Denial, dishonesty, delays, delusions, and deceptions are lethal
In a few months, the world we know has changed. Donald Trump’s arrogance and inexperience make him unprepared to deal with a fast-moving pandemic. Trump can’t handle the truth. A deadly virus and a dysfunctional administration have placed the world at peril.
Using the same playbook, the illusion of a booming economy based on oil and gas exports and the lies used to deny, delay and avoid mitigating the climate emergency have been proven to be false. Truth must be told. Procrastination is a deadly strategy.
This is our last opportunity to start anew, with a new way of living with nature and each other. Business as usual has failed, we have a new beginning with realistic values and priorities. New rules: protect the forests, plant more trees, and stop burning fossil fuels. Be one with nature. No wars, discrimination, or weapons – this is the beginning of a kind, compassionate world.
Why would the U.S. want to be the world’s largest producer of oil and gas and the largest exporter of wood pellets for Europe and Asia? For profit.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a colorless greenhouse gas. The current concentration of CO2 by volume is about 0.0419 parts per hundred, or 419 parts per million (ppm), almost double the amount, 280 ppm, of pre-industrial levels. The carbon budget, illustrated on YouTube as the Carbon Bucket, shows that unless we stop global emissions as soon as possible we may not survive. We can’t wait for tomorrow. The red zone above 1.5 degrees Celsius warming is hotter than hell.
Subsidized climate crimes
Oil and gas have been subsidized from day one with increasing taxpayer funds every year. Trump held a meeting with Big Oil to get his marching orders from the American Petroleum Institute, the most powerful lobbying group. While many Americans will never get the one-time check from the $2 trillion COVID-19 fund, API wants a piece of the pie, and a green light to increase pollution, and EPA offered “free environmental pollution” … for profit!
Investment banks, pension funds, institutional and individual investors, and companies profit from oil and gas, along with logging, trucking, and wood mills for timber and wood pellets.
To survive, we must draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide. The target must be a warming no more than 1.5° C. over pre-industrial natural temperature.
Beneficial Carbon sinks: Live forests, wetlands, peatlands, and grasslands capture and store carbon. Detrimental Carbon sources: Burning forests, coal, natural gas, and oil.
Burning wood pellets has higher emissions than burning coal, ignoring the deforestation of our forests and the massive emissions from burning diesel for harvesting and logging trucks.
The science is clear, but carbon accounting has loopholes from dishonest environmental regulations in the U.S. and the European Union… for profit!
Case in point. On March 25, 2020, The U.K. Drax power station celebrated the 100th shipment of wood pellets from Louisiana. The press release says, “Drax uses over five million tonnes per year of biomass from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi forests.”
The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis, by Christiana Figueres, “The world is on fire, the hour is late, and the moment of consequence, so long delayed, is now upon us. Do we watch the world burn, or do we choose to do what is necessary to achieve a different future?” Christiana served as Executive Secretary of the United Nations when the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement was signed. The book offers a clear path for survival.
Protect your family
Please call Ray Kaszuba, Enviva’s VP for Investor Relations, (240) 482-3856, and ask him how is burning our forests at the UK Drax a climate solution. The climate emergency is a global threat.
Please call Rep. Bruce Westerman, (202) 225-3772, and ask him how increasing wood products harvesting our forests will reduce carbon emissions. While you have him on the phone, ask him why he wants to harvest national forests and the Tongass Alaska Rainforest under his zombie “resilient forests” act.
Please join earthrise2020.org the virtual Earth Day celebration.
Dr. Luis Contreras