Wednesday, December 16, 2009
false prophets
the United Nations Environment Programme recently issued a press release about a report by UNEP's International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management called Assessing Biofuels. the report largely concerns the climate impacts of various biofuels but also covers impacts on water quality and quantity and biodiversity.
I haven't finished reading the full report just yet (the press release is rather more concise than the whole report, but if that's still too long for you, this article gives a shorter summary), but I believe it boils down to this: biofuels aren't so great as folks seem to think.
clearing and draining tropical peat forests to plant oil palms (Elaeis oleifera and E. guineensis) is the worst practice the report mentions, saying it creates 2000% more greenhouse gases than using fossil energy would. clearing any land for fuel crops is obviously a pretty stupid idea (this is being done, by the way, and at an alarming rate, in Indonesia, Brazil, and elsewhere). the other option for growing fuel crops is to use existing farmland, thereby displacing food crops. also probably not a good idea, given our planet's rapidly increasing human population and that population's rapidly increasing appetite for land-intensive animal foods.
the report points out a number of other problems resulting from production of biofuels that have not been evaluated as extensively as greenhouse gas emissions. these include acidification and eutrophication of water, toxicity potential, smog creation, ozone depletion, abiotic resource depletion, and impacts on biodiversity. many of these are linked to agricultural practices used to grow fuel crops.
agricultural and industrial wastes and residues are also examined as possible feedstocks for biofuel operations. these options fare better from a greenhouse gas perspective, but they are also not without negative consequences.
the picture I get from this report isn't so much about biofuels, though, as it is about folks. affluent folks the world over are slowly becoming aware that their consumption has many extremely negative consequences. instead of changing their way of life in any substantive way, however, these folks are seeking technological fixes. this is unfortunate. switching the fuel used to power always-accelerating and rampantly destructive economies will not solve our problems. it will exacerbate existing problems and create new problems. dirt, along with the life it supports, will suffer.
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