Clear-cutting forests in North Carolina to provide wood for Europe to burn. Am I missing something here?
WINDSOR, N.C.—Loggers here are clear-cutting a wetland forest with decades-old trees.
Behind the move: an environmental push.
The push isn't in North Carolina but in Europe, where governments are trying to reduce fossil-fuel use and carbon-dioxide emissions. Under pressure, some of the Continent's coal-burning power plants are switching to wood.
But Europe doesn't have enough forests to chop for fuel, and in those it does have, many restrictions apply. So Europe's power plants are devouring wood from the U.S., where forests are bigger and restrictions fewer.
This dynamic is bringing jobs to some American communities hard hit by mill closures. It is also upsetting conservationists, who say cutting forests for power is hardly an environmental plus.I used to joke that Europe would soon be burning trees; I was joking. Not a joke.
I finally found something worse than wind turbines: burning decades-old forests for fuel. When there's a glut of coal. And global warming quit 17 years ago. But I have no dog in this fight. Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, when you've seen one forest, you've seen them all, and if this is what environmentalists want -- clear-cutting decades-old forests in North Carolina -- well, good for them. Confirms the idiocy.
And more from the article:
If Europe's goal is to reduce carbon emissions, "it doesn't make any sense to cut down the trees that are sequestering carbon," said Debbie Hammel, a resource specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.Well, duh.
Activist environmentalists: slept through their biology classes, or never got past 8th grade. Idiots.
