Wood Biomass Incineration Won't Help Protect the Climate - and It Can Hurt Humans. Instead, Keep Old Forests Around.
When Al Gore ran for president years ago, I supported him wholeheartedly because I heard he was environmental. I watched the news about the "hanging chad" nightly after work and talked politics with my roommate. I was disappointed when he lost. Now I have found out that the movement he's backed - the efforts against global warming - may have inadvertently resulted in increased deforestation. And even where deforestation hasn't occurred, forests may have been harvested, turned into pellets, burned and replaced with plantations in the name of preventing climate change. How could well-meaning efforts to stop climate change lead to cutting down trees and burning them? In the efforts to slow or stop climate change, many well-meaning countries have signed up for carbon emission limits. This all sounds good, right? Not so fast. What I've learned recently is that wood biomass incineration (burning of wood pellets) is currently considered to be carbon neutral in the UK...