Posted by
Catmman on Friday, September 28, 2007 4:58:54 PM
You never hear in the MSM the dangers biofuels pose to the environment.
They produce more greenhouse gasses than regular petroleum based fuels. And in order the harvest enough of the specific biomatter to make it, you must destroy much more acres of specific types of land to harvest the crops.
Mush more land than any oil pipeline has ever 'damaged' I might add.
If you don't believe me, how about lefty greeny and activist Jane Goodall?
From
Newsbusters:
On Wednesday, Goodall, best known for her chimpanzee research and media appearances, said “on the sidelines” of the Clinton Global Initiative that growing crops for vehicle fuels is endangering rain forests in Asia, Africa and South America and adding to anthropogenic global warming (bold mine throughout):
We're cutting down forests now to grow sugarcane and palm oil for biofuels and our forests are being hacked into by so many interests that it makes them more and more important to save now.
If only Reuters had acknowledged the other scientific findings that show biofuels produce more greenhouse gases than oil and gasoline, as NewsBusters has documented. But at least Reuters noted Goodall's narrow criticism about destroying rain forests.
Reuters explained the crux of the Goodall's displeasure:
The United Nations' climate program considers the fuels to be low in carbon because growing the crops takes in heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide.
But critics say demand for the fuels has led companies to cut down and burn forests in order to grow the crops, adding to heat-trapping emissions and leading to erosion and stress on ecosystems.
And some more inconvenient truths about these 'biofuels'
NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard pointed out that scientists such as Prof. Keith Smith of the University of Edinburgh found that “rapeseed and maize biodiesels were calculated to produce up to 70 percent and 50 percent more greenhouse gases respectively than fossil fuels.”
Not only that, but “biofuels released twice as much as nitrous oxide as previously realised” through the nitrogen in the fertilizer.
More damning, Dr. Dave Reay found that with those findings and “the US Senate aiming to increase maize ethanol production sevenfold by 2022, greenhouse gas emissions from transport will rise by 6 per cent.