I’m in London en route to Monaco for this weekend. The Royal Wedding will occur while we are in Monte Carlo, with a two hour fireworks show. Do I have a wedding invitation? Well, I assure you, I will indeed see the fireworks.
However, an article in The Times of London intrigued me today. The British Government has an official policy to promote a more-greener United Kingdom by authorizing the chopping down of an additional two million trees a year in English forests. The idea is that clearing denser woods out a little will encourage the growth of bluebells and entice back endangered bird species. After all the trees are chopped down, the government will then guarantee payments to people and businesses to burn the wood for heat, to save on electricity and gas usage, and reduce carbon, which the government says is reduced using burning wood compared to a utility even though burning wood emits smoke. What a novel approach to reducing pollution. I still recall when California’s air resources board thought that the Boudin Sourdough Bread bakery in San Francisco needed to be fined because people had to put up with the smell of baking bread “pollution” at their kitchens. The California Pizza Kitchen I go to in Lake Forest is under some sort of mandate to stop using a small amount of wood to bake pizzas because of “pollution”, and is changing over to entirely gas stoves. But according to the Brits, that will create a bigger carbon pollution footprint than the wood does, and the pizzas won’t taste as good! Wood burning is banned in Santa Barbara hotels, where fireplaces are turned on by flipping a switch.
I say cut down the trees and burn them, it is good for the environment.