We are losing our US forests to an industry that claims to be renewable. THE BIOMASS ENERGY INDUSTRY = A DISPOSE-ALL FOR TREES
Trees and intact forests cool their surroundings, nurture water cycles, filter our water and prevent flooding and drought. Nonetheless we are ready to sacrifice our forests for “renewable energy.”
In this article, we will talk about:
The many valuable services provided by trees and forests
How the “biomass energy” industry is rapidly eliminating our forests.
Prominent environmentalists have pushed for biomass energy. Some have changed their position, but not convincingly.
Here is what environmental leaders should say, to defend our forests, waterways, wildlife and, indeed, our climate.
Environmentalists today are obsessively focused on carbon emissions to the point that they are pushing “solutions” that destroy the living world. One of these “solutions” is “biomass” fuel. Biomass means cutting down trees to burn as fuel. It is happening on a large scale, not least of all in the East Coast and Gulf Coast of the United States.
After turning trees into wood pellets, the wood pellets are loaded onto ocean liners and shipped to Europe to burn. This is thought to be “renewable.”
In PART ONE of this article, I enumerate the many benefits of trees and forests.
In PART TWO, I demonstrate how leading climate activists have chosen to support an industry that is very destructive of our forests.
In PART THREE, I craft a hypothetical “open letter” on behalf of prominent environmental leaders, such as Bill McKibben, Michael Mann and Naomi Klein. Here is what they should say, but probably will not.
PART ONE: Living systems regulate the climate
Living systems, such as forests, have created the temperate, habitable climate that we enjoy. Intact ecosystems, such as mature forests, soak up rainwater like a sponge, and then use that water to live, while regulating our climate.
These living systems regulate our climate to a greater degree than we are led to believe.
Let’s examine the many services that forest ecosystems provide.
Evaporating water cools the air
Step out of the shower or the bath or the pool. It feels cold because water is evaporating. Evaporating water literally takes heat from the surface of your skin. Evaporating water takes energy to evaporate. It takes the heat from its surroundings.
When humans sweat or perspire, it feels cold on our skin. That’s evaporative cooling.
Walk under a shade tree. It’s the same effect. Walk into a forest. It’s the same thing. The temperature drops 10 to 20°F. And it’s not only because of the shade. It’s because trees are constantly pushing water out of their leaves and causing it to evaporate.
Trees intercept rainfall
When rain falls on trees and plants, there is much more to cling to, because the total surface area of tree leaves is much greater than the area over which they hang.
Some of this rainfall flows downward, soaking gently into the ground. Some of it evaporates back into the air, cooling the air and contributing to the next rainfall.
Trees transpire water vapor
Trees are constantly exuding (transpiring) water vapor. According to the US Forest Service, a healthy 100-foot tree transpires about 11,000 gallons of water per growing season.
This transpired water:
Has a cooling effect
Contributes to the water cycle, i.e., future rains.
Prevents soil from drying out.
Leaves on the ground soak up rain and prevent floods
Trees drop leaves which provide ground cover that soaks up the rain, prevents floods and allows the rainwater to soak gently into the ground.
According to ecologist Dr. Doug Tallamy, “The water from a 2-inch downpour—more than 54,000 gallons per acre—is captured almost entirely by an oak forest’s leaf litter and the organic humus it creates. … In areas with no leaf litter, the same 2-inch rainstorm causes a flood.”
Excess runoff--not rain--causes flooding. We have excess runoff because our land is not the sponge that it could be if we had enough plants, trees and good soil.
Plants and trees prevent drought
When plants and trees soak up rainfall, they prevent drought, by conserving water and holding onto it longer, so that plants, microbes, fungi and animals can thrive, in between rainfalls and in between rainy seasons.
Plants and trees improve soil quality
Plants and trees improve soil quality, making it sponge-like, thereby preventing both floods and drought.
Nothing improves soil like plants and trees. Plant roots inject carbon into the ground, jump starting the soil food web, improving soil structure and augmenting the soil organic matter.
