Tag: forests

  • Rim Fire Forests Fuel Biomass Energy

    - Decem­ber 29, 2014, The Recorder Near­ly 40,000 tons of for­est residue from the Rim Fire area in Tuolumne Coun­ty has been removed for use to gen­er­ate bio­mass ener­gy, accord­ing to the U.S. Agri­cul­ture Department. Mean­while, the USDA said it has made funds avail­able to help Cal­i­for­nia landown­ers con­serve nat­ur­al resources dam­aged or threat­ened as a…

  • Soil Erosion May Get Us Before Climate Change Does

    - by Richard Reese, Decem­ber 1, 2014, Resilience Out­side the entrance of the glo­ri­ous Hall of West­ern His­to­ry are the mar­ble lions, col­or­ful ban­ners, and huge stone columns. Step inside, and the pop­u­lar exhibits include ancient Egypt, clas­si­cal Greece, the Roman Empire, the Renais­sance, Guten­berg, Mag­el­lan, Colum­bus, Galileo, and so on. If we cut a hole…

  • Study: Logging Destabilizes Forest Soil Carbon

    - by John Cramer, Decem­ber 2, 2014, Dart­mouth College Log­ging does­n’t imme­di­ate­ly jet­ti­son car­bon stored in a forest’s min­er­al soils into the atmos­phere but trig­gers a grad­ual release that may con­tribute to cli­mate change over decades, a Dart­mouth Col­lege study finds. The results are the first evi­dence of a region­al trend of low­er car­bon pools in soils…

  • SOS! National Day of Action to Save Our Southern Forests

    -By Emi­ly Zucchi­no, Octo­ber 28, 2014, Dog­wood Alliance Today’s biggest threat to South­ern forests is the grow­ing bio­mass indus­try. The wood pel­let indus­try is expand­ing at a rate that is impos­si­ble for South­ern forests to sus­tain. Our beau­ti­ful forests are being clear-cut, processed into pel­lets and then shipped to Europe to be burned for electricity. We…

  • The Forest Service and Collaboratives Garden Our Forests

    - by George Wuerth­n­er, Sep­tem­ber, 25, 2014, The Wildlife News If the pub­lic real­ly under­stood the illog­ic behind For­est Ser­vice man­age­ment, includ­ing those endorsed by for­est col­lab­o­ra­tives, I am cer­tain there would be more oppo­si­tion to cur­rent For­est Ser­vice policies. First, most FS tim­ber sales lose mon­ey. They are a net loss to tax­pay­ers. After the…

  • Is Biomass All It’s Cut Up to Be?

    - by Howard Brown, Octo­ber 17, 2014, Sum­mit Daily One pos­si­ble rea­son for stick­ing to the ill-advised Ophir Moun­tain and oth­er clear-cut­ting plans is that the clear-cut trees would go to the bio­mass pow­er plant in Gyp­sum. Bio­mass pow­er is renew­able ener­gy. It wouldn’t jus­ti­fy destroy­ing Sum­mit County’s won­der­ful forests and trails, but bio­mass is green ener­gy…

  • Forest Service and Collaboratives Garden Our Forests

    - by George Wuerth­n­er, Sep­tem­ber 25, 2014, The Wildlife News If the pub­lic real­ly under­stood the illog­ic behind For­est Ser­vice polices, includ­ing those endorsed by for­est col­lab­o­ra­tives, I am cer­tain there would be more oppo­si­tion to cur­rent For­est Ser­vice policies. First, most FS tim­ber sales lose mon­ey. They are a net loss to tax­pay­ers. After the…

  • US Forest Service Moves to Start Clearcutting in Rim Fire Area

    - by Chad Han­son, August 28, 2014, Earth Island Jour­nal  [How much of the forests that expe­ri­enced the Rim Fire will be feed­ing bio­mass incin­er­a­tors? ‑Ed.] The US For­est Ser­vice issued a draft deci­sion yes­ter­day for a mas­sive post-fire log­ging project in the Stanis­laus Nation­al For­est por­tion of the 2013 Cal­i­for­nia Rim Fire, which cov­ered 257,171 acres…

  • From Beetle Kill to Biomass

    [More indus­try pro­pa­gan­da than a news arti­cle, but it demon­strates the bio­mass indus­try’s  lust for Nation­al Forests to feed their dirty incin­er­a­tors. ‑Ed.] - by Ruth Hei­de, July 22, 2014, Val­ley Courier There’s a dif­fer­ent kind of “gold” in “them thar hills.” It’s in the trees themselves. Cor­rect­ly har­vest­ed, the bee­tle kill tim­ber that exists on pub­lic…

  • USDA Splurges Millions on Biomass Power Incinerators

    [More tax­pay­er mon­ey fund­ing pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions to log Nation­al Forests under the unsci­en­tif­ic guise of “wild­fire pre­ven­tion.” ‑Ed.] -  US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture, July 23, 2014, Office of Communications Agri­cul­ture Sec­re­tary Tom Vil­sack today announced that the U.S. Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture (USDA) has select­ed 36 ener­gy facil­i­ties in 14 states to accept bio­mass deliv­er­ies sup­port­ed by…