Posts Tagged ‘biomass’

Help Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield, MA [an Environmental Justice Community] to fight a proposed 35megawatt biomass incinerator in Springfield.  The developers have fast-tracked their air permitting process and are expecting their final permit within the month. On Tuesday, May 17 at 4:00 at Springfield City Hall, the Springfield City Councilors have planned a revocation hearing to vote to revoke the developers’ special city permit. We need this permit revoked to stop the plant from being built and to pursue further legal options. We are very close to having the votes to revoke but need a strong showing to convince a few undecided councilors.  Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield is planning a rally at 3:30 prior to the hearing. THEY NEED YOUR SUPPORT!  At the Springfield Air Permit Hearing in April, the developers called in the building trade unions and unidentified students with signs, t-shirts and tents to create the sense of large support for the biomass plant. Although this was a false image, it was effective.  Please come to combat biomass incineration in our valley by helping to show solid support to the city councilors of Springfield to do the right thing for our health, forests and environment. For more information on the project, please visit the website at  www.springfieldincinerator.info.

Incinerator Opponents Say Congress About to Pass a “Dirty Energy” Bill

Disguised as Clean and Green Energy

Doctors and Citizen Groups Say That an RES or Other Legislation With Incinerators That Burn Trees and Garbage is Dirty Energy, Will Make People Sick and Cause More Global Warming

Washington D.C.—The Anti-Biomass Incineration – Forest Protection Campaign is telling Congress and the Administration that the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) being promoted by industry groups and some members of Congress is “dirty energy” legislation because it promotes toxic incinerators that make people sick, pollute air and water, destroy forests, and dry up rivers.

“These dirty incinerators emit toxic air pollution that causes cancer, asthma and heart disease,” said Attorney Margaret Sheehan, of the Biomass Accountability Project, “and they don’t reduce global warming, they increase it.”

The Campaign delivered a letter to Congress signed by public health, social justice, and environmental organizations opposing any legislation that further subsidizes dirty incinerators, including the RES, and proposed energy and farm bill amendments.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Stop Spewing Carbon Ballot Campaign announced today a major victory in the fight against biomass incinerators promoted as “clean energy” and as a result will not put its question on the statewide ballot for November 2010.

“Today Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles issued a letter* saying his agency will change our state laws to bring them in line with current science and public policy requiring biomass incinerators to meet strict standards for forest protection, greenhouse gas emissions, and efficiency,” said Meg Sheehan, Chair of the Stop Spewing Carbon Ballot Campaign. “This is a groundbreaking development that means an end to commercial biomass electric power plants in Massachusetts. Science confirms that the greenhouse gas emissions of burning forests are worse than
coal and there’s no reason to subsidize this form of energy,” Sheehan said.
Secretary Bowles’ letter says that to meet greenhouse targets the state should change “the incentives we provide biomass energy under the Renewable
Portfolio Standard.” The Stop Spewing Campaign collected over 120,000 signatures from Massachusetts’ voters to end biomass subsidies. Sheehan
said, “this sent a clear message to Governor Patrick. Ending renewable energy credits for dirty incinerators was the central goal of our ballot question and we have won.” The state also announced that construction and demolition debris incinerators will not get renewable energy credits, another victory for the Campaign.

“Our coalition of social justice, public health, environmental, forestry advocates and fiscal watchdogs have won a victory for the citizens of Massachusetts, the nation, and indeed the planet,” Sheehan said. “Citizens have let government officials know they don’t want their taxpayer and ratepayer money spent on these toxic incinerators disguised as “clean energy.”

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PRESS CONFERENCE: Wednesday June 9, 4:40 p.m., informational session: 4:15 to 5:30 p.m.

WHERE: Springfield, MA, Pynchon Park on the corner of State and
Chestnut Streets, next to the main branch of the Springfield Library
immediately prior to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental
Protection’s hearing on the Global Warming Solutions Act.

WHO:  Stop Toxic Incineration In Springfield, Arise for Social
Justice, Concerned Citizens of Russell, The Enviro Show, Stop Spewing
Carbon Campaign, Massachusetts Forest Watch, Pioneer Valley
Preservation Coalition, Concerned Citizens of Franklin County,
Students for a Just and Stable Society and McKnight Neighborhood
Council in Springfield.

A coalition of health, social justice, and environmental groups  is
letting the state and federal governments know that biomass
incinerators are not a climate change solution but make are a public
health and climate disaster and the state should not be promoting them.

