A reporter for The Washington Post went after Republicans for a surprising reason, a Republican proposal to plant a trillion trees.
In an August 2 article, Post reporter Maxine Joselow juxtaposed suggestions by former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to plant a trillion trees with McCarthy’s promises to expand oil and gas, before comparing land use for new forests to land use for renewable energy. The Post reporter made the agenda behind this juxtaposition clear when she claimed that climate scientists “have warned that heat waves, famines and diseases could claim millions of additional lives by century’s end unless humanity swiftly phases out the burning of oil, gas and coal.” Throughout the article, Joselow conveniently ignored past coverage by fellow eco-activists, colleagues at The Post, and even her own past writing to discredit ideas that will not harm the supply of cheap available energy.
In 2017, Joselow argued for planting trees in an article for the Daily Beast. She did so for a variety of health, temperature, and environmental reasons including to reduce pollutants in the air. She cited a source that argued that, “Besides contributing to cooler temperatures, trees can also combat smog by filtering pollutants from the air,” before quoting him on the trees breathing in carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen.
Similarly, climate activists, including writers at The Post, have for years vehemently denounced former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, referring to the region as the “lungs of the world,” meaning that the region absorbs massive amounts of carbon and releases massive amounts of oxygen. This led to Post headlines as alarmist as “How Brazil’s Bolsonaro threatens the planet.” After Brazil’s presidential election, The Post used the “lungs of the world” term again while expressing relief at Bolsonaro’s departure. Even Joselow herself wrote an article linking Amazon deforestation to a “climate emergency.”
When a disfavored head of state can be demonized, as it occurred with Brazil’s Bolsonaro, fear-mongering over deforestation reaches a fever pitch. When American politicians propose alternatives to ditching oil and coal, the same source drops its emphasis on trees. They don’t want solutions, they want to hurt American energy and standards of living.
Time and time again, climate activists have strongly promoted trees as a climate solution. Still, Joselow favorably compared land used by renewable energy to land used for growing trees. She wrote that, “Although renewable energy is also land-intensive, avoiding the same amount of carbon dioxide by building more wind and solar farms would require only 15 million hectares by 2050.” This type of thinking has led to Scotland cutting down millions of trees for wind energy.
It may be time for conservatives to teach the left how to hug a tree.
Conservatives are under attack! Contact The Washington Post at 202-334-6000 and demand they cease their attacks on Americans’ energy and living standards.
