Richard Branson's use of biofuels to run his jets is a disaster for the environment and for anyone who eats (everyone).

The world is running out of wheat because too many farmers have switched to growing corn for ethanol production. United States Department of Agriculture statistics show that US wheat supplies fell in February, 2008, to lower levels than at any time since 1958, when America only had 175 million people to feed. The "LONDON TIMES" claims that the world has only a 10 week supply of wheat left.

The highly respected journal SCIENCE recently published the "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change," which states that the production of biofuels from grains or switchgrass greatly increases the release of greenhouse gases and is far worse for the environment than using ordinary gasoline.

SEE http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861

SEE confirming second study from Europe, "Biofuels: an unfolding disaster" (pdf 514kb) at: http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/ECOS-6-5.pdf

Biofuel production is causing food price hyperinflation by shrinking the human food supply. According to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, global food prices rose 40% in 2007 alone, and thus United Nations food official Jean Ziegler called biofuels a "crime against humanity." Food prices in America rose .7% in January, 2008, and will continue their upward spiral. Poor people in Haiti are now resorting to eating mud because American biofuel mandates have made grains unaffordable. As we heartlessly starve the world's poor, pressure for illegal immigration to the USA continues to rise. Growing switchgrass to make biofuels will not stop this trend, as land, water, fertilizer, farm equipment, and labor will still be diverted from food production with soaring food prices the result. When Americans foolishly turn their food into fuel, we raise food prices globally which gives other countries a financial incentive to burn down rainforests in order to grow more food. Biofuel production aggravates water shortages, and it takes 9,000 gallons of water to create just 1 gallon of biodiesel.

Global biofuel production will dangerously heat up earth's atmosphere because farming contributes more to global warming each year than all land, sea, and air transportation combined. This destruction makes no sense strategically because by 2015 it is estimated that oil from American shale will cost only $30 a barrel to manufacture, and there is more oil potential in Colorado shale than in the entire Middle East before drilling began in 1908. It is also obviously better to drill in ANWR for energy than in our own food!

The "energy independence" argument for biofuels is a hoax because American biodiesel made out of soybeans costs the equivalent of making regular diesel out of oil at $232 a barrel. Making ethanol from corn costs the equivalent of oil at $81 a barrel and uses 28% more fossil fuels than gasoline. Only massive government subsides makes biofuels affordable at the pump.

You Said;
The highly respected journal SCIENCE recently published the "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change," which states that the production of biofuels from grains or switchgrass greatly increases the release of greenhouse gases and is far worse for the environment than using ordinary gasoline.

This isn't the point, as the very plants which we get the oil from in the first place, first take in the carbon we release, so its effectively a closed system. Burning "Gasoline" adds to the closed system, as this is carbon which has been trapped underground for millions of years, and is now being released into the atmosphere, adding to the system. All burning plant oils does is release the carbon which was taken in while the plant was growing, ergo, making it effectively carbon neutral, as a new plant will be grown which will take up the Carbon Dioxide released by the combustion of the first plant oil.....

Regarding Fred Pearce's comments about fascism and repression of the poor people in the third world, I can only agree. I see the green movement as being particularly a movement of rich people with all the benefits of their heritage who are starting policies that will inevitably affect and repress the poor third world.

There are a couple of possible explanations.

One is neo colonialism where the rich western countries are repressing third world countries for their own benefit. This is probably unconscious, but the basic story is 'we have done our share of despoliation and industrial development but you third worlders had better stop doing exactly the same thing because it may affect our way of life'

If you become a tad altruistic, the story is 'we are all in this together, so we will save the planet together' Evolving from this, industrial nations can cut new development relatively painlessly - they are close to net zero or negative growth already. Developing countries can do so as well but the net effect is developing countries stagnate.

What is not an option I have ever seen is the self-sacrifice option where rich western countries give up their assets, their way of life, and their control to benefit developing third world nations. Will it happen? I think not.

Fred: I have generally picked apart things you have said in the past, but this time, you are spot on. It's all lies. Every bit of it. Capitalism can't save the planet because the underlying philosophy of 'capital'-ism is the worship of money as value, rather than respect for the resources and people which create value. Value comes from providing a reasonable amount of people with their basic needs and just a little more so that they can create more usefulness than they consume in resources. As much as science makes a big fuss about how it has advanced humanity, the truth is that science is just another marketing gimmick to get money out of someone so you don't have to actually provide for your own needs. We don't need 90% of the things we have, and until we reduce, then recycling and renewable won't mean a thing. We need to live as though it's the only planet we've got. So far, there is only a handful of people who live that way, and every 'solution' to the problem requires the resources of 6 planets. Time to shut the power plants off, park the cars, shut down the stock market, the banks, and the patent offices, and go home and plant gardens.

