Tag: deforestation

Germany Begins Felling 120,000 Trees From ‘Fairy Tale’ Forest to Make Way for Wind Turbines

The windmills are spinning golden subsidies in the central German ‘fairy tale’ forest of Reinhardswald, but the payment is the partial destruction of the 1,000 year-old ancient wood itself. Work has started on the clearing of up to 120,000 trees in the forest, the setting for many of the Brothers Grimm mythical stories, to provide access for an initial 18 giant wind turbines around the Sababurg ‘Sleeping Beauty’ castle. Who is opposing this massive destruction of the ancient forest teeming with wildlife with trees over 200 years old? Certainly not the Green party, now in power at national and local level. In fact the project is being led by local Hesse Green Minister Priska Hinz who is reported to have said: “Wind energy makes a decisive contribution to the energy transition and the preservation of nature. It is the only way to preserve forests and important ecosystems.”

There is some local press interest in Germany about the destruction of part of the forest that covers a 200 square kilometre area. Nevertheless, the mainstream media generally keep well away from covering environmental destruction when the Greens are doing it in the claimed cause of saving the planet. The BBC did cover the story under the headline ‘Battle over wind turbines in the land of Sleeping Beauty‘, but that was in 2013 when plans for the industrial development were first announced. It seems that the state-reliant broadcaster is less interested now that the Big Bad Wolf has finally made a meal of Little Red Riding Hood.

Pierre Gosselin, who runs the German-based science site No Tricks Zone, has been covering the outrage felt in a number of German quarters at the plans to destroy some of the Reinhardswald forest in the interest of inferior green technology. He feels the affair shows what an inefficient and costly scam green energy is. “It’s not cost-free, it’s full of corrupt and unresponsive politicians who no longer care about democracy, and it certainly doesn’t make the environment better. It’s a nasty juggernaut of waste, fraud, corruption and ecological degradation – with dead birds, turbine vibration sickness, strobe dizziness and landscape pollution,” he adds.

The Guardian has been curiously silent over the clearing of woodland to build wind turbines in Hesse. In 2020 it was less reticent about reporting on the construction of a 3 km highway in another Hessian forest at Dannenroder. Thousands of climate activists gathered on the site north of Frankfurt, it reported. Dannenroder tree-felling would be a catastrophe, environmental campaigners are reported to have said. “Some parts of this forest are 250 years old,” noted Nicola Uhde of the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (Bund), “and there is simply not much of this kind of woodland around anymore.” At the time, the Guardian noted the fate of Dannenroder was a “litmus test for the Green party” which governed the state as part of a coalition. It seems to have been remiss in not suggesting such a test with the Reinhardswald deforestation. But then it seems none of the usual climate activists have been protesting about the loss of trees and wildlife habitat on this occasion.

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Scottish Govt Axes 16 Million Trees To Clear Way For ‘Greener’ Solutions

Since 2000, the Scottish government has felled around 1,700 trees on a daily basis, all to make way for “green” initiatives. Leave it to the government and their leftist abettors to harp on the “destruction of the environment” then chop down literal trees to create barren wastelands—all to make room for obtrusive, industrial, inanimate behemoths that obliterate all sorts of animal populations, and create massive amounts of environmental pollution (in production, maintenance, and disposal).

According to an article by Frank Bergman and posted to Slay News yesterday, the Scottish government’s scheme of systematic deforestation was implemented to “meet the goals” of the climate agenda. Is that not one of the most ludicrous and asinine things you’ve ever heard? Or perhaps, the move is right in line with the climate agenda, because the goal isn’t environmentalism… but rather communistic destruction?

From Bergman:

A Scottish government official has admitted that almost 16 million trees have been cut down in Scotland to make way for ‘green energy’ farms.

The trees were growing on public land and were chopped down so the land could be used for wind turbines.

The admission was made by Scotland’s Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon, a member of the ruling left-wing Scottish National Party (SNP).

She estimated that 15.7 million trees had been cut down since 2000 on land currently managed by Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS).

Bergman also reported that Gougeon said:

‘Where woodland is removed in association with development, developers will generally be expected to provide compensatory planting in order to avoid a net loss of woodland.’

“Generally”? Seems rather vague and subjective; unsurprisingly, “No information has yet been provided regarding any trees that were ‘replanted,’ however.”

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‘Eco’ power station in tree-felling storm: Wood-fired plant that takes billions in green handouts is hacking down Canadian forest, TV probe alleges

Britain’s largest renewable power station is cutting down carbon-rich forests while receiving billions in green- energy subsidies from UK taxpayers, an investigation claims.

Panorama tonight reports how Drax, which generates 12 per cent of the UK’s renewable electricity by burning wood pellets at its Yorkshire power station, bought logging licences to cut down two areas of forest in western Canada.

The company claims it only used leftover sawdust and waste wood from the forests but the BBC film, titled The Green Energy Scandal Exposed, shows logs from the forest being loaded on to a Drax truck and then unloaded at one of its pellet plants.

The programme says that Drax’s power station burned more than seven million tonnes of imported wood pellets last year and that documents on a Canadian forestry database show that only 11 per cent of logs delivered to two of its pellet plants are the small, twisted or rotten timber the company says it uses.

Drax has already received £6billion in green energy subsidies even though burning wood gives off more greenhouse gases than burning coal, Panorama emphasised.

The two areas of environmentally important forest – in the Canadian province of British Columbia – where Drax bought logging licences have never been logged before.

One of the sites includes large areas that have been identified as rare, old-growth forest. Drax’s own responsible sourcing policy says it ‘will avoid damage or disturbance’ to primary and old-growth forest. However, satellite pictures show Drax is now cutting down this forest, according to the BBC.

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Lakewood cut down Town Square trees to deter homeless

The township cut down all of the shade trees that once lined Town Square in a controversial move designed to prevent homeless people from spending time there.

Mayor Ray Coles said the decision was made after a recommendation from the Police Department Quality of Life Unit, which the township said was triggered by numerous complaints from residents and township employees about homeless people defecating and urinating in the area.

“They (homeless people) were harassing people, defecating between the cars and residents were complaining,” Coles said.

Claudia Romero, who works in a tax preparation company across from the Town Square, said that one day she found human feces on the sidewalk in front of her office and then submitted a complaint to the township. The township did not say how many complaints it received.

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Scotland cut down 14 million trees to make way for wind turbines

Scotland, site of the recent United Nations 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) climate summit, has cut down 14 million trees to make room for new wind power installations.

As reported in The Herald, the tree removal was for 21 wind turbine projects.

“The Scottish Government has moved to reassure that more trees have been planted, but it is unknown what proportion of these are mature plants that play a bigger role in turning carbon into oxygen.

“A Scottish conservation charity, which has planted almost two million trees across the Highlands, believes that both wind farms and trees are key to reducing carbon levels.”

The tree removal seems especially ironic given that world leaders supposedly agreed to end deforestation by 2030 at the recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Herald further reports that: “A spokesman for Forestry and Land Scotland, said: ‘Renewable energy and forests are key to Scotland’s contribution to mitigating climate change and FLS is successfully managing both elements.

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