, it does add up, little by little, to destroying the world, but I personally do my best to repay that debt. I'm hoping people will have the same insights, and maybe think about doing the same.