The Dumbest idea for 2015, burn wood to produce electricity in place of coal!

Ink & Toner Solutions is in the business of recycling and reusing spent printer cartridge to save them from the landfill saving millions of barrels of oil a year which helps save our resources and cut down on our carbon foot print. So when we see our elected officials proposing something as stupid as this it makes us feel like were fighting a losing battle.

This practice is masquerading under the guise of “renewable” energy. The problem is it is not in any way addressing the issues that it hurts biodiversity, belches toxic chemicals into our atmosphere and contributes more to climate change than coal.It has been scientifically proven that sending whole trees through the smokestacks of our power plants is one of the worst ways to generate electricity. In fact it will generate 50 percent more carbon than coal to produce the same amount of energy. The last time I looked we were trying to reduce our carbon emissions, did I miss something along the way. Our environmentalist has speculated that it will take at least 50 years to work off the carbon debt and break even with coal alone. So why would 46 of our befuddled senators led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) endorse this plan? These senators even wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture & Department of Energy demanding the agencies accept something that is clearly and demonstrably false, namely that biomass power is carbon neutral. Burning wood is carbon neutral? I can’t believe for one minute they really believe that.

It’s time we started to worry when our supposed climate champions are lining up behind outright deniers of global warming in order to promulgate this industry myth. I could list all of these senators but just read the letter they sent and weep. There are loads of lawmakers listed in the letter that hate the EPA and would like nothing better than to sabotage the Clean Power Plan including Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV). If one of these or any one listed in the letter they wrote are you senator take the time to contact them and tell them to stop this nonsense.  Cory Gardner (R-CO) has sometimes admitted that climate change is real, but who avidly supports doing nothing about it. Then you have some senators from the other side of the aisle like Sen. Jeff Merkley who has a lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters of 98 percent, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Al Franken (D-MN) who boast lifetime scores of 89 and 93 percent respectively who are supporting this!

The only thing all of these lawmakers have in common is a commitment to taking money from the timber industry. Last November the industry poured more than 1.5 million into the contested senate races and low and behold Merkley and Collins got $40,399 and $35,250 each!

The timber industry not surprisingly has also been investing in the House, they spent more than 2.9 million this past election. So it’s really not a stretch that a funding bill that was debated in July 2015 includes a massive industry giveaway. The bill is intended to provide money for the EPA and the department of the Interior but our senators snuck in text that would require the EPA to ignore all of it’s previous research and pretend that burning wood biomass is categorically carbon neutral. How do people like this sleep at night, my God they live on the same planet as we do, breath the same air and will have children that will inherit what they leave behind.

Let’s hope if enough of us write, email or call the senators that are pushing for this bill they will reconsider. What’s your thoughts on this? Love to hear from you, who knows maybe we can get something going.