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TechnoratiFeed People, Not Cars: We Need a Moratorium on Agrofuels
With biofuels being touted as our best great hope to undo climate change, it would be easy to ask yourself, "What's not to like?" Biofuels, proponents claim, will counter our global dependence on fossil fuels and help curb carbon emissions. But this "greening" of our energy sources is not all that green. A growing group of human rights and environmental activists point to the dangers that biofuels pose to environmental sustainability and the livelihoods of communities around the world, and call for a major shift: a moratorium on biofuels.
Most of the policies being put forward envision substituting biofuels for fossil fuels without reducing our overall consumption of energy. These proposals are backed by agribusiness, biotech companies, and oil interests that are now investing billions in ethanol and biodiesel plants, plantations of soy, corn, sugarcane, and palm oil, as well as genetically engineered trees and microbes for future supplies of cellulosic ethanol.
The prefix "bio" suggests that "biofuels" are natural, renewable, and safe-an appealing thought to those concerned with the toxic and unsustainable use of fossil fuels. But agrofuels (as they are known in Latin America) are not easily renewable because the Earth's landmass is itself a finite resource. To produce even seven percent of the energy that the US currently gets from petroleum would require converting the country's entire corn crop to ethanol.
If we don't reduce the demand for energy by consuming less, we risk a scenario in which most of the Earth's arable land will be dedicated to growing "fuel crops" instead of food crops. People concerned about this danger use the term agrofuels to highlight the impact that biofuels have on the world's food supply. Growing agrofuels on a mass scale is already jacking up food prices, depleting soil and water supplies, destroying forests, and violating the rights of Indigenous and local people in areas newly designated as "biofuel plantations." Agrofuels are a false solution to climate change because they:
Violate Land Rights: Agrofuel plantations in Brazil and Southeast Asia are being created on the territories of Indigenous Peoples who have traditionally lived in and protected these ecosystems. Indigenous Peoples and local subsistence farmers-most of whom are women-are being displaced. People are being forced to give up their land, way of life, and food self-sufficiency to grow fuel crops for export. Often, plantation workers face abuse, harsh working conditions, and exposure to toxic pesticides. In Brazil, some soy farms rely on debt peonage workers-essentially modern-day slaves.
Worsen Hunger: Agrofuel expansion threatens to divert the world's grain supply from food to fuel. We know that when economic demand increases, costs rise. That means staple foods like corn will become more expensive. Already in June 2007, the United Nations reported that, "soaring demand for biofuels is contributing to a rise in global food import costs." The principle of supply and demand also means that less people will grow food because "fuel crops" will be worth more. Already, small-scale farmers in Colombia, Rwanda, and Guatemala feel compelled by global trade rules to grow luxury crops such as flowers and coffee for export while their families go hungry. Given the amount of land that would be required to "grow" enough fuel to maintain the global economy, the threat of worsening hunger and land rights abuses is grave. According to the Rainforest Action Network, the crops required to make enough biofuel to fill a 25-gallon SUV tank could feed one person for a year.
Worsen Global Warming: Agrofuels don't necessarily reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming-especially if they are produced in unsustainable ways. For example, currently, the most common method of turning palm oil into fuel produces more carbon dioxide emissions than refining petroleum. Agrofuel production has made Indonesia (where 40 percent of the population does not have electricity) the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.
Worsen Deforestation and Threaten Biodiversity: Corporate plans for expanding biofuel production involve destroying forests and other ecosystems to create massive plantations that rely on chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides to maximize production. Monoculture (single crop) plantations of soy and palm oil are being established in the rain forests and grasslands of Asia and South America, threatening some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. Clear-cutting forests to plant agrofuels also adds to warming by eliminating carbon-absorbing forests.
Why is Energy a Women's Issue? In most of the Global South, women are responsible for collecting household fuel for cooking, lighting, and other family needs. Most of this energy is derived from natural resources such as wood, charcoal, or dung. When fuel is made scarce-for example, by deforestation or drought-women's and girls' workloads increase sharply. In some communities, women spend many hours a day collecting fuel.
So What's the Alternative? Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food has called for a five-year ban on agrofuel expansion. A moratorium on the conversion of land for agrofuel production should be accompanied by the development of new energy technologies that do not compromise global food security.