 Read the rest of this entry »

Countdown to the Walk

We have three weeks to let folks in New England and beyond know about The Quabbin Walk.  Starting Monday, May 17 and going until Sunday, May 23 beginning in North Orange, MA going eastward toward Petersham and ending in New Salem, the Walk hopes to raise awareness that future survival of life on Earth for all species is being threatened by deforestation all over the planet. Here in Massachusetts forests had at long last begun to return to their lush and varied pre-Colonial state. Now they are once again threatened. We abhor the careless and thoughtless practice of so-called “even-age” management, a euphemism for clear-cutting, particularly on our public lands and especially without public input and transparency. These trees are part of our defense against the coming climate crisis. Their destruction adds to that crisis. In light of the recent promotion of biomass incineration by corporations and the state, the clear-cutting of public lands adds to the growing concern that our forests will be degraded and destroyed in the name of hyped “green” energy.  Biomass incineration is NOT a “renewable”, it is NOT “green”.

The Quabbin watershed, once a showcase for eco-forestry, is now under siege. Clear-cuts are devastating various sites throughout the reservoir lands. The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, who administer the area, must be held responsible for this destruction, but only raised public awareness will bring a stop to such practices. It is for that reason we ask you to join us on the Quabbin Walk and to help spread the word about this event.

In the coming days we will be posting information and updates here: http://quabbinwalk.blogspot.com

letting you know about the issue and what you can do to save the forests. Please bookmark this page and PLEASE tell your friends, family and neighbors about this effort.

Contact: maforestwalk@gmail.com

Fossil ‘Fools Day Protests Set for 30 Cities; Target Coal, Oil, Natural Gas and Big Banks

SAN FRANCISCO—More than 30 cities throughout North America have organized demonstrations against the fossil fuel industry, corporate banks and big environmental organizations for April 1’st national Fossil ‘Fools’ Day. Demonstrations are being coordinated by Rising Tide North America , which has also launched an online campaign targeting “Big Green” groups that have taken money from the worst corporate polluters. Key targets of the campaign include Conservation International, National Wildlife Federation and Environmental Defense.

http://bit.ly/8XDk09

The National Day of Action – organized by Rising Tide North America, Mountain Justice, a coalition of Canadian climate activists and others – will feature clownish parades, flyering, subversive advertising, creative street theater, and non-violent direct actions targeting the coal, oil, natural gas and banking sectors. Cities where actions will take place include Asheville, Boulder, Chicago, Edmonton, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Ottawa, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto and Washington D.C. Corporations targeted will include Chevron, JPMorgan Chase, NW Natural Gas, Pepco and Shell. Read the rest of this entry »

by Takver – Climate Indymedia

Greenpeace and Indigenous Climate activists in Indonesia have
unfurled a 20 metre by 30 metre banner protesting Deforestation
which said, “Obama you can stop this,” calling on President Obama to take
a leadership role in climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December
and at APEC in Singapore this weekend.
Read the rest of this entry »

article from grist:
by TOM PHILPOTT
What do industrially produced meat and corn-based ethanol have in common?

Well, they both thrive on the assumption that it’s good idea to devote vast swaths of land to an incredibly resource-intensive crop—corn—and then run that crop through an energy-sucking process to create a product of dubious value.

And .. they both got tagged as major drivers of climate change this past week.

Ethanol took the harder blow of the two, I think. It came wrapped in the Oct. 23 issue of Science. In a concise and devastating “policy forum” piece, a team of authors led by University of Minnesota researcher Tim Searchinger fingered a gaping defect in existing European and pending U.S. climate policy: biofuel gets treated as carbon-neutral, ignoring carbon emissions from land-use change. According to the paper ($ub req’d),  the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union’s cap-and-trade law, and the final version of Waxman-Markey (the House climate bill that passed over the summer) all contain the a “far-reaching but fixable flaw”:

[They] does not count CO2 emitted from tailpipes and smokestacks when bioenergy is being used, but it also does not count changes in emissions from land use when biomass for energy is harvested or grown. This accounting erroneously treats all bioenergy as carbon neutral regardless of the source of the biomass, which may cause large differences in net emissions. For example, the clearing of long-established forests to burn wood or to grow energy crops is counted as a 100% reduction in energy emissions despite causing large releases of carbon.

