[Greenbuilding] Geroge Monbiot: A Lethal Solution / The Guardian

Wed Apr 4 11:30:30 CDT 2007

its time the western world realises these technologies are not there to 
protect their lifestyle. less than 400 million people's consumption pattern 
will bring the whole east, west, north south 7 billion people to disaster. 
Why doesn't ANY policy in UK, US, Europe ever talk about changing the way we 
live, work and eat? create less garbage, work closer to home and encourage 
walking/cycling.

this is again one those emails to like-minded people.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Racheli Gai" <racheli at sonoracohousing.com>
To: "Greenbuilding Building" <GREENBUILDING at LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 12:20 PM
Subject: [Greenbuilding] Geroge Monbiot: A Lethal Solution / The Guardian

To those who are excited about biofules:  read and ponder :(
BTW, some local food prices are already rising as a result of this
competition,
as I was told by a guy who sells chickens and eggs at the farmers
market (he said
his eggs will cost more as of last Sunday for this reason).
R.

A Lethal Solution
Posted March 27, 2007

We need a five-year freeze on biofuels, before they wreck the planet.

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 27th March 2007.

It used to be a matter of good intentions gone awry. Now it is plain
fraud. The governments using biofuel to tackle global warming know that
it causes more harm than good. But they plough on regardless.

In theory, fuels made from plants can reduce the amount of carbon
dioxide emitted by cars and trucks. Plants absorb carbon as they grow –
it is released again when the fuel is burnt. By encouraging oil
companies to switch from fossil plants to living ones, governments on
both sides of the Atlantic claim to be “decarbonising” our transport
networks.

In the budget last week, Gordon Brown announced that he would extend
the tax rebate for biofuels until 2010. From next year all suppliers in
the UK will have to ensure that 2.5% of the fuel they sell is made from
plants – if not, they must pay a penalty of 15p a litre. The obligation
rises to 5% in 2010(1). By 2050, the government hopes that 33% of our
fuel will come from crops(2). Last month George Bush announced that he
would quintuple the US target for biofuels(3): by 2017 they should be
supplying 24% of the nation’s transport fuel(4).

So what’s wrong with these programmes? Only that they are a formula for
environmental and humanitarian disaster. In 2004 this column warned
that biofuels would set up a competition for food between cars and
people. The people would necessarily lose: those who can afford to
drive are, by definition, richer than those who are in danger of
starvation. It would also lead to the destruction of rainforests and
other important habitats(5). I received more abuse than I’ve had for
any other column, except when I attacked the 9/11 conspiracists. I was
told my claims were ridiculous, laughable, impossible. Well in one
respect I was wrong. I thought these effects wouldn’t materialise for
many years. They are happening already.

Since the beginning of last year, the price of maize has doubled(6).
The price of wheat has also reached a 10-year high, while global
stockpiles of both grains have reached 25-year lows(7). Already there
have been food riots in Mexico and reports that the poor are feeling
the strain all over the world. The US department of agriculture warns
that “if we have a drought or a very poor harvest, we could see the
sort of volatility we saw in the 1970s, and if it does not happen this
year, we are also forecasting lower stockpiles next year.”(8) According
to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the main reason is the
demand for ethanol: the alcohol used for motor fuel, which can be made
from both maize and wheat(9).

Farmers will respond to better prices by planting more, but it is not
clear that they can overtake the booming demand for biofuel. Even if
they do, they will catch up only by ploughing virgin habitat.

Already we know that biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum.
The UN has just published a report suggesting that 98% of the natural
rainforest in Indonesia will be degraded or gone by 2022(10). Just five
years ago, the same agencies predicted that this wouldn’t happen until
2032. But they reckoned without the planting of palm oil to turn into
biodiesel for the European market. This is now the main cause of
deforestation there and it is likely soon to become responsible for the
extinction of the orang utan in the wild. But it gets worse. As the
forests are burnt, both the trees and the peat they sit on are turned
into carbon dioxide. A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics
shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon
dioxide emissions, or ten times as much as petroleum produces(11). I
feel I need to say that again. Biodiesel from palm oil causes TEN TIMES
as much climate change as ordinary diesel.

There are similar impacts all over the world. Sugarcane producers are
moving into rare scrubland habitats (the cerrado) in Brazil and soya
farmers are ripping up the Amazon rainforests. As President Bush has
just signed a biofuel agreement with President Lula, it’s likely to
become a lot worse. Indigenous people in South America, Asia and Africa
are starting to complain about incursions onto their land by fuel
planters. A petition launched by a group called biofuelwatch, begging
western governments to stop, has been signed by campaigners from 250
groups(12).

The British government is well aware that there’s a problem. On his
blog last year the environment secretary David Miliband noted that palm
oil plantations “are destroying 0.7% of the Malaysian rain forest each
year, reducing a vital natural resource (and in the process, destroying
the natural habitat of the orang-utan). It is all connected.”(13)
Unlike government policy.

