Biofuels: Starving The Planet, One Country At A Time
Biofuels have been touted as “the next big thing” in the Global War on Warming, receiving grand endorsements from people like Al Gore, Steve Jobs, Bono, and George W. Bush. But there’s a heavy price to pay for this organic fuel, and most people don’t realize its danger.
The Carbon Cost
Despite the media’s messages of “Problem Solved”, biofuels would make our pollution problems worse. In addition to the carbon we’ve come to expect, we would be emitting gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and chlorofluorocarbons (also known as CFCs). This is, of course, in addition to the various elements we’ve come to expect like sulfur and carbon.
To say that biofuels are the way of the future is no different than promoting 12-cylinder gasoline-fueled SUV’s with just enough seating capacity for a 200 kg (430 lb.) driver. Not only will we see an appreciable difference in smog, but we’ll be raising the cost of food and starving millions of people.
Just how much food are we talking about here? Well, if we were to give someone the same amount of corn or grain that’s used to fill one SUV with biofuel, they could comfortably eat for about a year.
What about switch grass? Just because we don’t eat it doesn’t mean it’s any better.
Bye-bye Amazon
The lush Amazon rain forests were, at one time, the most important ecological resources we needed to save. However, as the 1990’s faded, as has our sense of urgency towards this complex region of biodiversity. It’s been overshadowed lately by global climate change, but the Amazon rain forest happens to be an incomparable storehouse of carbon. The very same carbon that heats up the planet when it’s released into the atmosphere. Brazil now ranks fourth in the world in carbon emissions, and most of these emissions come from deforestation.
No amount of corn, switch grass, wheat or barley can ever capture or absorb the carbon we’re releasing. No crop can create as much breathable oxygen. If that’s not bad enough, any amount of carbon that’s absorbed by these gases will just be re-released into the atmosphere during the conversion to fuel, or as exhaust when we drive.
Good thinking, people. Let’s just commit ourselves to an endless feedback loop of carbon collection and emission.
It only makes sense that if we stop growing food on our land to grow fuel, We have to find somewhere else to grow the food or someone goes without. How much food does an SUV burn in one trip? It seems like robbing peter to pay paul.
Biofuel is the biggest fraud perpetrated by the farm lobby. It is the worst solution ever thought of to combat warming.
Yeah, let’s try and reduce greenhouse gasses to save the future by starving people of food today.