A new study out of the Geos Institute in Ashland, Oregon concludes that selectively logging or “thinning” forests for bioenergy can increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and exacerbate climate change. The study, “Thinning Combined With Biomass Energy Production May Increase, Rather Than Reduce, Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” by D.A. DellaSala and M. Koopman, challenges bioenergy and timber industry assertions that logging forests will aid in the fight against climate change.
Are you worried about genetically modified trees replacing what was once known a nature? Protection groups from around the globe have unified to publicly condemn the US government for allowing the first genetically modified tree to be legalized with zero government or public oversight and zero environmental risk assessments. What’s more, the decision was made despite overwhelming public opposition. A letter from the USDA to GE tree company ArborGen dated last August was recently exposed by scientist Doug Gurian-Sherman of the Center for Food Safety. It appears that the USDA, in all its glory, decided to allow ArborGen to pursue unregulated commercial cultivation of a genetically modified loblolly pine for altered wood composition. These trees could be planted anywhere – without you knowing.
Will declaring a ‘climate emergency’ help to finally prompt radical action to address climate change? A growing number of campaigners as well as scientists think so and hope that a major wakeup call about unfolding climate disasters will spur governments and people into action. Whether a lack of scary-enough facts about climate change has been holding back real action is questionable. After all, it requires a fair amount of psychological denial to not be alarmed by the escalating heat waves, droughts, floods and destructive mega storms.
A two-week-long, multi-million-dollar courtroom battle ended last Thursday with closing arguments by lawyers for the Boston-based, internationally owned entity known as Gainesville Renewable Energy Center and lawyers for a more-than-three-decades-old, family-owned Gainesville biomass recycling business, Wood Resource Recovery. While the two sides await a judgment by the court, not expected until June, GREC is proceeding apace with new and separate litigation with a different opponent and different warriors. That second legal battle, initiated by GREC in March against the city of Gainesville and Gainesville Regional Utilities, is being fought by a different group of GREC lawyers. This new legal team, based in Boston, wants to force GRU to make millions of dollars in payments above and beyond the $60 million to $70 million annually GRU is already paying GREC — paying not for electricity, but for the right to purchase GREC electricity in the event GREC ever sells its electricity at a price equal to or less than the market rate.
The International Campaign to STOP GE Trees urges the Brazilian government and CTNBio to refuse Futuragene’s request to plant GE trees in Brazil.
The Campaign to STOP GE Trees, including Biofuelwatch, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, Global Justice Ecology Project, Indigenous Environmental Network, World Rainforest Movement, released the following statement in support of the “Open Letter to CTNBio”: The Campaign to Stop GE Trees, an international coalition founded in 2004, supports a global ban on commercial deregulation of genetically engineered trees (also known as genetically modified trees) based on serious concerns about their impacts on biodiversity and human rights. The Campaign supports the position expressed herein, in solidarity with the “Open Letter to CTNBio” from Brazilian and Latin American groups, that calls upon CTNBio to reject the request by the Futuragene corporation for commercial approval of GE trees in Brazil.
A new study out of the Geos Institute in Ashland, Oregon concludes that selectively logging or “thinning” forests for bioenergy can increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and exacerbate climate change. The study, “Thinning Combined With Biomass Energy Production May Increase, Rather Than Reduce, Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” by D.A. DellaSala and M. Koopman, challenges bioenergy and timber industry assertions that logging forests will aid in the fight against climate change.
