[Bored chemist]

The company which has condemned FIddler's Ferry is SSE plc (formerly Scottish and Southern Energy plc) which is an energy company headquartered in Perth, Scotland.

I think the blame really lies elsewhere.
Here's what WIKI says about F's F.
"On 18 November 2015 Amber Rudd the Minister in charge of the Department of Energy and Climate Change proposed that the UK's remaining coal-fired power stations will be shut by 2025 with their use restricted by 2023."

So we absolutely need biomass burning for the transition.

Where do you propose to grow it?

[alancalverd]

Maybe it's just me; I thought the tragedy of the demolition at Didcot was the 4 dead people.

That was 3 years earlier. Altogether not a happy business, but I'm sure someone will fill the space with tiny, expensive houses.

[Scottish Scientist]

The company which has condemned FIddler's Ferry is SSE plc (formerly Scottish and Southern Energy plc) which is an energy company headquartered in Perth, Scotland.

I think the blame really lies elsewhere.
Here's what WIKI says about F's F.
"On 18 November 2015 Amber Rudd the Minister in charge of the Department of Energy and Climate Change proposed that the UK's remaining coal-fired power stations will be shut by 2025 with their use restricted by 2023."

Indeed. SSE are operating as all private companies must within the market whose parameters are established by the government, which could pay incentives, change the rules, to encourage the profitability of biomass back-up power stations or simply re-nationalise the National Grid and the coal-fired power stations, convert them to bio-mass and run them as critical renewable energy back-up power grid infrastructure.


Industrial Vandalism. From beyond the grave, Thatcherite market forces delay the transition to 100% Renewable Energy

In Amber Rudderless's case that should be "Hey Tory-girl there's a CLIMATE EMERGENCY!"

[Scottish Scientist]

So we absolutely need biomass burning for the transition.

Where do you propose to grow it?

Global biomass for 2010

Released 20/09/2017 8:44 am
Copyright GlobBiomass project
Description
Map showing global growing stock volume (GSV) – the amount of wood expressed in cubic metres per hectare – derived from satellite radar data in 2010. Dark green represents areas of high growing stock volume, while white areas have none.

Drax gets their biomass pellets from North America I believe.

[Bored chemist]

So we absolutely need biomass burning for the transition.

Where do you propose to grow it?

Global biomass for 2010

Released 20/09/2017 8:44 am
Copyright GlobBiomass project
Description
Map showing global growing stock volume (GSV) – the amount of wood expressed in cubic metres per hectare – derived from satellite radar data in 2010. Dark green represents areas of high growing stock volume, while white areas have none.

Drax gets their biomass pellets from North America I believe.

Do you not feel that we are burning the Brazilian forests fast enough already?
It seems to be adding another variation to the theme of "food miles".

[Scottish Scientist]

So we absolutely need biomass burning for the transition.

Where do you propose to grow it?

Global biomass for 2010

Released 20/09/2017 8:44 am
Copyright GlobBiomass project
Description
Map showing global growing stock volume (GSV) – the amount of wood expressed in cubic metres per hectare – derived from satellite radar data in 2010. Dark green represents areas of high growing stock volume, while white areas have none.

Drax gets their biomass pellets from North America I believe.

Do you not feel that we are burning the Brazilian forests fast enough already?

Science is knowing and that's more than a feeling.

I know that fossil-fuel burning tree-hugging hypocrites aren't lifting a finger to reduce the scale of devastating wild-fires, in Brazil, in the American West, in Australia, or indeed anywhere in this world. Indeed, tree-hugging is making wild-fires worse.

It is the sustainable harvesting of trees that will give forests their best economic value.

A metaphorically "hugged tree", in Brazil, say, hugged by touchy-feely President Macron at a G7 meeting, is totally worthless to a Brazilian farmer who will ignore the tree-huggers and set fires so that the hugged tree and its neighbours are burnt to a crisp so that the farmer can plant crops and graze cattle, feed his family.

Meanwhile, the hugged and wild-fire burnt trees of the world are of no use whatsoever for back-up power generation at times of low wind and solar power, but the tree-huggers will look the other way as fossil-fuels are burned for back-up power, stoking up the problem of global warming and natural wild fires.

