The production of biofuels, long a cornerstone of the quest for greener energy, may sometimes create more harmful emissions than fossil fuels, scientific studies are finding.
Says the NYTimes in an article on Palm Oil. Once a Dream Fuel, Palm Oil May Be an Eco-Nightmare
As I have blogged here, Palm Oil production is creating an eco disaster in Indonesia and Malaysia with wildfires and threats to the endangered Organutan population.
And with both the Bush and Harper regimes promoting biofuels in grains and corn the result is increasing prices for these commodities which adversely affect other farm commodities like pork.
The Chair of Manitoba Pork Council says swine producers on the two sides of the Canada U.S. border share a common concern over rapidly rising feed prices resulting from expanded ethanol production.
And this is why the Harpocrites want to open the market up to the big Agribusiness giants like ADM and Cargill who also produce soya, palm oil, etc. But to do that they must eliminate the Wheat Board.
Biofuels are not ecologically sound alternatives to petroleum, they are just another capitalist band-aid, like Kyoto with its carbon exchange marketing.
Capitalism can only offer 'profit based' ways of adjusting to the current ecological and environmental crisis we face. That is because this crisis is about capitalism, which is not sustainable.
That is the real problem of Green Capitalism and all the so called Green alternatives, they are not alternatives at all, merely attempts to ameliorate the worst excesses of capitalism.
Without the development of democratic self managed (worker community control) socialism, capitalism Green or otherwise will continue to lead to planetary entropy.
See
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Lost and Found
Boreno is Burning
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primates, organutan, , ADM, ArcherDaniels Midland, , bio-fuels, Canada Wheat Board, , capitalism, Cargill, , ecology, , Environment, , Green, green capitalism, Indonesia, Kyoto, palm oil, , socialism, sustainable, workers control
I've stumbled across this site www.palmoiltruthfoundation.com that presents another side of the story. Perhaps you and your readers may want to check out a separate perspective?
ReplyDeleteMalaysia's deputy prime minister has called for sustainable, environmentally-friendly expansion of the palm oil industry. Local communities should also be protected.
ReplyDeleteSays an item on the palmoiltruth site.
The problem is that Palm Oil is not sustainable. It is the creation of agri-business interests and the states dislocation of traditional villages into larger urban population centres to create a vast army of the unemployed who once farmed, fished and worked for themsevles now are forced to be plantation workers.
The history of colonization is the history of the plantations. Yesterdays slaves are todays wage slaves. The very essence of capitalism is the farms transition from subsistence to commodity production. Be it cotton or palm oil.