Government proposes replacing gasoline with wood, tree-sitters go ape-shit

The head of the U.S. Forest Service, Abigail Kimbell, has made the seemingly contradictory proposals of using wood ethanol to replace a significant proportion of the nation's gasoline consumption while at the same time doubling the amount if carbon dioxide absorbed by the nation's forests.

Ms. Kimbell laid out these “ambitious goals” in a speech to the Society of Environmental Journalists given in San Fransisco last week saying that “they would take a concerted national effort to reach.”

Environmental activist Trenton Darby lambasted such plans saying that “destroying the nation's treasured forests in order to fill the tanks of millions of single-occupant SUV's simply smacks of a mind-boggling incompetence the likes of which America, nay, the World as never seen. But to couple it, Janus-faced, with a claim of simultaneous greenhouse gas reduction is either staggeringly ignorant or maddeningly arrogant if not both.”

Asked whether the two prongs of her plan were not intrinsically at odds with each other Ms. Kimbell's spokeswoman, Allison Stewart, explained that the wood for the ethanol was to come mainly from thinned underbrush which is now routinely collected and burned to prevent wildfires. “Natural wildfires are necessary for healthy forests but, of course, very dangerous to those living near them,” explained Stewart. “The artificial clearing currently undertaken to save property and lives results in massive amounts of unused wood and brush. So the ethanol source would come, not from a forest's old growth, but from small diameter trees, cleared underbrush and the like.”

In addition, Stewart said, a partnership with the nonprofit National Forest Foundation, allows people to purchase carbon offsets through charitable contributions which go toward the Service's replanting efforts. “We are doing a lot of replanting of new forests where there are no forests now,” Stewart said. “Specifically in regions cleared by natural processes such as floods and fires.”

“Oh.” said Mr. Darby when presented with the details of Ms. Kimbell's plan. “So... they propose tapping a currently wasted by-product of sound and safe forest management as a fuel source while doubling the current size of forested lands through charitable funding and public awareness. That actually doesn't sound half bad. It's pretty good, really. Shit. Why didn't you just say that in the first place? I mean, I wouldn't have acted like such a douche bag before.”