Global warming has been gaining much focus of late, and many have been suggesting solutions to reduce the threat of global warming. Ask anyone the main cause for global warming, and you'll find fingers are pointing at fossil fuel usage. It is difficult not to blame fossil fuel for being the main cause of global warming and let us not forget we too contribute to global warming (i.e. car fuel comes from fossil fuel, cooking gas, diesel generators that produce household generators).
With the growing number of fingers pointing at fossil fuel, many have proposed the use of biofuels. Naturally, the parties suggesting it are mainly developed countries. After all, they are the ones with the knowledge and technology to develop biofuels. However, the idea of biofuels has fueled much disagreement and controversy.
Here are quotes from authoritative voices in the environmental arena:
"The stage is now set for direct competition for grain between the 800 million people who own automobiles, and the world's two billion poorest people." -–Lester Brown (more on Lester Brown HERE)
"The only goal [of biofuels] is to maintain current patterns of consumption in the First World and high rates of profit for multinational corporations." —MST (the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement)
The current hype in the biofuel industry is based on using agricultural produce to generate fuel to replace the use of fossil fuel. This has led to many big corporations to sink billions into ethanol and biodiesel plants, huge plantations of soy, corn, sugarcane, oil palm or other sources of agrofuels, as well as genetically engineered (GE) trees and microbes for future supplies of cellulosic ethanol.
On the surface, biofuel may look like the way to go to replacing fossil fuel but if we were to take an utilitarian approach to assessing biofuel, it may not necessarily be the way forward. I did further reading and I can come up with a few reasons why we should all re-look the idea of biofuel.
1) Biofuels are creating competition between food for people and fuel for cars, leading to skyrocketing grain prices and increasing numbers of people who cannot afford to eat. As one example, the amount of grain needed to create enough ethanol to fill the tank of a single SUV could feed one person for an entire year. There simply isn't enough grain to feed all of the people and all of the cars.
2) The increasing demand for land for biofuel plantations is causing deforestation and destruction of some of the last and largest primeval forests, which are being logged and burned to clear land for these biofuel plantations. In Indonesia, millions of acres of primordial rainforest are at stake. The government plans to clear vast tracts of this forest for oil palm plantations for biodiesel for export to Europe, threatening the existence of wildlife including orangutans, rhinoceros and tigers.
3) The logging and burning of forests for biofuel plantations releases huge quantities of greenhouse gases which are unlikely to be offset by the biofuels created from the crops grown on these former forest lands. The burning of the forests of Indonesia each year (largely for oil palm plantations) makes it the world's third largest producer of global carbon emissions, even though most of the population lives in poverty.
4) Indigenous peoples who depend on forests for food, medicine, shelter, livelihoods or culture are being forcibly displaced from their lands to make room for biofuel plantations.
6) The biotechnology industry is using rising demand for biofuel as a new way to sell their highly unpopular, unpredictable and problematic genetic engineering technology. Monsanto's stocks are soaring as demand increased for their genetically engineered corn and soy for biofuels. ArborGen is genetically engineering trees for release in the Southeast US and Brazil that have specifically been modified to produce cellulosic ethanol.
7) The rich get richer because biofuel. With the introduction of GE trees, there is bound to be the patenting of tree genes and tree cells. Big conglomerates then use the patents to earn exorbitantly high patent fees to plant GE trees.
8) There is virtually no study on the side effects of releasing GE trees into the environment. Just like how releasing certain species of fish into a pond can destroy the entire pond's ecosystem, GE trees may well carry such risks hence bringing forth more destruction than benefits. We have to take note that genetic contamination is irrevocable and its costs far from measurable.
Biofuels the way to fueling our daily lives? Think again.............
With the growing number of fingers pointing at fossil fuel, many have proposed the use of biofuels. Naturally, the parties suggesting it are mainly developed countries. After all, they are the ones with the knowledge and technology to develop biofuels. However, the idea of biofuels has fueled much disagreement and controversy.
Here are quotes from authoritative voices in the environmental arena:
"The stage is now set for direct competition for grain between the 800 million people who own automobiles, and the world's two billion poorest people." -–Lester Brown (more on Lester Brown HERE)
"The only goal [of biofuels] is to maintain current patterns of consumption in the First World and high rates of profit for multinational corporations." —MST (the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement)
The current hype in the biofuel industry is based on using agricultural produce to generate fuel to replace the use of fossil fuel. This has led to many big corporations to sink billions into ethanol and biodiesel plants, huge plantations of soy, corn, sugarcane, oil palm or other sources of agrofuels, as well as genetically engineered (GE) trees and microbes for future supplies of cellulosic ethanol.
On the surface, biofuel may look like the way to go to replacing fossil fuel but if we were to take an utilitarian approach to assessing biofuel, it may not necessarily be the way forward. I did further reading and I can come up with a few reasons why we should all re-look the idea of biofuel.
1) Biofuels are creating competition between food for people and fuel for cars, leading to skyrocketing grain prices and increasing numbers of people who cannot afford to eat. As one example, the amount of grain needed to create enough ethanol to fill the tank of a single SUV could feed one person for an entire year. There simply isn't enough grain to feed all of the people and all of the cars.
2) The increasing demand for land for biofuel plantations is causing deforestation and destruction of some of the last and largest primeval forests, which are being logged and burned to clear land for these biofuel plantations. In Indonesia, millions of acres of primordial rainforest are at stake. The government plans to clear vast tracts of this forest for oil palm plantations for biodiesel for export to Europe, threatening the existence of wildlife including orangutans, rhinoceros and tigers.
3) The logging and burning of forests for biofuel plantations releases huge quantities of greenhouse gases which are unlikely to be offset by the biofuels created from the crops grown on these former forest lands. The burning of the forests of Indonesia each year (largely for oil palm plantations) makes it the world's third largest producer of global carbon emissions, even though most of the population lives in poverty.
4) Indigenous peoples who depend on forests for food, medicine, shelter, livelihoods or culture are being forcibly displaced from their lands to make room for biofuel plantations.
6) The biotechnology industry is using rising demand for biofuel as a new way to sell their highly unpopular, unpredictable and problematic genetic engineering technology. Monsanto's stocks are soaring as demand increased for their genetically engineered corn and soy for biofuels. ArborGen is genetically engineering trees for release in the Southeast US and Brazil that have specifically been modified to produce cellulosic ethanol.
7) The rich get richer because biofuel. With the introduction of GE trees, there is bound to be the patenting of tree genes and tree cells. Big conglomerates then use the patents to earn exorbitantly high patent fees to plant GE trees.
8) There is virtually no study on the side effects of releasing GE trees into the environment. Just like how releasing certain species of fish into a pond can destroy the entire pond's ecosystem, GE trees may well carry such risks hence bringing forth more destruction than benefits. We have to take note that genetic contamination is irrevocable and its costs far from measurable.
Biofuels the way to fueling our daily lives? Think again.............
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