We need sustainable solutions to climate change, not corporate solutions that seek to simply shift our energy addiction from one resource to another. We need to consume less, not just differently, and steer clear of solutions that would expand the reach-and all the pitfalls-of industrialized agriculture. Creative and practical solutions for meeting our energy requirements-including some local, sustainable biofuel programs-are being developed around the world. We can support proposals for developing sustainable renewable energy sources, while recognizing the need to reduce overall consumption and protect human rights-including everyone's basic right to food.
Yifat Susskind is MADRE's Communications Director. MADRE is an international women's human rights organization. More information about MADRE's Food for Life Campaign can be found here: http://madre.org/programs/inter/foodforlife.html.
30 Comments so far
Show AllOne thing is for certain, even if a process offers only a partial solution or does not seem practical to implement in the current environment the science that describes it should continue to be investigated. A society can never know too much.
One thing that has not been discussed here so far is the role that algae based biofuel systems may play. algae can be used to create fuel at a rate slightly higher than swithgrass and similar terrestrial plants. the most common argument against the use of algae is its requirements for water- however i would argue that this water can come from what is currently considered a waste stream- that is stormwater runoff. currently, runoff is collected and treated all over the country in order to increase infiltration rates, remove pollutants-primarily nutrient based including nitrogen and phosphorus, and to reduce velocities of the runoff. however, there is new technology available to us now that would accept the stormwater runoff, direct it to a collecting basin and seed it with acceptable forms of algae. this algae is then collected on a regular basis, taken to a local refinery, and then utilized as a biofuel. all of this is done with minimal impact on the quantities of water available. so if you think about it, we are able to remove the nutrients (which if left untreated are what contributes to algae blooms) change them into a useable product, creates local jobs (for the refineries and collection systems), and manages to decrease our reliance on fossil fuels without increasing our cropland stresses or the food supply chain. this is system based thinking and we need to encourage that.
but- this is not an end all be all solution as with everything. we need diversity of energy stocks in order to assure stability.
my 2 cents...
hazmat,
Schilling not for Big Ag or Big Oil, but Big Hemp (just kidding).
Don't knock hydrogen, it's the most abundant element in the universe and it powers the sun. Carbon is basically useless here, the prime ingredient of pollution. The goal is to reduce the carbon relative to hydrogen.
Revolution means changing everything until it works optimally.
The answer is not going to be a replacement, I think we all here realize that. It's going to take a lot of changes in our systems, lifestyles, and society and a lot of innovation and improvement. But that can only take us so far into the future before we run into the same problems.
The solutions start and end with community-based sustainability. Then we won't need cars to zip from into town, we'll be able to bike to the local market. We won't need all the trucks to ship so many of our produce thousands of miles.
And I'm hoping for the day when I can make my living from being the local clothing maker/tailer/cobbler/etc instead of shipping my clothing designs all over the country and world.
Whether you use hemp or hydrogen you are still only using an interim power source and such pet projects are not forward thinking. With hemp there is the same problem with using corn, and that is the utilization of farmland that would be better served growing food for people. Better to grow less hemp and smoke it and you'll get some nicer ideas. With hydrogen you're still using a fuel source that needs to be extracted and if every vehicle on the road was always dripping water then the cuffs of your pants would always be getting wet whenever you crossed the road.
Solar is the way to go. The sun never stops and it comes to you. And, besides, the fleet on the roads today needs to be completely changed out anyway. The vehicles that the big automobile companies make are deathtraps and they are purposely made that way so that even a moderate crash will require that a new car will have to be purchased. It wasn't so long ago when a 3 to 5 mile an hour bump of your fender into a post would mean that you would get out of your car to see if it was scratched, but now such a bump on any of the modern vehicles means at least $1000 in damage and sometimes several thousand. A crash on the highway at the speed limit means total destruction of the vehicle and the death of the occupants.