The tree-huggers are the fellow travellers and bed fellows of climate deniers - all hand-wringing, no solutions and no appetite for an open debate. Tree-huggers need their "safe zones" to get away with being dead wrong.

Whereas a "harvested tree" that is turned into wood pellets and sold to biomass power stations that keep the lights on without burning fossil fuel is a source of income for the forester who replants more trees to sustain his source of income and feed his family, creating fire-breaks to contain wild-fires and now the forest thrives. Then we can stop burning fossil fuels and halt global warming in its tracks. Win, win.

Like I said -

Tree-huggers may foolishly rejoice that fewer trees will be felled if there are fewer biomass-burning power stations to burn them in? Don't celebrate too soon - massive wild-fires will eventually consume most of the trees that tree-huggers want to hug and those trees will go up in smoke sooner or later.

I am sorry but the harsh reality is that tree-hugging, massive wild-fires and burning fossil-fuel natural gas is not helping, but hindering the transition.

It seems to be adding another variation to the theme of "food miles".

Shipping can be converted to renewable energy power too.
But hey if you want to plant a tree where your house is and go live in the Brazilian rain forest, hug a tree instead of your loved ones, be my guest.

[Bored chemist]

A metaphorically "hugged tree", in Brazil, say, hugged by touchy-feely President Macron at a G7 meeting, is totally worthless to a Brazilian farmer who will ignore the tree-huggers and set fires so that the hugged tree and its neighbours are burnt to a crisp so that the farmer can plant crops and graze cattle, feed his family.

You forgot what he actually does.
He grows crops to sell on the international market to offset  debts which his government  ran up without offering him anything in return,

That government, and the international market are  amenable to influence by tree hugging voters.

We re really not talking about the locals using slash + burn agriculture to feed their families here.
It's just dishonest to pretend that we are.

The fires are set by multinationals wanting to make profits, not  by locals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil#Causes

The tree huggers had actually reduced deforestation rates.

[Scottish Scientist]

We re really not talking about the locals using slash + burn agriculture to feed their families here.
It's just dishonest to pretend that we are.

The fires are set by multinationals wanting to make profits, not  by locals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil#Causes

From that link.

The Brazilian government granted land to approximately 150,000 families in the Amazon between 1995 and 1998. Poor farmers were also encouraged by the government through programmes such as the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform in Brazil (INCRA) to farm unclaimed forest land and after a five-year period were given a title and the right to sell the land. The productivity of the soil following forest removal for farming lasts only a year or two before the fields become infertile and farmers must clear new areas of forest to maintain their income. In 1995, nearly half (48%) of the deforestation in Brazil was attributed to poorer farmers clearing lots under 125 acres (0.51 km2) in size.

That's what your Wikipedia link is talking about.

[Bored chemist]

This is what Wiki is on about
"Logging in the Amazon, in theory, is controlled and only strictly licensed individuals are allowed to harvest the trees in selected areas. In practice, illegal logging is widespread in Brazil.[29][30] Up to 60 to 80 percent of all logging in Brazil is estimated to be illegal, with 70% of the timber cut wasted in the mills.[31] Most illegal logging companies are international companies that don't replant the trees and the practice is extensive."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil#Logging

[Scottish Scientist]

This is what Wiki is on about
"Logging in the Amazon, in theory, is controlled and only strictly licensed individuals are allowed to harvest the trees in selected areas. In practice, illegal logging is widespread in Brazil.[29][30] Up to 60 to 80 percent of all logging in Brazil is estimated to be illegal, with 70% of the timber cut wasted in the mills.[31] Most illegal logging companies are international companies that don't replant the trees and the practice is extensive."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil#Logging

Instead of paying lip-service to "banning logging", knowing full-well that there is no intention whatsoever to enforce the law (more tree-hugger hypocrisy) the government should permit and tax logging, giving tax-breaks to responsible companies who follow the rules and the taxes collected can pay for law enforcement.

