Cross-party MSPs join rally to move Earth beyond unsustainable energy

Friends of the Earth Scotland and Biofuelwatch joint news release

WHEN: Saturday 24 September 2011 at 12pm.
WHERE: Outside City Chambers on the Royal Mile, moving to rally at Holyrood.

At noon on Saturday 24 September, hundreds of people will be marching, cycling and skating to call for a move beyond fossil fuels and unsustainable biomass.

The parade will conclude with a rally at Holyrood, where speakers will include Marco Biagi MSP (SNP), Malcolm Chisholm MSP (Lab), and Alison Johnstone MSP (Green), Keith Baker (Edinburgh 350), and Mark Haldane (Grangemouth anti-biomass campaign group).

Emilia Hanna, biomass campaigner with environmental organisation Biofuelwatch, said:

“Burning biomass on a large scale demands quantities of wood that the UK and Scotland simply cannot sustain. Proposals such as those of Forth Energy rely on importing millions of tonnes of wood from around the world. They run directly counter to the Scottish Government’s commitment to becoming energy independent.

“Scotland has the capacity to export energy to the rest of Europe through real renewables such as wind and tidal energy without having to go down the biomass route.”

The “Moving Planet Edinburgh” event joins hundreds of thousands of people in communities around the world as part of ‘Moving Planet’, the Global Day of Climate Action.

Around the world, from Mumbai to New York, from Sao Paulo to Cairo, people will hold demonstrations to focus attention on the number 350 parts per million – the number that scientists have insisted in recent years is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The event is coordinated by the international NGO, 350.org and supported by Biofuelwatch, the No to Leith Biomass Campaign, and Friends of the Earth Scotland.

ENDS

For media enquiries, please contact: Per Fischer, Press Office, Friends of the Earth Scotland
 t: 0131 243 2719

Notes to Editors

1. Moving Planet Edinburgh – marching and cycling for a green future
www.moving-planet.org/events/uk/edinburgh/311

2. 350.org is about connecting the global to the local. In Scotland we are at risk of replacing fossil fuels with unsustainable biomass, such as Forth Energy’s proposals for four biomass plants at Leith Docks, Grangemouth, Dundee, and Rosyth. Globally, the rush to biomass is emerging as a major cause of land-grabbing and deforestation leading to flooding risks, evictions of indigenous people, human rights abuses, and threats to wildlife habitats and fragile ecosystems.
www.350.org

3. Biofuelwatch works to raise awareness of the negative impacts of industrial biofuels and bioenergy on biodiversity, human rights, food sovereignty and climate change.
www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

4. Friends of the Earth Scotland is * Scotland’s leading environmental campaigning organisation * An independent Scottish charity with a network of thousands of supporters and active local groups across Scotland * Part of the largest grassroots environmental network in the world, uniting over 2 million supporters, 77 national member groups, and some 5,000 local activist groups – covering every continent.
www.foe-scotland.org.uk