The soil food web and soil organic matter are the measure of healthy soil, giving it the ability to act like a sponge, holding onto rainfall.
Good soil like this is the home of a soil food web, including bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes and micro arthropods.
This soil food web is a system of superhighways that exchange water and nutrients. They even form a system of underground communication whereby plants can exchange water and communicate from a distance, sending distress signals, signaling one another to protect themselves against this or that pest or intruder.
Land that has good soil can hold onto the rainfall, providing water to the plants and trees until the next rain. This prevents the worst effects of drought. It also contributes to healthy water cycles, thus contributing to the next rainfall and providing relief from drought.
Plants and trees “invite” rain
Plants and trees create a moist, low pressure environment into which rain can more easily fall.
Air above cities tends to be hot and dry because of all the paving and the concrete buildings. This hot, dry air tends to repel rain. Similarly, air above a field of bare dirt is hot and dry, and tends to repel rain.
But when you have a dense cover of plants and trees, the air tends to be moist. So when the clouds form raindrops, the raindrops are more likely to fall.
Trees and forests form clouds
Clouds don’t form on their own. They need “condensation nuclei” in order to form water droplets.
Trees emit condensation nuclei in the form of bacteria, called aerobacter, to form water droplets. They also emit organic compounds called terpenes that form water droplets.
All this goes away when we remove the forest.
Video: How Plants Cool the Planet
Here is an excellent video by Jimi Eisenstein.
that illustrates many of the concepts we have been talking about, including the following:
Trees and plants transpire water, cooling the surroundings as it evaporates. As a result, forests can measure 5 to 10 degrees celsius (9 to 18 degrees fahrenheit) cooler than adjacent clearings.
Bacteria living in tree leaves move with water vapor into the atmosphere.
Water droplets cling to these bacteria, forming water droplets.
Forests, grasslands and marine ecosystems each form their own type of condensation nuclei.
When water vapor condenses to make rain, it releases heat. This is the reverse of the cooling effect that occurs during transpiration.
This release of heat occurs in the upper atmosphere, from where the heat radiates back into space, thus creating a cooling effect which counteracts the greenhouse effect associated with “climate change.”
Wherever forests are absent and therefore cannot contribute condensation nuclei, the water vapor forms a haze that heats the atmosphere, because water is a greenhouse gas.
Intact ecosystems soak up rainfall and sink it into the soil, thus preventing the worst effects of climate change, including floods and droughts.
Intact ecosystems absorb water, dampening the “kindling” that will otherwise fuels wildfires.
Plants consist mostly of carbon, so when they grow, they absorb carbon.
Intact ecosystems consist of carbon, so when they grow, they absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
The soil food web consists largely of carbon, so when we enrich the soil, we store carbon permanently, until and unless we destroy that living system.
The “biotic pump” is the wind that brings rain
Trees and forests generate water cycles called the biotic pump. The biotic pump theory was developed by Anastassia Makarieva and her late colleague Victor Gorshkov.
Makarieva contends that the difference in air pressure creates a wind that propels air from high pressure systems to lower pressure systems. Since forests create low pressure systems, they are continually drawing air towards themselves.
In school, we were taught that water evaporates from bodies of water and then falls as it moves inland. If this were true, then we would expect to have more rain near the coast and less rain as we move inland. Often, the opposite is true. In North America, prevailing winds move west to east. So you would expect the west to be wetter. But the west is drier and the east is wetter. Likewise, in Africa, it is wetter as you move further inland, toward the rainforest of the Congo.
Here is an excellent video by Jimi Eisenstein that explains this process.
Forests contain water, and this water regulates temperatures
Intact ecosystems prevent extremes of high or low temperature.
The reason for this is that water has a high “specific heat.” That means that water is very slow to take on heat, when the surrounding air is getting hotter. And water is very slow to lose heat when the surrounding air is getting colder.
