Amongst scientists, James Hansen [search] has long been one of the clearest voices for strong action against climate change including ending the use of coal [ark | search]. Yet now he advocates replacing coal with wood from vast tree plantations [ark | moreark], 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.

Scientists who have developed the idea of using biomass power plants with carbon capture and storage in order to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels have made it clear that at least 500 million hectares of plantations would be required, which is over one and a half times the size of India. Replacing all coal burnt today with wood would require far more land and would almost certainly be impossible, although that may go beyond Hansen’s proposal.