GUEST: Hansen’s Proposal to Replace Coal with Wood Is Ecologically Misguided

ark], burning the wood and capturing and sequestering the carbon dioxide. It is saddening that such an ecologically short-sighted proposal comes from the man who rightly warns that we are already ‘beyond safe levels’ of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. It is understandable that he and other scientists are looking at ways of reducing the fast increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations. Unfortunately, most of the proposals put forward for ‘cooling the planet’ involve either using vast amounts of energy for still unproven technologies (air capture of CO2) or, even more worryingly, sacrificing biodiversity and ecosystems. Clearly there is not enough wood globally to power the world, and further expansion of tree monocultures will ensure there is both no stable climate and no habitable planet. Scientists who... [read full story]