Month 4, Day 9: MA State Business

The people at StopSpewingCarbon asked me to write/call to my State Legislators in support of MA House Bill 4458. I didn’t know much about it, so I did a little research (just a little; it’s getting late).

It sounds like a good idea to me:

The Massachusetts Medical Society, The American Lung Association of New England, The Massachusetts Sierra Club, and the Stop Spewing Carbon Campaign…offered very powerful testimony this Wednesday in Boston supporting House Bill 4458.

The next 2-3 weeks are critical to getting something done in the Legislature. The American Lung Association of New England and the Massachusetts Sierra Club have committed to making House Bill 4458 a high priority for their organizations in the upcoming weeks. We do need your backup to be effective. Each Representative and Senator must receive many calls on House Bill 4458 if we want them to do the right thing.

Oddly, a teabagger group in Western Massachusetts posted this on their website, with the bizarre comment:

Why must this bill reduce CO2 why can’t it just end the subsidies?

Because CO2, as we all know, is life. (warning: link goes to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a right-wing climate denialist thinktank).

Dear Representative Donato and Senator Jehlen,

I write to ask you to support House Bill 4458, “An Act to Limit Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Renewable and Alternative Energy Sources.” Massachusetts will do well to prevent burning wood, construction waste and other debris in power plants.

Despite the “green” label given by supporters of biomass burning, this form of power generation is anything but:

Burning biomass releases even more particulate matter into the atmosphere than a coal plant, with concomitant impacts on the health of our population.

Burning wood and biomass causes increased CO2 emissions. While trees will be planted to replace those burned, it will take several decades for a growing tree to absorb anything close to the amount of CO2 emitted; the carbon balance may be maintained in the long run, but right now it is imperative that we drastically reduce atmospheric CO2 in the short-term if we are to insure a habitable planet for us all.

Because biomass plants are water-cooled, many Massachusetts rivers will face massive water withdrawals year-round, as well as heat discharges. The pressure on wood sources will adversely affect headwater and tributary streams to many of our state’s most beautiful rivers.

The new biomass plants proposed for central and western Massachusetts are projected to consume more wood than we have in the State’s forests, and they’ll eventually be forced to burn construction debris, animal waste, and municipal trash.

It is important that our state be engaged in the struggle to develop robust alternative sources of energy. But this form of biomass burning is a bad idea.

Please support House Bill 4458.

Thank you,

Warren Senders