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Tag: forests

  • Report on Genetically Engineered “Factory” Trees

    Genet­i­cal­ly Engi­neered “Fac­to­ry Trees”: Sus­tain­able Way For­ward or Dan­ger­ous Diversion? -by Cen­ter for Food Safety Cen­ter for Food Safe­ty (CFS) is pleased to offer a new report, Genet­i­cal­ly Engi­neered Trees: The New Fron­tier of Biotech­nol­o­gy, which explores poten­tial eco­log­i­cal and socioe­co­nom­ic haz­ards of genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered (GE) trees. As you may know, the U.S. Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture is con­sid­er­ing whether…

  • Speak Up On “National Bioenergy Truth Day” – Thursday, October 17

    Speak Up On “Nation­al Bioen­er­gy Truth Day” – Thurs­day, Octo­ber 17  Please take 5 min­utes of your time on Thurs­day, Octo­ber 17 to make phone calls to select mem­bers of the U.S. Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Ener­gy and Nat­ur­al Resources (list­ed below with talk­ing points) to voice your oppo­si­tion to the lat­est piece of leg­is­la­tion that would open the…

  • Wood Pellet Facility Threatens Southern Forests

    New Maps Reveal Enviva’s Ahoskie Wood Pel­let Facil­i­ty Threat­ens South­ern Wet­land Forests, Sur­round­ing Ecosys­tems and Wildlife - August 27, 2013. Source: Dog­wood Alliance AHOSKIE, N.C. (August 27, 2013) – New maps and a report released today by the Nat­ur­al Resources Defense Coun­cil (NRDC) and Dog­wood Alliance reveal the eco­log­i­cal threat a major wood pel­let man­u­fac­tur­ing mill in…

  • European Biofuels Vote Delivers ‘Desperately Weak Compromise’

    Euro­pean Bio­fu­els Vote Deliv­ers ‘Des­per­ate­ly Weak Compromise’ - by Karl Math­iesen, Sep­tem­ber 11, 2013. Source: The Guardian The Euro­pean par­lia­ment has deliv­ered a “des­per­ate­ly weak com­pro­mise” on the future of bio­fu­els in Europe that indus­try says will “cur­tail jobs and investment”. In a tight vote on the use of bio­fu­els in trans­port fuel, the par­lia­ment approved a 6% cap on the…

  • Biofuels Project Pushing Thousands of People into Hunger in Africa

    Bio­fu­els Project Push­ing Thou­sands of Peo­ple into Hunger in Africa - Sep­tem­ber 4, 2013. Source: ActionAid A bio­fu­els project praised by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion as envi­ron­men­tal­ly and social­ly respon­si­ble is push­ing thou­sands of peo­ple into pover­ty in one of the poor­est coun­tries in the world, a new Action­Aid report said today. The report comes as MEPs pre­pare to…

  • Florida Forest Service Report on Forest Sustainability Challenged

    Flori­da For­est Ser­vice Report on For­est Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Challenged - by Bruce Ritchie, Sep­tem­ber 6, 2013. Source: The Flori­da Current A Flori­da For­est Ser­vice report required by 2012 leg­is­la­tion found that the state’s forests over­all are sus­tain­able but there are some coun­ties where some types of trees are being har­vest­ed faster than they are being grown. The report was required by HB…

  • Dirty Air for Power We Don’t Need

    Dirty Air for Pow­er We Don’t Need - by Dick Stokes, Sep­tem­ber 19, 2013. Source: Gainesville-Sun The “big lie” method involves mak­ing a claim so pre­pos­ter­ous peo­ple assume it must be true. Gainesville Region­al Util­i­ties made the pre­pos­ter­ous claim that the air will be clean­er after the bio­mass incin­er­a­tor (the Gainesville Renew­able Ener­gy Cen­ter) starts burn­ing tons of wood…

  • Biomass Industry Fans Flames of Wildfire Hysteria

    Bio­mass Indus­try Fans Flames of Wild­fire Hysteria  California’s Rim fire, expect­ed to be ful­ly “con­tained” by Octo­ber after ignit­ing in Yosemite Nation­al Park on August 17, will ulti­mate­ly ben­e­fit the forests it has passed through. While media accounts sen­sa­tion­al­ize such large wild­fires as “cat­a­stroph­ic” and “dis­as­trous,” sci­ence demon­strates that, to the con­trary, fire is a vital com­po­nent of…

  • Wildland-Urban Fire—A Different Approach

    Wild­land-Urban Fire–A Dif­fer­ent Approach - by Jack D. Cohen, Rocky Moun­tain Research Sta­tion, U.S. For­est Service Wild­land-urban fire occurs when a fire burn­ing in wild­land veg­e­ta­tion fuels gets close enough with its flames and/or fire­brands (loft­ed burn­ing embers) to poten­tial­ly cre­ate igni­tions of the res­i­den­tial fuels (But­ler 1974). Res­i­den­tial fire destruc­tion is the prin­ci­pal prob­lem dur­ing wild­land-urban fires,…

  • Wind Drives All Large Blazes

    Wind Dri­ves All Large Blazes  - by George Wuerthner As large fires have spread across the West in recent decades, we hear increas­ing demands to reduce fuels—typically through log­ging. But log­ging won’t reduce the large fires we are expe­ri­enc­ing because fuels do not dri­ve large fires. You can have tons of fuel per acre as occurs…