Intact ecosystems hold a lot of water. Most plants are over half water, by weight. So a forest holds vast amounts of water. Because of this water content, a forest is going to avoid extremes of heat and cold that are harmful to humans and wildlife.
A forest is going to be cooler in the heat of the day and warmer in the cool of the night. A forest is going to be cooler in the heat of summer and warmer in the dead of winter.
So, naturally, a forest is going to avoid weather extremes, which are damaging.
The benefits of forests
In addition to all the benefits named above,
Forests capture carbon
Forests reduce water pollution.
Forests reduce soil erosion.
Forests reduce sea level rise by capturing freshwater and holding it on the land, instead of allowing it to flow into the ocean.
Forests provide a wind break that protects people, animals, ecosystems and crops from extreme winds.
Forests provide habitat for wildlife. (Don’t our fellow species have a right to thrive?)
But the plan is to sacrifice all these benefits for “renewable energy.”
PART TWO: Deforestation for “biomass energy”
Despite all the benefits of forests named above, the timber industry has teamed up with governments and environmentalists to eliminate our forests, for the sake of our climate.
Biomass energy is an industry that turns trees into wood chips to burn like coal.
In this section, we will look at the following:
How does biomass energy impact our forests?
What does the timber industry say about biomass energy?
What are leading environmentalists saying about biomass energy, and why do they seem confused?
Eliminating forests
According to the Dogwood Alliance, a nonprofit based in the American South and dedicated to protecting southern forests, in the past 60 years, we have lost over 33 million acres of natural forests in the Southern US. In that same time period, industrial pine plantations have grown from 0 to 40 million acres.
https://dogwoodalliance.org/2023/09/waste-wood-for-bioenergy-use-is-misleading/
Coastal forests are suffering
This map below shows the degree of “forest integrity” in the Southeastern United States. Green represents high integrity forests. Yellow represents medium integrity forests. And red represents low integrity forests. In other words, the red represents forests that have undergone the most “thinning” due to timber harvesting, for lumber, for paper and now for wood pellets.
(Source: Dogwood Alliance.)
Where are the wood pellet plants located?
The map below shows the locations of wood pellet plants located in the Southeastern United States. The yellow dots indicate the locations of chip plants. From left to right, the plants are located in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Georgia on the Gulf Coast, through South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia on the East Coast.
Is biomass energy carbon neutral?
In 2018, Scientific American wrote: “Congress Says Biomass Is Carbon-Neutral, but Scientists Disagree. Using wood as a fuel source could actually increase CO2 emissions.”
The article continues: “Burning biomass for energy releases large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere all at once. But depending on the type of tree, forests may take decades or even a century to draw the same amount of carbon back out of the air.”
Flawed carbon math
Biomass advocates say that biomass is carbon-neutral because the trees we cut down and burn were going to release carbon in the future anyway.
It’s true that burning is one way to release carbon and that decay is another way to release carbon. So there’s a moral equivalency, say the biomass promoters.
But there’s a time differential. Burning wood now is not the same as letting it decay later. Plus, when wood decays in a forest ecosystem, it is not waste. It is food and shelter for other organisms.
A dead tree provides food and nesting sites for woodpeckers.
According to Wikipedia:
“In temperate forests, snags provide critical habitat for more than 100 species of bird and mammal, and snags are often called 'wildlife trees' by foresters. Dead, decaying wood supports a rich community of decomposers like bacteria and fungi, insects, and other invertebrates.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snag_(ecology)?wprov=sfti1#Forest_snags
In nature, the process of decay is valuable. When we burn wood, we deprive wildlife of food and shelter.
According to Beverly Law of Oregon State University says, “A more climate-friendly approach would be to simply preserve or add to existing forests without harvesting them—a process that would enhance the nation’s natural carbon sinks—and focus instead on truly carbon-neutral sources of energy, like wind and solar,”
What are they not telling you?
