I must admit I was excited to hear the state government announce a whole raft of green projects recently. Towards net zero they said. The promise of green hydrogen production plants. I thought to myself well, at least the state governments are moving towards a greener future.

How wrong could I be?

The new plants are biomass power plants which take woodchips and burn them to make the power needed to convert the water to hydrogen. Simply put we are going to cut down our forests that store carbon and produce clean oxygen to burn them to make a fake clean energy that we can feel good about filling up our green vehicles with.

More logging for green energy. Ahhhh…

This is so wrong. Totally unethical. Not green at all. A huge greenwash to allow more logging in our state.

… converting wood into power is a carbon disaster, a forest destroyer and an absurdly inefficient way to generate energy. Supplying just 2 percent more global energy from biomass, they estimated, would require doubling total global wood harvests.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/26/biomass-carbon-climate-politics-477620

Greenwashing is the process of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about how a company's products are more environmentally sound.

You are going to see a lot of it in the near future. Unfortunately it is probably inevitable as corrupt governments and corporations try to tell us they are looking after the planet and us, yet still take backhanders and environmental shortcuts just to make more money.

Please don’t fall for greenwashing. Look into everything very carefully before passing judgment. We must ensure we have a viable future for our children. Actually for us. Unfortunately we will witness huge changes before we depart this earth. There is hope though. We just need to hold people accountable and ensure our votes and investments count. We must consider our own actions and spending.

To read more about what the nsw government is doing see this great article https://www.michaelwest.com.au/green-hydrogen-masks-mammoth-plans-to-wood-chip-forests/

Blue Mountains forests. Photographs and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2021