Fairtrade might not improve life for your average coffee farmer, but there are other spinoffs of truely going green that will benifit them in a very real way. Especially green energy. A proliferation of highly efficient cheap solar panels as we are going to witness in the next decade will allow farmers in remote areas (especially in sunny climates of course) to upgrade their lives through better technology. And so will vehicles with improved fuel efficiency. Electric vehicles will benefit them if used along with better solar and battery tech.

It's one thing for a rich consumer to try to give charity to a poor farmer throught the fairtrade system. It is a whole different story if you can provide these people with the means to gradually empower themselves.

The old adage holds: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Give him a fishing rod and you feed him for the rest of his life.

Of course if we get to a point where these poor farmers are well enough off we will see them getting organized and then prices will rise naturally - Trade will truly become fair. Prices will be controlled by supply and demand and not the desperate need to earn anything just to survive.

I think Fred got it right. Especially the fact that these things should be called what they are; "Carbon Capitalism" and "Green/Global Fascism"! In the end they are both a lie just designed to make us feel better about ourselves so we can go on doing what we´ve been doing without changing our lifestyles in the smallest way. At the same time the ingeniouse jerks who invented carbon credits are profiting off of the whole thing - enabled by our stupidity and resistance to change.
I consider it the same problem as feeding the starving in the 3rd world. Contributing to charity organizations is secondary to the feeling it gives us (like the people standing in line in Fred´s article) regardless if the money actually gets to the intended group or not. (Unicef just lost its seal of approval!)
The only real solution is for us to be in harmony with the earth (let´s play devil´s advocate); that means we must revert back to hunter gatherer societies and control our population strictly to what our land naturally yields(emphasize on naturally!).
Everything else is a B.S. Placebo sold to us by the same people who control the situation(I'm not just talking about the oil industry but also the government and paid puppets like Al Gore the Carbon Credit Czar).
We had propane , alcohol and hybrid powered cars since the 70's! Dr.Porsche even had a hybrid diesel electric tank in the 40's.
So what´s the problem?

California had an electric car programme in the early 90s, which I had never heard about... one of the first cars to go over 100 mph was an electric car... hydroelectricity was around in the 1890s (the island of Rum in Scotland was and is powered by it).

We have the ability to change our ways, we just don't. Why? Because it is easier to overexploit assets, whether humans or oil, then to use them properly.

America and Australia have vast open, unused area- why not solar panels and windfarms?

Change our attitudes and ways is the only way. Offsetting is a con.
So is impotent ranting.

Peace

I have posted a comment on NS Blog article"The land that never melts" concerning using pyrolysis of organic wastes to get some energy while removing those wastes from biodegrading to reemit GHGs by getting back coal to rebury, and to destroy germs and toxics in the wastes that are polluting water supplies in many underdeveloped countries.
I would urge any reader to check that and start calling for development of the pyrolysis program that I have outlined, We have to realize that organic wastes are a biofuel crop out of control that does not usurp land and water from food production.. I have been crusading on this on several other environmental blogs as well, but the idea of real action that can create millions of jobs and help control water pollution as well as global warming seems to fall on deaf ears. Actually in underdeveloped countries water pollution from haphazard organic waste disposal and sewage systems may soon cause bigger problems than those from global warming for the people of those countries.
Setting up windmills for electric generation is also a major need as they emit no GHGs and are actually recycling some of excess of energy released by our past fossil fuelishness. The energy companies are getting into windmills, but are conning us with fermenting biocrops for fuel. Perhaps they fear that getting into pyrolyzing organic wastes will put the supplying of energy into the hands of municipal governments cutting them from their megabuck profiteering.
It is time to stop bemoaning how big energy is doing bad and start calling for action on pyrolysis of organic wastes for many benefits. A further point to bring up here is the need for big tree farming operations to provide windbreaks for reducing soil erosion, and they would be harvested in a regular manner to feed into pyrolysis process to help reduce more quickly some of our carbon footprint, which bioethanol definitely does not do. Dr. J. Singmaster, Fremont, CA USA

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