CLIMATE ALERT! Forest and Crop Biomass Can Never Ecologically Sustainably Power Industrial Society

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ACTION ALERT                    PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

Forest and Crop Biomass Can Never Ecologically Sustainably Power Industrial 
Society

By Rainforest Rescue with Ecological Internet
  http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/ & http://www.ecoearth.info/
    April 28, 2009

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW:
http://www.climateark.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=no_biomass_energy

No Biomass/No Burning! Truly renewable energy must be defined as including no 
energy production or climate mitigation claims from food based agrofuels, live 
plants and ecosystems, or burning biomass of any type.

BRIEF BACKGROUND:
As the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is belatedly gaining 
recognition within the United States, a suite of policy initiatives, including 
the Markey-Waxman "American Climate and Energy Security Act 2009" (ACESA), are 
being considered to promote biomass such as tree plantations, and forest and 
agricultural 'waste', as renewable energy. Given well known issues of 
sustainability regarding industrial agriculture and land mismanagement, the 
need to more clearly define just what "renewable" means is clearly shown. It is 
vitally important that renewable energy be defined, within the context of 
federal energy and climate policy, in strictly ecological sustainability terms, 
including renewable energy and low carbon fuel standards.

In an alarming trend, burning and refining of plant biomass and also toxic 
municipal waste (or for that matter anything that burns) is being falsely 
promoted as renewable and of benefit to reducing emissions that cause climate 
change. Humans already consume a large amount of the energy represented in 
annual biological growth. To try to consume more of Earth's primary 
productivity is clearly unsustainable land use. Even partial replacement of 
fossil fuels with fresh plant biomass energy is absolutely impossible for more 
than a few years. Trying will denude Earth and make a very different planet, 
that is hostile and uninhabitable to human life.

TAKE ACTION NOW:
http://www.climateark.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=no_biomass_energy

DISCUSS THIS ALERT:
http://www.climateark.org/blog/2009/04/alert-forest-and-crop-biomass.asp