Biomass proponents don’t tell you that soil degrades and releases carbon after you cut the trees down. This is because the trees nurture the soil as long as they are living, but this process stops after you cut them down.
They don’t tell you that a functioning forest continually increases the soil carbon. So the forest loses that capacity when you cut the trees down.
Biomass proponents don’t tell you that when you clearcut a forest, the soil erodes. Soil erosion is a process that releases carbon into the atmosphere.
They don’t tell you that they are cutting down biologically diverse forests and replacing them with pine plantations, which can support only a fraction of the biological diversity and can hold only a fraction of the soil carbon of a biologically diverse forest.
They don’t tell you about all of the carbon intensive heavy equipment that is required to cut down trees, transport logs, grind logs into wood chips and ship it across the ocean to Europe, where most wood chips are burned, for “environmental” reasons.
Biomass proponents don’t tell you that a high functioning ecosystem, like a biologically diverse forest will absorb carbon over the course of time. And clearcutting forests degrades the ability of the forest to absorb carbon. A fully functioning forest can absorb more carbon than a bunch of seedlings you just planted.
Are they using “waste wood”?
The industry claims to be using “waste wood,” such as sawdust from mills, damaged wood pieces and tree trimmings from neighborhoods.
But here is what they are really doing: Cutting down whole trees and trucking them to the chipping plant.
This truck is carrying whole logs from a forest to a chipping plant in North Carolina. (Source: Dogwood Alliance)
Here is a picture from a biomass plant in Burlington, Vermont. This is not waste wood.
Source: Planet of the Humans, at 53:13.
Michael Mann repeats the “wood waste” myth
In his book, The New Climate War, climatologist Michael Mann
“It’s important to get the facts right. The wood chips used in biomass are generally a by-product of already-existing forestry practices, not the result of cutting down trees for fuel as some imply.”
The context for this statement is Mann’s strident critique of Planet of the Humans. Mann is a great deal more critical of this documentary than he is of the biomass industry.
Why does he go out of his way to defend the biomass industry and criticize Planet of the Humans? Possibly because the documentary exposes corruption in an environmental movement that has lost its way and is no longer protecting nature against industry, but seems to be promoting industry over and against nature.
Bill McKibben is confused
It would be a mistake to say that Bill McKibben categorically supports biomass energy. But neither has he completely renounced it.
Here is Bill’s story.
Please start this video at the one hour mark and watch about 90 seconds.
Here, you will see environmental legend Bill McKibben celebrating the new “biomass gasification plant” at Vermont’s Middlebury College, where he has taught for 25 years and is now the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies.
Speaking at the 2009 grand opening of the biomass plant at Middlebury College, McKibben says: “What powers a learning community? As of this afternoon, the easy answer to that is wood chips. It’s incredibly beautiful to stand over there and see that big bunker full of wood chips. You can put any kind of wood in, oak, willow, whatever you want. Pretty much anything that burns we can toss in there if we can chip it down to the right size And there are very few places anywhere in this country of that kind of change over that scale. But it shows that it could happen anywhere, and it should happen anywhere. In fact, it must happen everywhere.”
So, McKibben seems to be “all in” on biomass.
In 2020, McKibben claimed--accurately--that he had been writing in opposition to biomass plants since 2016.
In 2016, McKibben wrote an op ed titled: “Burning trees for electricity is a bad idea, ” and saying “The "forest products industry" is trying to paint industrial wood-fired power plants as clean. They’re not.”
https://grist.org/climate-energy/burning-trees-for-electricity-is-a-bad-idea/
Nonetheless, McKibben feels compelled to endorse policies and laws that include generous provisions for biomass energy. According to Planet of the Humans writer and director Jeff Gibbs: “After writing his 2016 op-ed, Mr. McKibben continued support for national legislation to fund new biofuel/biomass infrastructure. In 2017, he endorsed the 100 by ’50 Act, which included grants up to $100 million for “second-generation advanced biofuels,” which are defined as including wood chips and forestry “waste,” as well as the extension of biofuel producer credits, which the Koch Brothers had also lobbied for. During this period after his 2016 op-ed, Mr. McKibben also supported a Sierra Club initiative called “Ready for 100,” which cited Burlington, Vermont, whose biomass plant is featured in the film, as an example of 100% renewable energy.”
https://planetofthehumans.com/2020/04/30/response-to-bill-mckibben-regarding-planet-of-the-humans/
In 2016, McKibben changes his view on biomass energy
In this 2016 article, McKibben says he was wrong about biomass energy. He also says people were wrong about fracking and also corn ethanol.
