Most kids in the 50s and 60s dabbled with balsa wood. It made model aircraft that would float in the air. It was a staple of model kits. A day or so ago we learnt that a group of Amazonian natives got past the initial stages of the COP30 conference security wall in Brazil, in native dress and waving some sticks around. All we had in response from the media was a quick sentence to say they were protesting against encroachments on the rainforest – as in illegal logging. In other words, they compared their protest with the likes of environmentalist protest groups that regularly invade talking shops in an attempt to shut them down. Such as Extinction Rebellion. They were even described by some media as far left. Makes a change from the media describing far left folk as the righteous – but this is one of those stories that turns out to be upside down, in many ways. Naturally, one might have first thought this was a protest against building the super highway through the rainforest in order to get delegates quickly to their boondoggle venue at Belem. It was so luxurious it was enough to make Charlie Chuckles envious. And his brother – when you think about all those ladies of pleasure attending the conference and lighting up many a sleeping quarter. If you thought the protest was as simplistic as that you would be wrong. Very wrong. Those natives were not naive, or stupid. They came to make a point – which was never made as they were kicked out by the goons before they could get into the conference room. They were protesting about the harvesting of a certain tree within the rainforest. Balsa. Wood from the balsa tree is light but dense, and tough. It is used as the inner parts of glass fibre [plastic] wind turbine blades. Let that sink in. Plastic – as well as balsa wood, which is a distinct finite source found mainly in the rainforest. There are plantations of balsa but it grows too slowly to keep up with the number of windturbine blades being manufactured. Hence, illegal logging is mainly about harvesting balsa from the wild. They do not chop down brazil nut trees or luxury woods of any description. It is balsa where the money lies and balsa is all part of the Net Zero bubble. That was the whole point of the protest – but it was lost in media obfuscation. Omitted as if it did not exist. We know a certain broadcaster is keen on acting in this way – if the omission is forced on them they resort to cutting and splicing. So you would still not know what was going on. Yet, Net Zero is virtuous. Even self righteous. We care, they say – yet children in care are sexually exploited, so what does the word care actually mean. You have to look at it upside down. They don’t care. Money rules the roost.
All this smacks a bit like the palm oil fiasco where rainforest in Borneo and on other Indonesian islands was cut down in order to grow palm oil for virtuous Europeans of the Net Zero faith. Palm oil is now used as a sweetener and a major ingredient in processed food and the pretence it has anything to do with climate change is avoided. Palm oil does not end up in automobile engines anymore – we are led to believe. Let us hope that balsa in the future is not used in turbine blades and a substitute is found – such as foam. Problem there of course is that foam is made from fossil fuels, in good measure. However, as the Chinese are the major manufacturers of wind turbines and they use huge amounts of coal and oil and gas in order to keep industry running, that should not be a problem. The Chinese have a get Out of Jail card issued by the Net Zero lobby. They are a developing nation and we should not stop them from getting rich. Problem solved.
All in all, a peaceful protest was shut down – but why? The most likely answer might be that they did not want the real reason publicised. It might bring the Net Zero crusade into focus as a deeply hypocritical movement in which money is freely being sloshed around by the people that benefit from solar farms and wind turbine monstrosities, on the skyline, in the sea, and on mountains. See Scotland and wind turbines for an example. Turbines that are situated where population is low and is difficult to transfer to where population is high. The onus is on the National Grid – with huge sums of money from the government. If it is forthcoming.
The balsa story is at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/11/11/shock-cop-dirty-secret-at-least-half-the-balsa-wood-in-wind-turbine-blades-is-illegally-logged-in-amazonian-rainforests/ … and comes from the Daily Sceptic web site. Haven’t been on there but one place to visit at some point. In both these sources the protest is not linked to the balsa story. It was posted prior to the protest. Or news of the protest leaked out. Supposedly, preserving the rainforest is one of the main goals of Net Zero. Or was it the boondoggle itself – lots of top food and wine, and after conference activities. Belem in Brazil was chosen to emphasize its proximity to the rain forest. Actually within it – or the outer margins. The conference was also about advertising carbon storage, biodiversity, and climate regulations. Over seen by a corpulent United Nations. Ten thousand mature trees were hacked out of existence to build the highway to Belem. At least 50 per cent of balsa wood that ends up in turbine blades derives from illegal logging in virgin rainforest. The link goes on to say the media hide this fact as they are funded, in part, by the climate change lobby. The under belly of the West. The broadcast and print media have a long history of hiding information that might be used to criticise or take the mickey out of them. Hardly anyone buys newspapers nowadays and broadcast media news is usually the spot to put the kettle on. For example, the hideous number of insects, raptors, and birds in general, and the so called protected bat species, are being decimated by the turbines and may never recover their numbers. We’ll be infested with those little black biting flies that love to find a home in peat free compost. Is Net Zero all about creating a wildlife desert in an environmental nightmare? I said the story was upside down. Apart from a few very rich characters amassing large bank balances nobody else benefits. As one commenter after the article says, ‘we have to destroy the environment in order to save the planet.’