New Zealand Greenpeace coal action sends wrong message
New Zealand Greenpeace activists "block(ed) coal being supplied to the boilers of Fonterra's Clandeboye factory, in Canterbury, with three tonnes of wood pellets and by locking themselves to equipment May 18". Apparently our friends at NZ GP haven't done their homework regarding biomass wood pellets. In the U.S. there is a growing movement against industrial-scale biomass (often called BIOMESS!) as industry attempts to paint the technology as "green" and "renewable". Pellets, while emmiting less polution, are problematical given their origins ( clearcuts, trash, etc.) and production and transportation issues. [ - tribalscribal]
For more info on this see:
http://www.stopspewingcarbon.com/
http://www.no-burn.org/downloads/BlowingSmokeReport.pdf
Activists arrested after blocking coal to Clandeboye for 10 hours May 18, 2010
The activists were highlighting Fonterra’s contribution to climate change, in particular its decision to use coal rather than clean alternatives to run plants like Clandeboye.
“Fonterra’s choice of coal over cleaner alternatives to power large factories like Clandeboye is driving coal mining and carbon emissions in New Zealand,” said one of the activists, Renee Davenport of Hamilton.
“We need to stop burning coal in order to protect people and the environment around the world from the devastating effects of climate change and to protect New Zealand’s clean and green reputation,” she said.
Fonterra is the third largest user of coal in New Zealand and one of our biggest emitters. The Government’s schedule 4 mining plans include mining 3,000 ha of the Paparoa National Park for coal, which is destined for Fonterra plants.
Greenpeace has left behind three tonnes of wood pellets which they delivered earlier today, saying the renewable and cleaner-burning fuel is the solution to Fonterra’s burning of dirty coal.
“Fonterra’s decision to run its factories on coal typifies where New Zealand is going wrong on climate and our economy,” said Greenpeace Climate Campaigner Simon Boxer. “Both the Government and Fonterra continue to put short-term profit ahead of the long-term wellbeing of the economy and the environment. Where is the leadership we need from our Government and key industry?”
Contact information
- For video contact Phil Crawford, Greenpeace New Zealand media & communications, 021 22 99 594
For more information: Simon Boxer, Greenpeace New Zealand climate campaigner, 021 905 579
Comments
Corporations have eaten your brains as your own shirt says?
Only if you plant a plantation on unforested land, wait for it to grow, and then cut
it, [turn it into pellets], and burn it.
Unfortunately, most biomass burning is about cutting existing forests, despite
claims otherwise by the biomass industry, and you are playing right into their hands
by promoting burning wood. Wood burning of existing forests is 50% worse for CO2
emissions than coal.
Here in Massachusetts, they are planning on quadrulping logging to produce 1% more
power. This is not an exxageration and is what wood burning biomass is really
about.
See our powerpoint (22MB) to understand what we are facing here...
www.maforests.org/Biomess.ppt
This bio-monster is out of the bottle, in large part due to naive "green" groups
going along with timber industry "carbon neutral" propaganda and the implications
for forests are horrendous. It is painful to see Greenpeace promoting burning wood
as a "solution" to our serious energy and environmental problems when it will just
dig the hole deeper.
There is a reason we left this inefficient, polluting caveman technology behind.
Chris Matera
Massachusetts Forest Watch
www.maforests.org
413-341-3878
Speak Up For The Trees!
Dear Greenpeace New Zealand
Acts of desperation are everywhere to be seen. Right now we are
"sustainably harvesting" the last fish from the oceans of the world,
even as they become so polluted with synthetic chemicals that they
are concentrated little toxic time bombs. We are eating our way
through the last 10% of the large fish in the seas as we pretend that
such population disturbances won't obey the Darwinian principles of
"natural" selection. Nothing natural about it. Soon we will learn how
to eat jellyfish, and we will like it.
Meanwhile we are sucking the last desperate drops of petroleum from
deeper and deeper in the Earth. In water a mile deep in the Gulf of
Mexico, so deep that we haven't yet invented the technology to
prevent the blow-out that could never happen, or to fix the
inevitable "accident" that no one predicted. Except that there were
many who foretold of the disaster, but most ears were plugged with
tar balls. And millions upon millions of lives are snuffed out by our
junkie's cravings for more and more.
We have treated the rivers like sewers and now are surprised to find
our water supplies full of the pharmaceuticals and "emerging
contaminants" that have been emerging for the past 30 years or more.
How long can they keep this slow-motion-train-wreck and "emerging'
issue unfolding, as if it hasn't yet blossomed to its full potential?
How long do we have to wait to find out what this caterpillar turns
into? Babies are born "pre-contaminated" with hundreds of synthetic
chemicals already in their blood, swimming in an ocean of xenogenic
origin right from the moment of conception.
And Greenpeace, a once radical organization now uses civil
disobedience to promote burning wood chips in coal-fired power
plants. I guess that redefines radical. Promoting the massive
deforestation that it would take to replace even a fraction of the
coal that we burn and release into the "sewers in the sky" that all
creatures breathe as one. Our forests that are like some light fuzz
on this ripe peach, this living skin of the earth that we have
already skinned alive in almost every place on the continents. What
is left, 5% original forests? In Massachusetts we have less than one
tenth of 1% old growth, but they still cut it down for ski resorts
and insect disease control. Any excuse will due to cut down the
second or third growth. We are clear-cutting our protected watershed
lands in Western Mass, most trees barely 60 or 70 years old. Hardly
even teenagers. Just like the military draft. While in Germany the
careful forest rotations are finally failing as one in three trees
stand dead from unnatural causes.
How desperate are we? Desperate enough to eat our young? To eat our
Mother? To sell out to the highest bidder all that we once cherished
and held inviolate. We will burn our way to energy independence, turn
the planet into a runaway greenhouse, fill the oceans with plastic
and petrol, eat the last fish and chop down the last Truffula Tree.
There is no where anyone can turn and not admit that Desperation
Rules. The end-timers don't have to wait any longer. We are currently
living in the Apocalypse.
Welcome to the future.
Glen Ayers