[Bored chemist]

government should

Perhaps.
But isn't it likely that they like the bribes?
Hardly the tree hugger's fault that there's a ready international market for biomass- without which the corrupt business wouldn't exist.

[Scottish Scientist]

government should

Perhaps.
But isn't it likely that they like the bribes?

Which "bribes"? Like the offer of $22m in aid from the G7, from tree-hugger Macron?

The G7 are wrong to offer bribes so that Brazil will tell the tree-hugger lies that Macron wants to hear.

Hardly the tree hugger's fault that there's a ready international market for biomass- without which the corrupt business wouldn't exist.

There's not enough of a biomass market yet, for back-up power at times of low wind and solar power and that's the tree-huggers' fault for insisting on fossil-fuel natural gas or even coal for back-up power.

The corruption exists because Brazil is being bribed by tree-huggers to outlaw logging etc.

[evan_au]

tree-hugging is making wild-fires worse.

There are some instances of this happening in Australia.

Unlike the damp tropical rainforest in the Amazon, where fires should be somewhat rare....

The forests in temperate Australia are often dry, often burn and some trees actually require fire for their seeds to germinate.
- Many trees are protected from mild fires by insulating bark
- There are signs from the earliest European explorers that the Aboriginal people often burnt sections of forest
- However, preventative burns have recently been blocked in some forest areas, and around people's homes, on environmental grounds
- Then, when a fire does start, there is lots of fuel on the ground, and it becomes an inferno which burns through the insulating bark, and kills mature trees
- The eucalyptus tree has a lot of oil, and this fuels intense fires (eucalyptus now grow wells in California with few local predators, and the fires there have been quite severe)

[Scottish Scientist]

- However, preventative burns have recently been blocked in some forest areas, and around people's homes, on environmental grounds
- Then, when a fire does start, there is lots of fuel on the ground, and it becomes an inferno which burns through the insulating bark, and kills mature trees
- The eucalyptus tree has a lot of oil, and this fuels intense fires (eucalyptus now grow wells in California with few local predators, and the fires there have been quite severe)

The Camp Fire was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.

You can see in this photograph and video of the fire-ravaged town of Paradise, Butte County, California, that the house plots were surrounded by trees. It looks they built the town in the forest, clearing only the minimum of trees for building plots and roads.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2019/07/12/USAT/53a9c18e-7e28-4699-a825-4f0beee4ca13-AP_Paradise_Population_Count.JPG

The trees seem to have endured the fire better than the town did.

Lax building codes, mismanaged planning authorities, profiteering developers, tree-hugger politicians -  they called the town "Paradise" because to tree-huggers, living in a town where you are surrounded with trees to hug IS "paradise".

In reality, "tree-hugger paradise" is Hell on Earth.

Tree-hugging is an existential threat to humanity and there really ought to be a law against it. 

Architects who want to offer residents shade from the sun should design verandas, cloisters, gazebos etc.

[Bored chemist]

Which "bribes"? Like the offer of $22m in aid from the G7, from tree-hugger Macron?

No, the big, regular ones.

The corruption exists because Brazil is being bribed by tree-huggers to outlaw logging etc.

The corruption exists because there's a lot of money to be made in illegal logging.
Without that money there would be nothing to bribe the  state officials with.
I'm sure some of  those officials are quite happy to take money from both sides.

[Scottish Scientist]

Quote from: Scottish Scientist on Yesterday at 21:11:57
Which "bribes"? Like the offer of $22m in aid from the G7, from tree-hugger Macron?
No, the big, regular ones.

Ah, you must mean the $1.3 billion in tree-hugger bribes donated by the UK and a dozen+ other donor countries etc. for bribes paid out by the World "tree-hugger" Bank?

Donor Participants

The FCPF's Readiness and Carbon Funds are supported by government and non-governmental entities, including private companies that make a minimum financial contribution of $5 million.     

