THE drive for "green energy" in the developed world is having the perverse effect of encouraging the destruction of tropical rainforests. From the orang-utan reserves of Borneo to the Brazilian Amazon, virgin forest is being razed to grow palm oil and soybeans to fuel cars and power stations in Europe and North America. And surging prices are likely to accelerate the destruction
The rush to make energy from vegetable oils is being driven in part by European Union laws requiring conventional fuels to be blended with biofuels, and by subsidies equivalent to 20 pence a litre. Last week, the British government announced a target for biofuels to make up 5 per cent of transport fuels by 2010. The aim is to help meet Kyoto protocol targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
Rising demand for green energy has led to a surge in the international price of palm oil, with potentially damaging consequences. "The expansion of palm oil production is one of the leading causes of rainforest destruction in south-east Asia. It is one of the most environmentally damaging commodities on the planet," says Simon Counsell, director of the UK-based Rainforest Foundation. "Once again it appears we are trying to solve our environmental problems by dumping them in developing countries, where they have devastating effects on local people."
Huh?
One of the most environmentally damaging commodities on the planet???
As bad as oil? But biodiesel is supposed to be renewable! Green!
(They're bad! Among other things, they chop up endangered birds.)
Sheesh.
If everybody switched to electric cars, what if someone discovered that 70% of that electricity came from fossil fuel? And that 14% came from nuclear reactors (which use nonrenewable fuel) -- which means that 84% of our electricity is made from nonrenewable ("bad") fuel.
What if they said that electric cars were bad for the environment?
What then?
I think this calls for a little nostalgia:
posted by Eric on 11.22.05 at 01:48 PM
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Comments
Everything and anything you do, some environmentalist is going to pop up out of the woodwork and object to it on the grounds that it endangers the environment in one way or another. Just as their Politically Correct counterparts find racism, sexism, etc., everywhere.
The fact is that nature itself is environmentally-unfriendly. Earthquakes, tornados, floods, droughts, diseases, etc., kill off a lot of living things. A comet hit the Earth some millions of years ago and killed off all the dinosaurs. A few billion years from now, the Sun is going to swell up and burn up the Earth. We'd better be out of here by then. Whatever kind of fuel we use for our spaceships, it can't be as harmful to the Earth as the Sun burning it up.
Uh, the electricity used by the vast majority of electrically powered cars, including all hybrids, is generated by the vehicle through recapturing energy from braking etc. No need for nightly plug-in.
The rest of your point is well taken. Little we do in life fails to generate an unintended side effect.
Like, what will we do with the mounds of batteries from electric cars which will eventually be discarded? Do they not pose a toxic threat?
alas, moses · November 22, 2005 05:24 PM
Actually, I was talking about electric cars only. Hybrids, of course, generate their own electricity, but most of them do so by the use of fossil fuels. (I don't know the statistics on how much of the electricity is recaptured by braking.) Certainly this is more energy efficient, but then, today's cars are already hugely more energy efficient than the cars of the 1970s. My point is that there's no pleasing activists. They will always scold and scream for more.
They're more efficient, but the savings in fuel cost has to be compared to the cost and overall life of the car. (Something which would be irrelevant to an environmentalist.)
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Everything and anything you do, some environmentalist is going to pop up out of the woodwork and object to it on the grounds that it endangers the environment in one way or another. Just as their Politically Correct counterparts find racism, sexism, etc., everywhere.
The fact is that nature itself is environmentally-unfriendly. Earthquakes, tornados, floods, droughts, diseases, etc., kill off a lot of living things. A comet hit the Earth some millions of years ago and killed off all the dinosaurs. A few billion years from now, the Sun is going to swell up and burn up the Earth. We'd better be out of here by then. Whatever kind of fuel we use for our spaceships, it can't be as harmful to the Earth as the Sun burning it up.