Biofuels or environment? It’s politics stupid!
Biofuels… A controversial subject… One which you will find most environmental activists surprisingly quiet on, one which economists tend to throw their hands in horror at, and one which farmer and politicians love!
If there was ever any question as to whether it was politics or genuine motivation to do something about the environment, Canada probably settled that question this weekend. It’s politics.
At a time when the world is recoiling in horror at sudden dramatic rises in food, Canada decides to join the bandwagon and announce that it to must provide 5% of its fuel from biofuels by 2010. A nice little green coo for Prime Minister Steven Harper no doubt, in an effort to try and boost his enviro-credentials as he swans around Europe telling the UN Canada is doing its bit for the environment as he tries to drum up support for his ideas for the upcoming G8 meeting in the summer.
Mel Hurtig, author of the statistically overladen and dry tome, ‘The truth about Canada: Some Important, Some Astonishing, And Some Truly Appalling Things All Canadians Should Know About” must be chortling next to his fire place has he read that. He argues that Canada has been collapsing in status as a Developed nation over the last 20 years due to successive weak governments. This is just another example of a weak government in action.
Of course, the Harper Government has succumbed not to pressure from Canadians or environmentalists all over the world to embrace biofuels, they have responded instead to a lobby group, The Canadian Renewable Fuel Association. And amazingly, this comes at a time when…
- The EU is diluting its commitment to biofuels from “have 10 per cent of all road transportation fuelled with biofuel sources by 2020″ to “the target has never been to reach 10-per-cent biofuels at any price, but 10-per-cent biofuels under strict conditions.”
- Soaring food prices in the developing world, particularly for biofuels grown from food products (as mandated in the US and Canada), mean many more people are going without food now as farmers make more money growing food to feed the cars of the developed world… Can you think of anything more likely to cause resentment amongst the vast majority of the world’s population? To know that one family member had to sacrifice 1 years supply of food to fill up a car for 1 tank?! It’s a powder keg!
- Numerous economists, biologists and other scientists are saying to meet the 5-10% demands requires more land than any of these individual countries can devote to growing crops – which means more land not currently devoted to agriculture will be destroyed, be it in developed countries or developing countries.
- (Finally) It is coming to light that it could be said we have passed ‘peak soil‘ and now need to prop up agriculture with fertilisers – which is leading to coastal ‘dead zones‘ as this stuff flows into the oceans, causing season and permanent algae blooms. We guess Canada doesn’t care – it has so many lakes for the contaminated water to flow into, and those lakes will eventually be drained and turned into diamond mines right?! (we are saying that tongue in cheek!). To bad for the migrating birds landing on lakes covered in algal bloom…
- Even US scientists are postulating a grim outlook for their own coastal ‘dead zones’ if current criteria for corn-based ethanol are to be met
- Pristine land with diverse ecosystems is being sacrificed at an ever faster rate in the developing world to grow crops for fuel. The loosers? The local people, the local animals, the local plants. And usually within a decade, the soil has lost all its nutrients and is now being fertilised artificially…
The American’s are of course remaining pretty silent, and the Canadians while conceding the EU and US mandates maybe impacting upon the food prices globally, they claim their move won’t impact on world grain prices because their biofuels only represent 5% of Canada’s agriculture output…. Well, that means Canada is now producing 5% less food for other places! And since no other country can meet its own 5% mandates without greatly expanding the amount of land devoted to agriculture, we wonder if the Canadian government has done the maths correctly….
And they still made this decision, 7 months after a UN expert called biofuels and their ‘fuel for food’ mentality a ‘crime against humanity…‘ At that time, the US and Brazil and other biofuel advocates pointing instead to rising energy costs, higher meat demand in rapidly growing Asian economies and speculation.
Gosh, this is beginning to sound like the global warming debtate! Everyone saying “I’m right and you are wrong” and meanwhile, the one thing we should all be thinking about and pulling together to protect and create a sustainable working relationship with, ie: the environment, gets gradually eroded away under the guises of a burgeoning, hungry population, corporate greed and political machinations.
Could biofuels work?
Here at The Dappled Planet, we’ll venture to say maybe biofuels can work – but they can’t work in today’s world!
As all future efficient cars coming out in the next few years still seem to run on some form of water-oil mix, instead of aiming for a limp 35-45mpg efficiency, if they were to be 20 times more efficient, say 600mpg instead – then the 5% biofuels might meet the demand for fuel – and ease security fears on relying on countries with less than stable governments for oil…
Alternatively, and very controversially, we could instead talk of managing and reducing the world’s population more effectively which would have nothing but good effects on the environment, global warming or not! As most governments seem to think at best, biofuels will only be 5-10% of the world’s demand for fuel then maybe we should be working towards a population of 5-10% of today’s number ie 300-600 million, not 6.2 billion.
But just as the world’s population crept up from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6 billion in 2000, it will take well over a century at least level it off. Population growth is currently slowing – forecasts now are of the population peaking in 2050 at 8 or 9 billion, but then a sort of steady state is assumed for the rest of the 21st century, not a reduction in population numbers.
Do you think biofuels are a good or bad thing and under what circumstances do you see them actually being a viable solution?
