Critically, as our recent alert demanded, biofuel’s indirect land use impacts [search], starting with corn ethanol, are to be considered when determining a fuel’s net impact upon emissions. Looking at the full inputs to corn ethanol — including energy used in planting and transport, land pressures leading to increased deforestation, and coal for distillation — shows it clearly has a sum negative impact upon climate. Careful examination of the inputs and indirect land impacts of other biomass based fuels such as cellulosic biofuels will clearly show the same thing.

Earth has no spare biomass to power our vehicles. Progress is being made on the global campaign to stop fuel production from biomass, particularly at the expense of food and ecosystems. The Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems are past their carrying capacity, and rather than increasing pressures upon primary productivity, the human enterprise must power down and enter an era of ecological restoration. Rainforest Rescue and Ecological Internet’s alert objectives were met and, along with many others, we helped counter the energy industry’s extreme pressure. These regulations must now go global and continue to be strengthened.

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• ALERT: Call on U.S. Government to Halt Ecologically Misguided Support for Large Scale Biofuel
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Regulators at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) are poised later this week to declare that biofuel from corn ethanol [search] cannot help the state address climate change. In assessing the true environmental cost of corn ethanol, it was found this biofuel is worse than petroleum when total greenhouse gas emissions are considered. This is because as with all monocultures, corn ethanol for biofuels lead to numerous other indirect land use changes. Increased industrial agriculture results in rising land pressures and the loss of soil and forest carbon sinks elsewhere. Such a declaration disallowing corn ethanol biofuel from counting as emissions reductions would be a considerable blow to the corn-ethanol industry in the United States and would likely set a national precedent.

Ecological Internet and Rainforest Rescue are concerned with America’s growing ethanol industry, and the precedent it sets for massive agricultural industrialization of the world’s remaining rainforests and other natural wildlands. Please call upon the CARB to heed the overwhelming evidence that agrofuels worsen climate change through further deforestation and the destruction of other soils and ecosystems, drive food prices up, force more people worldwide into hunger, malnutrition and landlessness; and decimate biodiversity and ecosystems. TAKE ACTION!

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• Scottish scientists brew up whisky biofuel

Corn-based ethanol fuel is ranked at the bottom of alternative energy sources “with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage and chemical waste.” And it diverts food from people to cars. Obama and farm-belt Democrats are serving the political agendas of agribusiness, rather than honoring commitments to address climate change and bring science based change to Washington.

Ecological Internet and Rainforest Rescue are concerned with America’s growing ethanol industry, and the implications it has in setting a precedent for massive agricultural industralization of the world’s remaining rainforests and other natural wildlands. It is clear that biofuels are not “renewable energy” given that soils, water, land and fertilizers are in limited supply. We are currently formulating a campaign strategy on the matter.

We concur with the growing ecological consensus that large-scale industrial production of transport fuels and other energy from plants such as corn, sugar cane, oil palm, soya, trees, grasses, or so-called agricultural and woodland waste threatens forests, biodiversity, food sovereignty, community-based land rights and will worsen climate change. If Obama’s “New Green Economy” runs on agrofuels it will further lead to a dangerous “Green Bubble” of unrealistic promises from unsustainable industries. Much more campaign material to come…

Blog entry with Rainforest Rescue

Similar Posts:

• Climate, Rainforest and Other Environmental Impacts of Corn Ethanol Gaining Prominence
• Biofuel from Corn Ethanol Is Not Renewable, Does Not Address Climate Change
• ALERT: Call on U.S. Government to Halt Ecologically Misguided Support for Large Scale Biofuel
• VICTORY! California Leads in Saying No to Deforestation Biofuels
• Fuelled by compost bugs