It's not as if the car makers don't know what will make cars safe so that they will retain structural integrity. Seeing the race cars flip, roll, crash into each other or smash into a wall proves that. Every passenger compartment of every vehicle on the road should have a full roll cage instead of those worthless air-bags that don't do any good if the car is squashed flat or bent like a Chinese fortune cookie. And, since the car companies all make their cars faster and weaker so that they will have high turnover and a continuous profit stream, the people who own those companies should have their worthless asses thrown in jail for life in order to pay for the tens of thousands of needless and preventable deaths on our roads every year.
re Paul Bramscher 10:42 am
"..more expensive?" i said no such thing. i refer to "loss," as in "unintended escape from tank or pipe." check out a helium (twice the mass of hydrogen) balloon the morning after.
the basic equation is calories in vs. calories out (one big reason nuclear is a shell game). yes, solar energy can be used in theory to crack water, but where are the existing plants?
and where in my post do you see me shilling for Big Anything?
hazmat: Your sources?
In any case, you cannot scope the problem that way. Energy has a TCO effect effect about it. Electrolysis can be done slowly and in parallel, in advance and for "free" with solar power. It can be stored in cells. As for it being more expensive due to the small size of the molecule, what are you smoking? Oh I see...
Also, there are other ways to obtain hydrogen.
Science, engineering and invention are about pushing frontiers, solving problems and finding economy of scale -- not about the status quo. So I guess one needs to think a little more like a scientist and less like a schill for Big Ag or Big Oil if we want to advance the hydrogen economy.
re Lobo Gris 5:18 am
"5. Hydrogen can be easily extracted from sea water.."
this process is called electrolysis and it requires more heat energy than the fuel it produces---obviously not a viable solution, even in the short term. also, losses in storage and transportation will much be greater than with any other fuel, due to hydrogen's being the smallest molecule.
we should instead focus on hemp as a feedstock for diesel fuel, which will have the added benfit of reducing concentration/consolidation of suppliers.
Today's answer is efficiency. 80 mpg is 100% feasible. Today, right now.
Tomorrow's answer is new fuel technologies not tied to food or land use. Let's roll our sleeves up.
Hydrogen is the real answer.
1. It is a zero pollution fuel. The only byproduct of burning hydrogen is water.
2. It has more heat energy than gasoline. Miles driven per fuel used would be about 30% higher with hydrogen than gasoline.
3. Every vehicle on the road RIGHT NOW could be converted to run on it and could still run on gasoline also during the transition period. There would be no need for anyone to have to buy a new vehicle to take advantage of using it. No other proposed solution can say that.
4. In addition every home that uses natural gas for heating, water heating, and cooking, can also be converted to use hydrogen.
5. Hydrogen can be easily extracted from sea water, and with oceans covering 70% of the planet it is the most abundant supply of energy we have.
Lobo Gris
Really? Obviously, if a vehicle can legally travel faster than the posted and legally set speed limit then the company that produces the vehicle is an assessory to any crime committed by such a perpetrator in such a vehicle travelling faster than a regulated limit. The fact that vehicles can travel much faster than regulated speed limits is certainly nothing new, as I've driven many, two wheels and four, which can blow away the posted speed limits as if they do not exist. With such real world experience I know exactly what I'm talking about. If a vehicle can travel even ten kilometers over the maximum posted speed limit then it should not be allowed on the road. Having vehicles on the road which can excessively exceed the speed limit is abetting and encouraging the drivers to exceed posted speed limits. As for the actuality of vehicle speedometers, the numbers are easy to find on any manufacturers website and you will find that they all greatly exceed the permitted speed limits on north american roads.
jmacniel:
"For instance, there is hardly any human transport vehicle manufactured today by the automotive industries which cannot exceed the permitted speed limit by 300%."
Excuse me what??? The highway speed limit in the United States is 70 mph. 300% of 70 mph is 210 mph. Even if your point is relevant, which I'm finding hard to see, it's just plain wrong. Rare indeed is the mass produced automobile that can do 210 mph. Many can't do half that. But maybe I'm just "believing in a fantasy", hmm?
We need a moratorium on PETROLEUM. It is technologically obsolete and polluting our planet.
I have a 1994 Mercury Tracer that gets 32city/40hwy. A new Saturn, I saw recently, gets 19city/25hwy. The technology to get good gas milage exists, NOW, and MPG will increase from year to year to sell more cars. Even though it is possible now for most cars to get 50-60+mpg. Guess who controls that.
There is another angle. Societies which are developed have sustainable, or even negative, population growths so that the pressure on resources is less. Also, regulations must govern the type of vehicles which are produced. For instance, there is hardly any human transport vehicle manufactured today by the automotive industries which cannot exceed the permitted speed limit by 300%. If anyone thinks that there is any other continuous future source of fuel for transportation other than solar, then they are believing in a fantasy.