But, he ends by saying that solar and wind are the way. As if solar and wind don’t have a downside. As if solar and wind will not end up being regrettable “solutions” that don’t work nearly as well as we were led to believe.
https://grist.org/climate-energy/burning-trees-for-electricity-is-a-bad-idea/
PART THREE: What should our leaders say?
So far, we have seen that forests and ecosystems are very valuable and provide many invaluable services, but that our environmental leaders are not always on board. Here is what I would like for them to say.
The following is strictly a product of my imagination. This is what I believe our environmental leaders should say, not what they have said.
An open letter recommended to be signed by famous environmentalists whose views and positions resemble those of Bill McKibben, Michael Mann and Naomi Klein, i.e., people who:
Focus almost solely on carbon dioxide emissions
Don’t seem to understand the power or value of wildlife or living ecosystems
Have been at odds with brilliant environmental exposés such as Planet of the Humans and Bright Green Lies.
This is an open letter to our fellow environmentalists, and to governmental leaders, from Bill McKibben, Michael Mann and Naomi Klein.
Prevailing themes in these pages include the following:
We have misunderstood the power of our natural, living systems, and we renew our commitment to protecting these living systems.
We have not been attentive to the ecological costs of solar, wind and hydroelectric power.
We see the urgency for humans everywhere to capture rainfall.
We acknowledge the power of regenerative agriculture, holistic grazing and mature forests to restore our climate, while providing clean water and wildlife habitat.
Addressing climate change will not “save the planet”
We have read this Christopher Ketcham article in the intercept: “Addressing Climate Change Will Not ‘Save the Planet’ … green energy will not save the complex web of life on Earth.”
https://theintercept.com/2022/12/03/climate-biodiversity-green-energy/
Climate change did not cause the loss of ⅔ of our vertebrates or ⅔ of our insects since 1970.
We are driving species extinct at the rate of hundreds per week, because of what we do to the land, not because of what we are doing to the air.
Simon Michaux: Shortages of minerals required for “renewable” energy and electric vehicles
We are indebted to Simon Michaux for alerting us to the severe shortages of the minerals needed to build out even the first generation of solar power, wind power and electric vehicles.
https://www.simonmichaux.com/
We urge the IPCC immediately to conduct an investigation into Simon’s claims. In addition, we urge a public debate between Simon and his detractors, so that all informed and knowledgeable people might bring their claims and all relevant facts into a free and fair discussion of these important matters.
Here is a great interview with Simon Michaux.
Extracting metals becomes increasingly dirty and energy intensive
We acknowledge that as time goes on minerals become harder to access. “You have to dig through a lot of dirt to get to the gold,” and this is increasingly true over time.
https://sustainablefootprint.org/nederlands-een-gouden-ring-levert-20-ton-mijnafval-op/
We have to dig through more and more dirt and rock to obtain the same amount of gold, lithium, cobalt, silver, and rare earth metals such as the neodymium inside all magnets, including the two ton magnets of a wind turbine.
The more these resources diminish, the more we have to destroy to get to them.
Where does it end? What are the limits? We need societal limits, because we are dealing with shared resources.
Slave labor in Congo
We have read Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara. Our cell phone batteries, laptop batteries and electric car batteries owe their existence to child slave labor in the cobalt-rich Congo, which provides most of the world’s cobalt, an essential element in lithium-ion batteries.
