The Biomass Tide is Turning

Dear Bio­mass Oppo­nent,

Thank you for being a part of the nation­al Anti-Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tion Cam­paign. As I’m sure you already know, over the past few years our grass­roots net­work across 32 states has shed light on the harm­ful health and envi­ron­men­tal impacts from bio­mass incin­er­a­tion at the local, region­al, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al level.

Indus­tri­al-scale bio­mass ener­gy has gone from being a so-called “clean and green solu­tion” in the eyes of many Amer­i­cans to a health haz­ard, cli­mate dis­as­ter, and threat to forests. Before the nation­al Cam­paign ramped up just a few short years ago, many envi­ron­men­tal groups were singing the prais­es of biomass—now most of them are com­ing out against it. Dozens of bio­mass pro­pos­als have been defeated—including Tra­verse City, Michi­gan, Val­dos­ta, Geor­gia, Scotts­burg and Mill­town, Indi­ana, and Pow­nal, Vermont—the devel­op­ers chased out of town due, in part, to the resis­tance of net­work mem­bers like you who insist that clean ener­gy does not come out of a smokestack.

Unlike many large non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, almost all of your dona­tion will go direct­ly towards Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work’s lean and mean, on-the-ground grass­roots work—including man­ag­ing the 200 per­son Bio­mass Oppo­nents list­serv, the nation­al Dirty Ener­gy map­ping project, and The Bio­mass Mon­i­tor newslet­ter. We’re look­ing to expand the Anti-Bio­mass Cam­paign coor­di­na­tor posi­tion based on the East Coast beyond the cur­rent 7 hours a week to include anoth­er coor­di­na­tor on the West Coast—strategically cov­er­ing the entire coun­try in our nation­al advo­ca­cy and edu­ca­tion work!

There’s no ques­tion the nation­al Cam­paign has its work cut out for it, when bil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars are being spent under the pre­tense of bio­mass ener­gy being “clean and green.” Learn­ing from past suc­cess­es (and fail­ures), it’s clear that ordi­nary cit­i­zens band­ing togeth­er to stamp out bio­mass ener­gy before it takes root is the best way to stop it. The final nail in the bio-monster’s cof­fin will come as local resis­tance joins togeth­er in sol­i­dar­i­ty to form a pow­er­ful nation­al campaign—taking the fight from NIMBY (Not in My Back­yard) to NOPE (Not on Plan­et Earth)! 

In this bru­tal econ­o­my, there’s lim­it­ed fund­ing out there for the impor­tant grass­roots work Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work is doing. While foun­da­tions are ten­ta­tive­ly start­ing to fund some anti-bio­mass work, very lit­tle of it is going towards grass­roots orga­niz­ing on the local and nation­al lev­el. The Anti-Bio­mass Cam­paign will keep fight­ing for our right to clean air, wild forests, and a liv­able cli­mate.

With­out a strong nation­al cam­paign, the anti-bio­mass move­ment is like a hand­ful of bees get­ting swat­ted by the bio­mass indus­try. But a uni­fied Anti-Bio­mass Cam­paign is like a swarm of bees team­ing up to defend the hive.

Sin­cer­est Thanks and Best Wish­es in the New Year from the Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work team:

Mike Ewall, Karen Orr, Traci Con­fer, Aaron Krei­der, and Josh Schlossberg