Ethanol is dirty, perhaps worse than drilling for oil.
You need to commit to a monoculture agriculture, put more strain on topsoil, subsidize large-scale growers, probably lean on genetically modified produce and that whole industry (Monsanto must adore the thought of E-85), you need fertilizers/pesticides/herbicides, you'll need to harvest, transport, and -- of course -- refine it. As energy needs (and population) go up, you'll need to set aside increasingly more acreage -- while at the same time you'll need more for growing.
We're so busy here in the midwest building strip-malls on fertile land, that the whole idea is non-sustainable. I have no doubt that the Ethanol push is little more than propaganda.
If we're still relying on combustion, the cleanest substance is Hydrogen (by itself). The polution we get in CO2 and CO is due to the carbon in gas/ethanol solutions. The chief engineering question, and I believe it is fully solvable, is how to obtain it cleanly.
Until we develop better batteries and Hybrids, we have to use a better alternative than gasoline in our millions of internal combustion vehicals. This is a present tense issue with a need for a present tense solution, unless you like the world being held hostage to Big Oil. (Iraq etc.) Flex fuel E-85 is that immediate solution. (Clean, renewable and instantly adaptable.) Being a high octane fuel it's potential is not fully tapped yet. (i.e. high mpg 4 cyl. turbocharged engines with high power potential for passing with higher wastegate pressures) Let's not be too short sighted.
If anyone makes fuel from food so long as it is known there is one starving person on the planet, then the makers of such fuel are assessories to murder. The earth from which the plants for biofuels come from is not inexhaustible, and that means whatever is taken from them today for such a vile, insane purpose is that much less resource available for food production in the future.
Although your article appears to be very well researched, you may not be aware of how prevalent the propaganda of the oil interests really are, to wit:
When you use corn to produce ethanol, the biproducts of this production is distillers dried grain. Although not an expert in the production of alcohol (yet), this biproduct is better, I believe, than the soybean meal currently fed to cows, and is also more palitable. As a matter of fact, the reason corn is fed to cows is for the protean, not the carbs, and the reason pigs follow cows in the feedlot is the cows can't use the carbs. Guess where the carbs go! This biproduct means that in making alcohol you are NOT losing any of the food value of corn for cows.
The industry experts report that making ethanol is not cost-effective, at least the ones most often quoted by the news. Guess who they work for? Many, many other studies show real cost effectiveness.
Certainly there are better feedstocks for alcohol production than corn, but corn is what farmers grow, and what farmers are familar with. If current research by small producers prove the value of cattails raised with effulent, for example, then farmers would jump on that bandwagon.
Check out the website http://www.knowledgepublications.com/announce/09102007.htm for more information on "Alcohol can be a Gas"
This is just wrong. Bio-diesel is the best available stopgap to clean the air of the planet, at least until EV cars are allowed a solid spot in the marketplace.
URGENT NEED FOR CLARIFICATION CONCERNING THE VIABILITY OF ETHANOL PRODUCTION.
Skepticism concerning this subject, especially the assertions that it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it can provide, has come from some seemingly reliable sources--this raises real concerns. In view of this, an advisory panel of real non-political experts should be selected immediately by a congressional committee with oversight from some university environmental departments to evaluate and report on this issue, and to expose any efforts from the petroleum industry to use this as a ploy for curtailing meaningful energy measures.
Otherwise we may spend billions on a faux energy source that would be counterproductive in our efforts to curb global warming, environmental degradation, and our trade imbalances & related security concerns-- while contributing to starvation by consuming limited food supplies.
All indicators now show that conservation still will be far more productive & beneficial in achieving our energy goals than ethanol production. Wind and solar power, and development of battery technology for electric vehicles, pose none of the problems that are associated with ethanol production
We remain at risk of 'pidgeon holing'problems. Though the 2% of arable land in Brazil looks like a minor figure, it is also an indigenous rights issue as noted, a profound problem of slave labor, both of which are exacerbated by ruralist violence in which leaders are being assasinated. Green Peace activists have twice in the past few months been intimidated and threatened by 'posses' composed of hundereds of gun toting ruralists in trucks requiring the protection of the Federal Police.