We cannot save the climate on the backs of slaves, especially children.
We call for the President of the United States to end child slave labor in Congo, with the following Executive Order: “To all companies who sell to the United States markets: As of twelve months hence, your products will no longer be admitted into the ports of the United States unless you can prove, to our satisfaction, that no child is forced to leave school to feed his or her family, and that schools are fully funded. Furthermore, every miner in Congo shall labor in safe working conditions and earn a living wage. United Nations inspectors shall have access to every mine and shall be permitted to talk freely with every worker. Again, the burden of proof is on you. Good luck.”
For once, let the United States wield its economic power to do some good in the world.
Environmental corruption
We have seen Planet of the Humans and acknowledge its appropriate critique of how the environmental movement has been in bed with big money. We will participate in a free, fair, open and very public discussion of this phenomenon. We won’t agree about everything. But undue influence by Big Money is unacceptable and we will renounce it.
See this video, starting at 1:11:00
Anastassia Makarieva: The biotic pump
We have studied the work of Anastassia Makarieva, whose biotic pump theory indicates that our forests play a vital role in our global and regional climate, not least of all by creating the winds that bring the rain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump
We call for a free and fair discussion of the biotic pump theory. If the theory has merit, then we need to respond accordingly by protecting our forests from the ravenous appetite of the many industries that would eliminate them, including mining, timber, biomass fuel and monocultures of corn and soy.
The Amazon rainforest puts rivers in the sky that feed the Amazon basin. The Congo rainforest puts rivers in the sky that feed central Africa. Our North American forests do their part to create and soak up rainfall.
Water for the Recovery of the Climate
We (the undersigned) have read Water for the Recovery of the Climate by Michal Kravcik, et. al., a free online pdf, in which the authors assert that we are losing 7 cubic kilometers of water every year. If true, this is probably a major contributor to drought and desertification. Therefore, we call on the IPCC to marshal the expertise of our hydrologists to investigate this claim. In any event, it only makes sense to capture rainwater and cause it to sink into the ground where it falls. We can make this happen on farms, in our forests and in our urban landscapes. And this will go far to bring back the plants that we humans have eliminated in the last 5,000 years.
Furthermore, if we regain our freshwater, we may be able to slow and even reverse sea level rise. Again, it only makes sense to look into this. There is hardly a downside, and we have the resources to implement.
Walter Jehne: Increasing plant cover
We have studied the work of Walter Jehne, not least of all this video.
This lecture at Harvard calls for a re-examination of the prevailing climate dogma which emphasizes carbon emissions to the exclusion of other important influences on the climate.
Andrew Millison: India’s Water Revolution
We have seen Andrew Millison’s excellent YouTube documentary, India’s Water Revolution.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNdMkGYdEqOCgePyiAyBT0sh7zlr7xhz3&si=mOC1fTY0-fjP3A1G
We urge the implementation of region-wide contests whereby villages compete for who can most efficiently capture rainfall during the rainy season, so that it remains available during the long dry season.
Rain is forever lost if allowed to run off. But if you can capture water, then it can be available throughout the dry season, for local ecosystems, crops, livestock, drinking, cooking and bathing. This can make all the difference in the local economy and culture for remote villages in dry regions.
Gabe Brown: Regenerative Agriculture
We have studied the work of regenerative farmer and bestselling author Gabe Brown. We understand his commitment to farming ecologically and treating the farm as an ecosystem. We acknowledge that ecological farms should be the norm. We understand that the main obstacle to ecological farms is the public policy that encourages the worst practices of industrial agriculture, including endless tillage, herbicides, insecticides and growing monocrops for corn ethanol.
Allan Savory: Holistic Management of Livestock
We have studied the work of Allan Savory, who observes that grasslands and grazing animals evolved together and that therefore our grasslands need more grazing animals, not less. Grazing livestock needs to be managed holistically, but grazing animals are part of the solution, not part of the problem. It’s not the cow. It’s the how.
