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U.S. EPA says it will define wood as a 'carbon-neutral' fuel, reigniting debate
Weighing in on a fierce, long-standing climate debate, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C., said yesterday the agency will now define wood as a "carbon-neutral" fuel for many regulatory purposes.
The "announcement grants America's foresters much-needed certainty and clarity with respect to the carbon neutrality of forest biomass," EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said at an event in Cochran, Georgia, The Washington Post reports. But many environmental groups and energy experts decried the move, arguing the science is far from settled on whether wood is a climate-friendly fuel.
As Science contributing correspondent Warren Cornwall reported last year, the forest products industry has long been pushing for the carbon neutral definition in a bid to make wood an attractive fuel for generating electricity in nations trying to move away from fossil fuels. The idea is "attractively simple," Cornwall reported:
The carbon released when trees are cut down and burned is taken up again when new trees grow in their place, limiting its impact on climate. ...
Yet moves by governments around the world to designate wood as a carbon-neutral fuel—making it eligible for beneficial treatment under tax, trade, and environmental regulations—have spurred fierce debate. Critics argue that accounting for carbon recycling is far more complex than it seems. They say favoring wood could actually boost carbon emissions, not curb them, for many decades, and that wind and solar energy—emissions-free from the start—are a better bet for the climate. Some scientists also worry that policies promoting wood fuels could unleash a global logging boom that trashes forest biodiversity in the name of climate protection.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday April 26 2018, @08:41AM (18 children)
Deforestation varies hugely, according to where you are. Tropical rainforests are being demolished by a combination of overpopulation, poverty, and clueless agricultural practices. However, temperate forests are increasing.
Deforestation is an effect, not a cause. The ultimate problem is overpopulation. How, exactly, you stop population growth in 2nd and 3rd world countries? There's no easy answer. IMHO the long-term answer is for the West to GTFO: leave the countries alone, and let them sort out their own problems. This includes no more food aid, which would limit population to what can be locally supported.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 26 2018, @09:07AM
You are right, but where does the West get their monies from than? Lots of monies are made from exploiting these people and their lands and keeping them poor, so money can be raised in the West to "help" these people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 26 2018, @02:03PM (13 children)
Stop all that idiot foreign aid. Stop all those doctors working so hard to keep those shithole residents healthy, long enough to breed. Let them rely on their superstitions, their witch doctors, their socialist and other crap governments. It's the fault of the West that there are so many shithole residents. Send them no food that they don't pay for. Send them no medicines, that they don't pay for. Send them no weapons, that they don't pay for. And, stop loaning them money. Let them sink or swim, all on their own.
But, no, we can't do that. The corporates demand that we exploit whatever resources they might have, and the social/lib/progressive crowd wants to force further over population.
We just need to mind our own business, and let them tend to their own business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 26 2018, @04:03PM (12 children)
Way too much evidence that the best way to reduce birth rate is to increase the chance the first 2 kids will become adults. You're actually advocating to make the overpopulation problem worse.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 26 2018, @04:57PM (10 children)
Yet, mankind never numbered even half a billion, until recent history. I guess some people had thirty kids, and buried most of them in infancy, some more in early childhood, and some more managed to get themselves killed off in adolescence.
What happened in the 1800's to change all of that? Medical research, and the beginnings of disease control is what happened. Medicine - primarily western medicine - keeps all those babies alive to reach breeding age.
Note that I'm not claiming that western medicine is necessarily better than all other culture's medical knowledge. The west is different in that we export everything to dinky little third world hell holes that others, like China had never bothered with. Greece had brain surgery thousands of years ago, but they didn't export doctors all over the world to save everyone with a head injury.
As cold and heartless as my "solution" sounds - it is even colder and more heartless to enable those uneducated peoples in backwater swamps to raise up small armies of children that they can't afford to feed, or to educate, or much of anything else.
Those uneducted people who are invading Europe and North America today are doing so because they don't have the resources at home. They drop babies they can't support, then expect the West to support those babies.
Gotta respect China in that regard. They got their burgeoning population under control, without asking US/Europe for help.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday April 26 2018, @05:14PM (9 children)
Complete and utter bullshit.