A federal program of Accelerated Growth ie: infrastructure projects in some cases cut through indigenous lands, the redirecting of the Rio São Frasisco being protested by tens of thousands of people being impacted by the project, cases of hydroelectric dam environmental impact studies have been found to be fraudulent in what one writer referred to as a "politics of the consumate fact" in 2005. And this is not even a complete picture of the ecological battles in that country.
Not unlike here people are beginning to see the blind spot of the corporate vision of technological response to economic concerns. It fuels genocide, threatens biodiversity, and generally responds to study paradigms that have not yet caught up to the long term realities.
Right on! Right on! Right on! The other day I read a bumper sticker that said... "more jobs? How about less people" YEAH!!!! We have overtezed mother earth so a few companies can make a profit for their share holders. And I'm a financial consultant who tries very hard to read and invest wisely for Mother Earth. Argofuels are not the answer for many reasons. dlz
Yes. Bio fuels may be a strategic local readjustment since it can be made from wastes and surpluses and minimal locally grown fuel sources. (Hemp if it is being grown for fiber along with flax -linen) Might be great for the local governments to use as a source for bus fuel. lower costs; provides local employment. The solution to our transportation energy needs are elsewhere. And there are good plans out there that have been marginalized just like Kucinich is marginalized. I even got one.
There is no food shortage. There is a money shortage- countries can't pay for food. They could grow their own but economies grow food for export. They can grow crops for their own fuel but the economies grow crops for export.
So it looks like the problem is systematic. You can't point the finger at biofuels. You can point it at NAFTA and other world trade agreements that favor the powerful. Of course production of biofuels is skewed towards the powerful, at the expense of the poor. Everything is done at the expense of the poor.
Again, these stories about ethanol jacking up prices were debunked months later when it was revealed higher GAS prices were the culprit (yes, I know about petroleum based fertilizer being a culprit and we don't need it, our whole system can go organic without losing food and CERTAINLY gaining nutrients), along with general inflation that is being hid by TPTB. I guess the oil companies needed to make sure the message got out all over again after that that it wasn't THEIR fault. Oh, no, they are pure as the driven snow.
But since 88 percent of the corn in this country is grown for animal feed here and abroad, I scarcely think we are starving anyone anywhere with corn ethanol. The corn processed for ethanol has its starch removed for dried distillers grains which can then be fed to cows, mixed with cellulose product, and healthier fatter cows results. There are studies from the U of Wisconsin on this. We've barely made a dent in our arable land. Much of the extra production came from corn that wasn't being bought. Surplus. The ethanol from sugar in Brazil is grown from 2 percent of arable land there.
And it isn't necessary to use food crops. Marginal lands can grow crops for fuel. There are water based crops. Hemp, for example, is just one crop and monocropping is a bad idea in general. Our agricultural system has to change WORLDWIDE, and that is not just a biofuels issue.
Absolutely, we need to do biofuels right. It can come by taking control ourselves. It's the only way it'll really do good. Lots of planting of crops and trees can REVERSE global warming because of the carbon dioxide absorbed in the soil. Permaculturally based agriculture can make enough food and fuel for everyone. No problem. Easy? Heck, no.
The system is against it. So let's rise up against the system.
For more information, go to permaculture.com, read the book that tells how.
Agreed. We should definiteley not be subsidizing it with tax payers money[money we don't even have]. If it will work it should do so without subsidies. I read an article a couple of years ago, I don't remember where but it's point was that the amount of fossil fuel we use is equivalent to 40 years worth of all the vegetation on the planet. In other words we're not going to solve our problems with biofuels. Most of what we use now is wasted. Improved efficiency is still by far the most productive path. First things first.
In high school, I heard aout a plant called 'euforbia Latoris" or gopherweed, that was easily convertible to a biofuel. Has anybody heard anything about this plant lately?
It's going to take "the dangers that biofuels pose to environmental sustainability and the livelihoods of communities around the world" to educate the public. Maybe they'll also learn about the real danger to environmental sustainability: Overpopulation and extreme resource concentration as wealth and power.
Not all biofuels are the same. Hemp is an EXCEPTION. In fact, hemp can completely do without petroleum, requires minimal amount of land, can grow in any climate, and does NOT NOT NOT contribute to global warming.