Dogwood Alliance is pleased to announce Rita Frost as our new Campaign Organizer! Rita believes in getting our country to a place where we respect all natural areas, like we respect national parks and that working with forest conservation is one of the frontline fights that we can do to face not only the problems of climate change, but also to get wilderness back into the ethos of American citizens.
The White House has taken the right position regarding the myth of carbon neutrality of burning trees for electricity. Dogwood Alliance is pleased to see the Administration taking a position that is grounded in science and that recognizes the massive threat that a large scale-up in burning trees for electricity represents.
Soaring demand for woody fuel has led to the construction of more than two dozen pellet factories in the Southeast and special port. European officials promote the trade as part of the fight against climate change. But that claim is increasingly coming under challenge.
Katya, John and Rita have been a huge asset to the Our Forests Aren’t Fuel campaign. Between the three of them, they collected 2,834 SOS messages to Save Our Southern forests, turned out 500 people to 5 different visibility events, and generated 31 total media hits. Their passion and dedication to forest protection sparked a growing movement in the cities they worked in – Baton Rouge, Wilmington and Savannah. In these port cities, where our Southern forests are exported away to be burned as fuel, residents are standing up to send a clear message to policy makers and industry leaders: Our forests aren’t fuel.
Last week’s editorial “The EPA’s not-so-green emissions plan” in the Washington Post rightfully asserted that a wholesale switch from coal to wood as a fuel source for generating electricity would take us in the wrong direction on climate change. It would increase carbon emissions at the smokestack, while also degrading forests’ ability to remove and store carbon from the atmosphere. But the note at the end…