Or, as Searchinger put it to a Wall Street Journal reporter, “Literally, in theory, if you chopped up the Amazon, turned it into a parking lot, and burned the wood in a power plant, that would be treated as a carbon-emissions reduction strategy.”
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In ancient times some places we now know as vast arid deserts, or desert-like plains, were deeply forested and thrived with abundant wildlife. What happened? Human populations pushed the envelope too far. The human race has a distressing penchant for clear-cutting great stretches of forest to feed fires, build cities, sail fleets, graze herds, or do whatever. Making matters worse, we seem to have had little interest in replanting, or better yet, intelligently managing such forests. Some gruesome examples include the once “Fertile Crescent” in the Mideast; the ancient Mediterranean;Haiti in the Caribbean, but also in the more recent past, giant swaths of the Amazon.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Scientists, Activists Protest Corporate Control Over Climate Policy

Bryant Park –  Climate SOS, New York Climate Action Group, and members of Rising Tide North America protested what they called “a greenwashed U.S. climate agenda” at the opening of NYC Climate Week.  Activists distributed their version of the ACESA (American Clean Energy and Security Act) bill to event attendees and media in the form of fake $2 trillion bills which subtly depict a collusion of prominent Green NGOs (NRDC, the Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund among others) with corporate backers of the bill (BP, Shell, Dow, and others).  Climate SOS organizers Dr. Rachel Smolker and Dr. Maggie Zhou engaged ceremony patrons with a pointed critique of the bill’s corporate-friendly implications.

Citing the overwhelming embrace of business CEOs at the upcoming climate summit, largely closed to the public, Smolker states:

“At the national and international level, special interest corporate lobbyists have held a stranglehold on climate policymaking. “Solutions” being offered are those most profitable and convenient to corporate polluters and their acquiescent faux ‘Green’ NGO allies.  The panoply of cap-and-trade, emissions offsets, genetically engineered organisms, and carbon capture and sequestration technology (CCS) form a pipe-dream constellation of false solutions.  That these proposals are not met with the critique or rejection offered by scientists and grassroots movements illustrates the privileged access of corporations to the halls of the US Congress and the UN.”

“This focus on corporate-friendly solutions is leading us to certain annihilation,” states Dr. Maggie Zhou of the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities. The recently passed House climate bill HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), has been described by eminent world climatologist James Hansen “worse for the environment than doing nothing.” So many concessions were offered as it went through the House of Representatives that the bill was rendered entirely inadequate, setting weak targets that rely on risky market based cap-and-trade which has already proven itself failed in Europe.   So many offsets are proposed that no real reductions would occur for nearly 25 years.  Meanwhile, the US claims to be providing international leadership! We are in a crisis that threatens all of life on this planet, and yet the priority seems to be supporting corporate welfare and creating new markets rather than saving ourselves.”

Meanwhile, in Pittsburgh, activists make a similar statement on the occasion of the international coal conference and the G20. Three rivers climate convergence organizer Kim Teplitzky stated “The Coal Conference and the G-20 are a series of closed door meetings designed to further the same destructive systems that caused our current economic and climate crises, we want an end to these failed polices and institutions and instead solutions that value the health and safety of the 6 billion people of the world, not just the wallets of the few profiting from polluting our land, air and water.”

The same sentiment was echoed at a climate camp in Richmond, California organized by the Mobilization for Climate Justice west, which is planning an action at the Chevron refinery there today. The statement from the MCJ west stated, “OUR CLIMATE IS NOT THEIR BUSINESS!  Corporations have no place in domestic or international climate policy development.  We need just and science-based climate policy, not the bill currently in Congress.”

“Yes”, adds Dr. Smolker, “it is time that the interests of indigenous peoples, the poor, those living on melting ice and sinking islands, people coping with imminent hunger, and the public at large be granted full participation in policy decisions, while corporate CEO’s protest outside these events.”

Organizational Links & Info:
Climate SOS.org – http://www.climatesos.org
Mass. Coalition for Healthy Communities http://www.securegreenfuture.org

Rising Tide North America.org – http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org

For information on activist responses to International Coal Conference
and G20 upcoming in Pittsburgh:

http://3riversconvergence.org/press

For a sense of the corporate lobbying on climate policy:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/1609/

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Rachel Smolker, Ph.D.
Co-Director, Biofuel Watch
Organizer, Climate S.O.S
Cell – 802.735.7794
rsmolker@climatesos.org

Maggie Zhou, Ph.D.
Program Coordinator, Massachusetts
Coalition for Healthy Communities
Cell – 339.368.0461
maggie@securegreenfuture.org

Climate SOS – www.climatesos.org
Rising Tide North America – www.risingtidenorthamerica.org
Mobilization for Climate Justice – www.actforclimatejustice.org
(north american resistance to the corporate COP15 climate agenda)
Climate Pledge of Resistance – www.beyondtalk.net

BioTech company Novozymes offers promises of greener futures through the re-engineering of our world without reductions or changes in behavior are another unfortunate mark of how the Corporations-Will-Save-Us mentality is putting us into one hell of a handbasket…  With biofuels/biomass – the math is bad, the solutions short-term, and the long-term impacts are abominable.

