Gore Has A Problem: Why Biofuels Are the Rainforest’s Worst Enemy
April 4, 2009
With governments and consumers scrambling for alternatives to fossil fuel, worldwide demand for biofuels has gone through the roof; in Europe, where more than half of all automobiles run on diesel, consumption of biodiesel is set to triple by 2010. US subsidies for biofuels, mostly ethanol, will add up to $92 billion between 2006 and 2012, and producers in developing countries like Indonesia are often eligible for millions of dollars in development money from the World Bank.
But amid the hype, problems have emerged. Biodiesel emits less than one-quarter the carbon of regular diesel once it’s burned. But when production—and the destruction of ecosystems in the developing countries where most biofuel crops are grown—is factored in, many biofuels may actually emit more carbon than does petroleum, the journal Science reported last year. Because oil palms don’t absorb as much CO2 as the rainforest or peatlands they replace, palm oil can generate as much as 10 times more carbon than petroleum, according to the advocacy group Food First. Thanks in large part to oil palm plantations, Indonesia is now the world’s third-largest emitter of CO2, trailing only the US and China…
I have just witnessed the palm companies’ modus operandi in miniature. Operatives will proposition community members to assemble a logging crew in return for a sum that is insignificant to the company and a fortune to a villager. Some people will say no—Julian refused $6,000. But the company will keep trying until someone says yes, and someone almost always does. This helps the plantations expand into the forests, but, even more important, it sows betrayal and division that undermine the opposition.
…According to Greenpeace (.pdf), the destruction and degradation of Indonesian peatlands releases 4 percent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
April 4, 2009 at 9:04 AM
The first sentence of this post says it all: scrambling. I don’t know whether the planet is getting warmer in a maaner that differs from normal cyclic change. I don’t know whether humans are causing warming by using fossil fuels. I do know that the people carrrying signs in protests, the actresses telling us how much toilet paper to use, and the elite driving Priuses haven’t got a clue. Even if the worst predictions are true, these idiots don’t know what to do about it.
The self-esteem generation has been raised on macro thinking instead of the more humble micro thinking that is needed to produce results. Until people learn to be comfortable with there position as a cog in he wheel of progress, we will continue to pursue the one big thing that will save the planet. The logistics person at UPS who figured out how to use computers to plan right-turn-only routes for delivery trucks has probably saved more fuel than all the curly light bulb advocates in the world. Yet, such people are not really admired in our society, nor are they fostered. Basic reading, math, and logic skills, coupled with enough history to allow one to learn from the mistakes and successes of the past are neglected, while 6 year olds are told their political thoughts are important.
And so you have European Greenies feeling superior for advocating bio-diesel at the expense of rain forests and denouncing biotech (as they once denounced computers) when GM algae may contribute a bit to the energy mix of the future. Meanwhile they are wasting our time and money scrambling to devise with grandiose Kyotos and build windmill farms. And we let them do it because we are afraid of not makingthe A lists in the elite world known as cloud cuckoo land.
April 17, 2009 at 10:36 AM
U fucking suck asswholes