Modern plumbing has saved more lives than medicine ever did. Modern plumbing is what makes disease control possible.
One thing that appears to be repeated in modern civilizations: when they reach a level of maturity and wealth that children are not required to support he adults in their old age, population growth drops off, and in many cases becomes negative.
Remove the financial need to have many children, provide education on and access to birth control and population growth stops. We know this.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 26 2018, @05:39PM (7 children)
India is the second most populous nation in the world - and they didn't get that way due to indoor plumbing. Your suggestion implies that if/when they stop shitting in the fields and in the streets, their population will skyrocket? On the contrary, their population rose in proportion to other nations, such as Chine, over the past 200 years or so.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday April 26 2018, @06:18PM (6 children)
Are you asserting that the people in India that don't have access to indoor plumbing have access to modern medicine?
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday April 26 2018, @06:22PM (4 children)
No, Ma href=https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-05-12/india-access-toilets-remains-huge-problem-worst-all-women-and-girls>only 70% DON'T have access to indoor plumbing.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday April 26 2018, @06:22PM
Damn: https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-05-12/india-access-toilets-remains-huge-problem-worst-all-women-and-girls [pri.org]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday April 26 2018, @06:45PM (2 children)
Go back and read my post again. I did not assert that lack of toilets was not an issue in India.
Oh, WTF, it's pointless trying to correct the idiots here.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 26 2018, @07:40PM (1 child)
Just let them hate on "third world savages" who have no "personal responsibility" and just breed like rabbits. These haters can't even stomach the idea of providing support to their fellow citizens, doubly so for the people outside their tribe.
(Score: 1) by Captival on Thursday April 26 2018, @10:05PM
Give me all your money so I can distribute it to my friends however I see fit. You have no choice, shut up and do it.
That's what many people object to.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 27 2018, @01:26AM
Yes, many of them do. There are drives in India to get children vaccinated, to get prenatal and natal care to women of child bearing age, and more. Most of that is readily accepted by the population. At the same time, the drive to provide modern plumbing is actively resisted. It's not just rural people, either.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-27775327 [bbc.co.uk]
"Just building toilets is not going to solve the problem, because open defecation is a practice acquired from the time you learn how to walk. When you grow up in an environment where everyone does it, even if later in life you have access to proper sanitation, you will revert back to it," says Sue Coates, chief of Wash (water, sanitation and hygiene) at Unicef.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday April 26 2018, @06:27PM
Above you assured us that just getting the first two kids to adulthood would reduce population.
Now you say just getting the parents mature and wealthy will do it.
Stop throwing ideas against the wall, and state an actual case.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday April 26 2018, @06:19PM
Citation needed.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday April 26 2018, @02:13PM (2 children)
Actually, there is an easy answer. You need to raise their standard of living and economic output enough to support a basic level of universal medical coverage that includes access to safe, effective birth control. When that becomes available, unplanned pregnancies drop off and cultures gradually move towards a neutral or even negative population growth.
But maybe by "easy" you mean "easy to implement". It's true that this approach has its difficulties, including:
Regardless of these difficulties and whether I personally advocate for this, I find it interesting to view the actions of global organizations in light of this strategy. Do the WTO's actions to boost global economies work toward curbing overpopulation? Is that what the WTO wants, or is it a side effect? Is this a common effect of globalization? Also, how many NGOs are working towards exactly this goal, as advertised or surreptitiously?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 26 2018, @05:01PM (1 child)
Birth control is also a hard sell in some parts of the world. The US government subsidized forced sterilization of women who sought any kind of medical treatment in much of Africa. She comes to the clinic to have an infected cut on her arm treated, and she goes home sterile. Even the least educated people can figure that out after awhile. Maybe if the US hadn't been so sneaky and underhanded in decades past, we could convince people that two kids are enough. Instead, we shot ourselves in the foot.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday April 26 2018, @06:22PM
It's a hard sell because those people have an economic interest in having many children. That's the primary factor that needs to change.
Yes, the USA has f*cked this up mightily. Not just the forced sterilizations, but also the CIA using vaccinations as cover for spying and probably other examples.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory