Look around you and you may witness signs of collective insanity. Every where I look there are the scars being left by the capping (cutting down )of trees. From Sheffield in England to Groningen in the Nederlands. From the USA to Borneo.
Here in Europe the driver seems to be a consequence of the Paris accord to try to reduce greenhouse emissions. It seems some bright spark at the EEC had the idea to convert coal fired powerstations to burn bio material such as trees. For some peculiar reason they feel this helps.
As a result throughout Europe the owners of woodland (often public bodies like local authorities, and forestry commissions) are being incentivised to cut trees down for fuel..
tHE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS ARE DISASTROUS FOR OUR QUALITY OF LIFE AND OUR BIODIVERSITY.
In Poland the oldest forest in europe is being attacked . An old forest like this cannot be meaningfully replaced with a field full of saplings.
The unfortunate consequences of this EEC policy are rippling out around the world as this voracious demand for wood leads to massive areas of forest in North America being felled, pulverized into wood pellets and exported back to us so we can throw them in our ovens.
That whole process in turn uses great amounts of fossil fuels which only add to the problem.
the insane thing is that this mad EEC policy is destroying one of the few assets that could help us to defeat the problem of climate change, for research elsewhere has indicated that possibly the most effective measure we could take is a worldwide massive replanting of trees.
That is the answer. A marshall style plan to regreen the world. And I do not mean replanting pristine diverse forests with rows of production wood or palm oil trees.
In Holland I have heard that the government (following the EEC line) is offering subsidies for wood pellet stoves for households. Apparentlly the subsidies for encouraging tree burning instead of coal are shortlived. Then what?
then we find ourselves in a rapidly warming world, with billions less trees to absorb carbon dioxide and produce the oxygen we need to survive. Our cities will be more inhospitably hot in the summer as there is no shade. Biodiversity around the world suffers a massive loss.
This is a lose /lose situation.
Of course this craziness from the EEC is not the only driver of tree loss. In Sheffield it seems the cause is cost cuttin, privatisation and mismanagement which feeds perfectly into the EEC policy. A city renowned for its trees is being transformed.
Elsewhere a sorry story of corruption and greed is it seems creating a new class of palm oil billionares, often funded and supported by our financial institutions and us as consumers.
When does this bout of collective insanity end?