The reason governments are so enthusiastic about biofuels is that they
don’t upset drivers. They appear to reduce the amount of carbon from
our cars, without requiring new taxes. It’s an illusion sustained by
the fact that only the emissions produced at home count towards our
national total. The forest clearance in Malaysia doesn’t increase our
official impact by a gram.

In February the European Commission was faced with a straight choice
between fuel efficiency and biofuels. It had intended to tell car
companies that the average carbon emission from new cars in 2012 would
be 120 grams per kilometre. After heavy lobbying by Angela Merkel on
behalf of her car manufacturers, it caved in and raised the limit to
130 grams. It announced that it would make up the shortfall by
increasing the contribution from biofuel(14).

The British government says it “will require transport fuel suppliers
to report on the carbon saving and sustainability of the biofuels they
supply.”(15) But it will not require them to do anything. It can’t: its
consultants have already shown that if it tries to impose wider
environmental standards on biofuels, it will fall foul of world trade
rules(16). And even “sustainable” biofuels merely occupy the space that
other crops now fill, displacing them into new habitats. It promises
that one day there will be a “second generation” of biofuels, made from
straw or grass or wood. But there are still major technical
obstacles(17). By the time the new fuels are ready, the damage will
have been done.

We need a moratorium on all targets and incentives for biofuels, until
a second generation of fuels can be produced for less than it costs to
make fuel from palm oil or sugarcane. Even then, the targets should be
set low and increased only cautiously. I suggest a five-year freeze.

This would require a huge campaign, tougher than the one which helped
to win a five-year freeze on growing genetically modified crops in the
UK. That was important – GM crops give big companies unprecedented
control over the foodchain. But most of their effects are indirect,
while the devastation caused by biofuel is immediate and already
visible.

This is why it will be harder to stop: encouraged by government policy,
vast investments are now being made by farmers and chemical companies.
Stopping them requires one heck of a battle. But it has to be fought.

You can join the campaign at www.biofuelwatch.org.uk.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. HM Treasury, March 2007. Budget 2007, Chapter 7.

2. Department for Transport, 21st December 2005. Renewable Transport
Fuel Obligation (RTFO) feasibility report. Executive Summary.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/environment/rtfo/secrtfoprogdocs/
renewabletransportfuelobliga3849?page=1

3. George W. Bush. 23rd January 2007. State of the Union Address.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070123-2.html

4. The US Energy Information Administration gives US gasoline
consumption for October 2006 (the latest available date) at 287,857,000
barrels. If this month is typical, annual consumption amounts to 3.45
billion barrels, or 145 billion gallons.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbbl_m.htm

In the state of the union address, Bush proposed a mandatory annual
target of 35 billion gallons.

5. George Monbiot, 23rd November 2004. Feeding Cars, Not People. The
Guardian.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/11/23/feeding-cars-not-people/

6. Nils Blythe, 23rd March 2007. Biofuel demand makes food expensive.
BBC Online. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/business/6481029.stm7. Eoin
Callan and Kevin Morrison, 5th March 2007. Food prices to rise as
biofuel demand keeps grains costly. Financial Times.8. Keith Collins,
chief economist, US Department of Agriculture. Quoted by Eoin Callan
and Kevin Morrison, 5th March 2007, ibid.

9. Food and Agriculture Organisation, December 2006. Food Outlook 2.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/j8126e/j8126e01a.htm

10. UNEP and UNESCO, February 2007. The Last Stand of the Orangutan.
State of Emergency: Illegal Logging, Fire and Palm Oil in Indonesia’s
National Parks.
http://www.unep-wcmc.org/resources/PDFs/LastStand/
full_orangutanreport.pdf

11. Wetlands International, 8th December 2006. Bio-fuel less
sustainable than realised
http://www.wetlands.org/news.aspx?ID=804eddfb-4492-4749-85a9
-5db67c2f1bb812. http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/resources.php#2007Jan31

13. David Miliband, 14th July 2006. Malaysian Diary.

http://www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk/blogs/ministerial_blog/archive/
2006/07/14/1497.aspx

14. Commission Of The European Communities, 7th February 2007. Results
of the review of the Community Strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from
passenger cars and light-commercial vehicles. COM 19 final.
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/co2/pdf/com_2007_19_en.pdf15. HM
Treasury, ibid.

16. E4Tech, ECCM and Imperial College, London, June 2005. Feasibility
Study on Certification for a Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation. Final
Report.

17. Robert F. Service, et al, 16th March 2007. Cellulosic Ethanol:
Biofuel Researchers

Prepare to Reap a New Harvest. Science 315, 1488. DOI:
10.1126/science.315.5818.1488

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