Sunday, February 17, 2008

Ethanol - the Environmental Scam

I linked to this one from American Digest. It's an article in the Wall Street Journal. It's another load of reasons why we shouldn't buy into the biofuel scam, no matter how the environmental lobby tries to scare us into believing that we are killing the planet. Unfortunately, Congress and the president have bought the whole line of crap.
The ink is still moist on Capitol Hill's latest energy bill and, as if on cue, a scientific avalanche is demolishing its assumptions. To wit, trendy climate-change policies like ethanol and other biofuels are actually worse for the environment than fossil fuels. Then again, Washington's energy neuroses are more political than practical, so it's easy for the Solons and greens to ignore what would usually be called evidence.

The rebukes arrive via two new studies in Science, a peer-reviewed journal not known for right-wing proclivities. The first, by ecologists at Princeton and the Woods Hole Research Center, reviews the environmental consequences of increased biofuel consumption, which had never been examined comprehensively. Of course, that didn't stop Congress and the Bush Administration from jacking up the U.S. mandate to 36 billion gallons by 2022, a fivefold increase from a mere two years ago. Such policies are supposedly justified because corn-based ethanol and other "alternatives" result in (very modest) reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions when mixed with gasoline.
Read the whole thing and be sickened. How is it that after almost fifty years of variations of "the sky is falling due to the effects of humankind", anyone still buys into this lunacy?

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4 Comments:

At 8:49 AM, Blogger Pen of Jen said...

Of course it is a scam...I actually heard on the news today that global warming is being considered as a core course in HS...hmm.

By the way, Bill and I are considering making our own biodiesel...to save us money(using veg.oil from fast food...I know, but the savings and costs are something we are really researching!)

But this tree hugger crowd is no longer annoying, but starting to infringe on my rights.

 
At 9:09 PM, Blogger Happy Elf Mom (Christine) said...

???

I'm more concerned about our dependence on oil, etc. than the environment at this point. That *really* scares me that the Arabs have the kind of power they do... all they'd have to do is decide not to sell us any gas and then where would we be?

 
At 6:31 PM, Blogger Rita Loca said...

Mrs. C. has a point. I mean, who cares if we save a tree just to lose it all to some enemy with a nuke! Talk about global warming!

 
At 2:54 PM, Blogger Harry said...

And don't forget that with all of the emphasis on alternative renewable energy sources, the one proven alternative energy source, nuclear, is still absolutely forbidden. So are they really interested in what's good for society? Or is it, as others have said, merely part of the war against Western Civilization?

Jen,
I'd be interested in reading more about your biodiesel experiment.

 

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