Burning the forests that are supposed to be our best defense against climate change to protect us against climate change has to be one of the most ridiculous ideas I’ve ever heard. Yet over the last few years, Europe has wholeheartedly embraced this false solution to climate change, and we’ve seen a dramatic increase in logging in the Southern US to fuel European demand. Along the way, the US South has become the largest wood pellet export region in the world.
The Vermont Public Service Board denied the North Sprinfield Sustainable Energy biomass plant a certificate of public good on the basis of greenhouse gas emissions.
North Carolina State University (NCSU) is attempting to sell their Hofmann Forest, an extremely large tract of pine forests and pocosin wetlands located near Jacksonville, NC. TAKE ACTION TO SAVE HOFMANN FOREST!
Environmental groups in 23 states today requested that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) end its three year exemption of biomass power plant greenhouse gas emissions from Clean Air Act permitting – an exemption that also enables biomass plant builders and operators to avoid using the best pollution controls for the smokestack emissions that cause local air pollution and harm human health.
Visiting both London and Brussels, Dogwood Alliance and our partners at NRDC and SELC got the opportunity to meet with the largest companies in Europe importing wood pellets from the Southern US to burn for electricity in the UK, Brussels, Netherlands, Denmark, Poland and more. The meetings were an excellent opportunity to not only better understand the marketplace and decisions driving this destructive practice, but were also a great opportunity to carry the spirit and voice of communities across the South to let these companies know we will not stand idle and let this madness continue.