We need more of what Savory has done at Africa Center for Holistic Management, and his students have done worldwide, restoring wildlife habitat, making rivers flow again and creating ecosystems that can support an economy and bring people out of poverty.
Alejandro Carillo
We have read about rancher Alejandro Carrillo of Las Damas Ranch in Mexico. Alejandro’s ranch flourishes on 6 to 12 inches of rain per year while providing habitat for migratory birds, and soaking up the rain that does fall.
Here is my interview with Alejandro,
Max Wilbert: Thacker Pass, Nevada
We have read the work of Max Wilbert, who seeks to protect Thacker Pass in Nevada. We assert that the pronghorns, cougars, bobcats, golden eagles and the pacific tree frog.might, after all, have legitimate interests that we can support, vis-a-vis the electric car industry.
Evo Morales and Bolivia’s lithium
We acknowledge the extreme costs of lithium mining all over the world. We support the right of the people of Bolivia to conduct their democracy free of interference by the United States, in contrast to the 2018 coup of Evo Morales. The people of Bolivia should control their lithium resources and their water resources.
No, Elon Musk we should not “coup whoever we want” as you tweeted in relation to the 2018 ouster of Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president in a majority indigenous country.
Hydroelectric power and salmon runs
We have studied Mark Z. Jacobson, whose work has heavily influenced the Green New Deal, as well as local “clean and renewable energy” resolutions. We have serious concerns about the amount of hydro power his models call for, a drastic increase in hydroelectric dams, which seriously burden river ecosystems.
In the Pacific Northwest hydro power blocks salmon runs. In nature, salmon carry nutrients and calories upstream, providing food for bears, eagles, forests and soil ecosystems. According to author Derrick Jensen, salmon runs increase tree growth by as much as three times, thus hastening the storage of carbon in the soil. Salmon are an indispensable nutrient pump, and they are already at risk due to existing hydroelectric plants.
Desert tortoises
We have seen Planet of the Humans and acknowledge that solar installations often extract a heavy price. Endangered desert tortoises have fallen victim to relocation and die of exhaustion as they pace back-and-forth along fences trying to reach their former homes. We must count the true cost of these industrial scale installations and honestly weigh the costs with the benefits. Desert tortoises dig burrows and provide habitat to many other species, including the Gila monster, collared peccaries, roadrunners and burrowing owls, according to The Nature Conservancy.
What is this energy being used for?
We cannot just change our energy system, without inquiring as to what this energy is being used for. Is the energy being used for a school or a casino, a hospital or a factory farm, a local food cooperative or a sales office for Monsanto/Bayer.
Signed:
______________________________ _________
______________________________ _________
______________________________ _________
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CONCLUSION
So there we have it. I tried to start out with an appreciation of our natural systems, and then illustrate the dramatic assault on those natural systems, often in the name of “saving the planet” from climate change.
What we are getting wrong and need to get right is that “saving the planet” starts with saving our living systems and our fellow species. The problem is that protecting living systems is not advantageous to those who hold concentrated power. And, at the moment, they are the ones who call the shots.
Thank you for your writing Hart. I agree entirely your narrative about forests for biomass and short cycle logging. I live adjacent to a 12,000 acre commercial forest. There was very little 'waste wood' at a recent 200 acre clear cut. Hauled out to the chipper and home heating.
My property is a woodlot adjacent to this tract. The trees were 50 when i moved in and I have heated my house and made lumber for my house oonly from fallen and dead trees. I sold cords when i needed grocery money. Now i continue to live in closed canopy douglas fir and cedar forest and the trees are 110.
This forest adjacent management changed about 40 years ago. I think they should do more like wildlife enhancement and secondary forest products and ecological forestry. Short cycle logging on private land other side of the mountain has to stop.
The farmlands you say should be using restoration agriculture that support farmers. Yet you want to close the forest to capture carbon. Not fair, what about us forest people?
Best to you.
So true and so comprehensive! Thank you Hart!