An “environmental” organization promoted by Maine’s legacy press complaining about paper-mill emissions apparently forgot about its opposition to not just one but two sources of clean fuel.
The Maine Monitor and Portland Press Herald on Monday paid top headline homage to the “Environmental Integrity Project” blasting Maine paper mills for allegedly increasing carbon emissions more than other plants in America by burning tires.
The project is also upset because the federal Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t monitor carbon emissions from paper plants because it considers trees a renewable resource.
For those paying attention, trees are the most obvious source of natural resources for making paper.
In other words, the Environmental Integrity Project are tough, if not impossible, folks to please. Their ideal levels of human productivity may well be akin to those featured on The Flintstones (remember how Fred and Barney powered their cars?)
InfluenceWatch.org points out that the “Environmental Integrity Project” is on record as opposing two clean sources of fuel – nuclear energy and natural gas.
Even The Nature Conservancy – not a right-wing, tree-hugging organization by any stretch – favors expanding nuclear as a worldwide source of energy.
“The Environmental Integrity Project has opposed the use of zero-carbon nuclear energy,” according to InfluenceWatch.
“In 2021, the Environmental Integrity I Project was one of 715 groups and businesses listed as a co-signer on a letter to the leadership of the U.S. House and Senate that referred to nuclear energy as a ‘dirty’ form of energy production and a ‘significant’ source of pollution,” says InfluenceWatch.
“The letter asked federal lawmakers to reduce carbon emissions by creating a ‘renewable electricity standard’ that promoted production of weather-dependent power sources such as wind turbines and solar panels, but did not promote low-carbon natural gas and zero-carbon nuclear energy.”
So, that’s a big problem for the “Energy Integrity Project” if it wants to claim that it is promoting clean air – for two notable reasons.
A report from The Nature Conservancy notes that zero-carbon nuclear plants produce 7.8 percent of total world energy output – and the conservancy recommends reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total-world energy output.
“Nuclear-power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and they account for 19 percent of American electricity production – the largest source of zero-carbon electricity in the United States,” according to InfluenceWatch.
Then there’s natural gas, the clean fuel that the “Environmental Integrity Project” opposes even while it’s complaining about emissions from burning tires.
In their breathless coverage of the Environmental Integrity Project’s hypocritical, yawn-inducing complaints about tires, the good folks over at The Maine Monitor and Portland Press Herald missed the real news. (Knock me over with a feather.)
To wit, according to the legacy media’s own story, “a representative for Woodland Pulp said that the company’s Baileyville mill has reduced its emissions over the past two decades by switching from fuel oil to natural gas. Mill energy needs are also supported by on-site hydropower.”
Natural gas – the very fuel source that even most environmentalists agree is a cleaner energy source for making paper than say, your discarded bald Goodyear tires – gets the brush off from our friends over at the “Environmental Integrity Project.”
The moral to this story is, before you go publishing your hoped-for Pulitzer piece quoting supposed environmentalists as opposing tire burning, do some fact-checking because you will find out that those same “environmentalists” are also on record as opposing not just one but two very clean sources of energy.
The newly-hired fact-checking squad at the Portland Press Herald apparently was off at the beach when the paper’s piece on the “Environmental Integrity Project” was getting its final edit…
