I am writing to speak out…

I am writing to speak out against expanding the wood pellet industry. With all the sustainable, green and clean energy options available to us today it’s absurd that we are considering burning wood biomass as a so-called green solution. Burning wood pellets is dirtier than coal at the smokestack, period.

The argument that this industry only uses mill by-products is also disingenuous. There are much better uses for mill by-products (for example engineered wood products such as particle board and mdf) and the reality is many Canadian provinces including Ontario are already logging whole trees from primary forests to meet the growing demand for wood pellets

The current Ontario government has a legacy of gutting important environmental legislation (for example the Endangered Species Act) and this is no different. Objective 3 of this action plan includes, “streamline permitting and reduce regulatory burden for all sectors which use forest biomass.” This is a serious red flag as it essentially means there would be fewer environmental checkpoints.

Amidst an ever growing climate crisis, we simply can’t afford to keep chopping down forests to make a fuel that emits immense amounts of carbon dioxide. Wood pellets are a false climate solution.