Below is the press release:

Novozymes to Share Insights at United Nations Summit on Climate Change

Biotech to play a leading role in achieving a low-carbon economy.

Franklinton, NC, USA – Heads of state, United Nations agency heads, and CEOs of the world’s top businesses will gather in New York on Tuesday, September 22, at the United Nations Summit on Climate Change to explore the role business and society can play in advancing global efforts to fight climate change. Read the rest of this entry »

CLIMATE SOS

TELL YOUR SENATORS A CLIMATE BILL THAT IS “WORSE THAN NOTHING” IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

This past June, the House passed the American Clean Energy & Security Act (ACESA). Soon, this bill will be voted on by the Senate. If passed, this climate bill would:

a. Prevent the U.S. from making anything remotely close to its fair share of greenhouse gas emissions reductions – necessary for averting catastrophic consequences and forging an effective global strategy on climate stabilization.

b. Lock us into an extremely complex cap-and-trade scheme that benefits fossil fuel, utilities, the Wall Street, and big agribusinesses, prone to Enron style market manipulations, while doing nothing to save the climate.

c. Use public money to subsidize the most polluting industries like coal and nuclear, drawing much needed financing away from real climate solutions like renewable energy production;

d. Add more toxic and climate polluting smokestacks, especially in backyards of the poor, people of color, and indigenous communities across the U.S., by grandfathering dirty old coal plants, permitting numerous new ones, and subsidizing incinerators as a form of renewable energy.

In the words of leading climate scientist James Hansen:

[ACESA would] “do more harm to the environment than doing nothing at all.”

Please contact your Senators and let them know that as a person deeply concerned about climate change, you want to see climate legislation passed, but ONLY IF IT IS REAL AND EFFECTIVE legislation, not like ACESA.

Click to join ClimateSOS

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Burning Forests for Electricity

By MICHAEL DONNELLY

“All technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent.”

—David Brower

Like one might expect from a Dr. Seuss character, the Once-ler of old has morphed into the Renew-ler in these “Sustainable” times. The modern day Thneed is electrical power. His allies are a mix of industrialists, politicians and co-opted “greens.” The end result: a forest vacuumed of all life; remains the same.

Coming Soon to a Forest Near You

On a daily basis of late, plans are unveiled for new biomass “renewable energy” electricity plants nationwide, complete with State and Federal “Renewable Energy Tax Credits.” Over 100 are already up and running or approved and under construction. Another 200 are in the approval process. Ten in Michigan; six in Arkansas; three in Massachusetts; two in Georgia; three in Maine; three in Florida; …even one in swanky Vail, Colorado. If a state has trees, it has a burner(s) on the drawing board. Of all the proposals working their way through state governments, only those in Oregon have been (so far) thwarted. There, Governor Ted Kulongoski has vetoed legislation giving the renewable tax credit designation to existing Timber Industry wood-to-electricity and existing garbage burner electricity plants that sailed through Oregon’s Democrat-dominated Legislature with GOP support. On the other hand, Kulongoski and Oregon have given their renewable energy tax imprimatur to giant wind farms. For some 3550 megawatts of peak production, Oregon is handing these private wind power producers a projected $144 million in tax subsidies this biennium alone. But, that’s a different part of the story.

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LISTEN TO THIS COMMENTARY

Here’s a great idea: Let’s bring into our country a genetically-engineered, non-native tree that is known to be wildly invasive, explosively flammable, and insatiably thirsty for ground water. Then let’s clone thousands of these living firecrackers and plant them in forested regions across seven Southern states, allowing them to grow, flower, produce seeds, and spread into native environments.

Yes, this would be irresponsible, dangerous, and stupid – but apparently “Irresponsible, Dangerous, and Stupid” is the unofficial slogan of the U.S. Department Agriculture. In May, with little consideration of the devastating consequences for our native environment, USDA cavalierly rubberstamped a proposal by a profiteering corporation named ArborGen to do all of the above.

Substantially owned by International Paper, ArborGen shipped tissue from Brazilian eucalyptus trees to its New Zealand laboratories, where it was genetically altered to have more cellulose. New Zealand, however, outlaws plantings of genetically-engineered crops, so ArborGen sought out a more corporate-compliant country: Ours. The engineered eucalyptus was waved right into the good ol’ USA to be cloned, and it’s now awaiting final approval for outdoor release in our land. Read the rest of this entry »