Readiness Fund Contributors

European Commission, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany(BMZ,BMU), Italy, Japan(MAFF,MOF), Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom(DFID,DECC), United States of America

Carbon Fund Contributors

Public Sector
European Commission, Australia, Canada, France, Germany(BMZ,BMU), Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom(DFID,DECC), Government of the United States of America

Private Sector & NGOs
BP Technology Ventures Inc., The Nature Conservancy

The World Bank is the Trustee of the Readiness Fund and the Carbon Fund

The World Bank is betraying its mission to support economic development by bribing countries like Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to corrupt their logging and biomass-fuel sector with tree-hugger bribes and hypocrisy.

The tree-hugger politicians and banksters are an existential threat to humanity and they should be arrested not allowed to donate tax-payer cash for tree-hugger bribes.

 

The corruption exists because Brazil is being bribed by tree-huggers to outlaw logging etc.

The corruption exists because there's a lot of money to be made in illegal logging.

Corruption exists because of the tree-hugger bribes corrupting countries like Brazil and the DRC to outlaw and corrupt the logging sector.

Without that money there would be nothing to bribe the  state officials with.

Without the world tree-hugger politicians and banksters' bribes the logging industry in Brazil and the DRC would be a legal, honest and well-managed sector of those countries' economies.

I'm sure some of  those officials are quite happy to take money from both sides.

Indeed but the corruption starts at the highest-level with tree-huggers such as French President Macron, whose foolishness has been stoked by voters and viewers believing the propaganda of tree-hugger charities and media stories.

[alancalverd]

Unfortunately, "economic development" (i.e. the expansion of the economy, not cautious and conservative improvement) means disruption of the ecology, whether this involves flooding bits of Scotland or burning bits of Brazil to put money into somebody's pocket.

As long as there is an implicit or explicit requirement to increase the number of humans and their per capita consumption of resources, we are doomed, because they ain't makin' land anymore.

[Scottish Scientist]

Unfortunately, "economic development" (i.e. the expansion of the economy, not cautious and conservative improvement) means disruption of the ecology, whether this involves flooding bits of Scotland or burning bits of Brazil to put money into somebody's pocket.

"Economic development" comes in two main types - sustainable and unsustainable. There is not a one-size-fits-all "economic development".

The extraction, processing and burning of fossil-fuels would be an example of unsustainable development.
Replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy would be an example of sustainable development.

It is risky to stick with fossil fuels, not "cautious".
Conservatives like to stick to risky behaviours, even when scientists explain the risks.

Civilisation has ecological implications. What's "ecological disruption" for a hunter-gatherer and his prey is economic development for the civilised world.

Conservationists who want to stick with the arbitrary status quo ecology of a particular location at a particular time have been and always will be brushed aside by economic development, whether you or I like it or not.

You are more than welcome to switch off your electricity powered by flooded parts of Scotland and Wales and burnt biomass.
You are more than welcome to stop eating food farmed from land that was once forest.
You are more than welcome to go and live with the indigenous communities deep in the rainforest if your prefer the way that they have modified the ecology from the way it was before they invaded and changed the place.

Or perhaps you do not have the courage of your tree-hugger convictions?

As long as there is an implicit or explicit requirement to increase the number of humans and their per capita consumption of resources, we are doomed, because they ain't makin' land anymore.

China made some islands in the South China Sea to lay claim to its resources. Hong Kong reclaimed land for its airport. So actually, they are making land and the potential to improve land quality is great.

For example, water from the River Congo could be diverted north to make the Sahel and perhaps one day the Sahara bloom.

If I was world leader that is what mankind would do - make productive land where before there was none.

[jeffreyH]

@Scottish Scientist Wow! You really have your smears worked out, don't you. So you use tree-hugger as a smear term to negate any opinion that goes against your own. That sounds like a right wing troll tactic.

Now you wouldn't be a disingenuous right wing troll, would you? Bait and switch is their preferred tactic. Which looks suspiciously like what you are doing. Accept my sincerest apologies if I have this wrong.

[Scottish Scientist]

So you use tree-hugger as a smear term to negate any opinion that goes against your own.

Not true.

As I referred to earlier, the prejudices and ignorance of tree-huggers cannot stand scrutiny in an open debate and typically tree-huggers will insist on a "safe-space" where scientists cannot be heard.