biofuels again

[ROON]

sorry, the search engine didn't work for me as I know there is a huge thread on these, but just received an e-mail from Friends of the earth of which I am a member, containing the following messge... Obviously needs looking into more before I can comment personally, but since it takes me ages to find things on the computer thought those of you talking about biofuels might might be interested. Joy

 

QUOTE:

 

Stop the biofuels targets

Biofuels are a false solution to climate change and are doing much more harm than good.

 

The EU is proposing a binding target to increase biofuels use to 10% of road fuels by 2020.

 

This massive increase in Europe's demand for biofuels will have a devastating impact on the world’s poorest countries by:

 

Destroying communities.

Damaging wildlife.

Pushing up food prices.

 

 

In recent months, report after report from esteemed organisations like the UN and the Royal Society have warned of the dangers of biofuels expansion.

 

Friends of the Earth is calling on the EU to scrap the target.

 

Instead we want measures that will double the fuel efficiency of new cars, a real climate change solution.

 

Hiding behind sustainability criteria

The EU proposes to avoid the negative impacts of biofuels through the introduction of sustainability criteria.

 

But sustainability criteria simply won’t work.

 

It's impossible to make the quantity of biofuel needed to meet the target without chopping down more forests.

 

The biofuels target risks environmental damage and human rights abuses on a massive scale.

 

The EU can, and must stop the 10% target.

 

Email your MEPs eND OF QUOTE;

 

[donna miller]

Roon, I applaud your concerns regarding the future of our planet, but F.O.T.E are guilty, as are other organisations, of scaremongering and misleading infomation.

 

The readers digest published an article earlier this year regarding the use of bio-fuel in Mexico, where 80% of new cars are designed to be run on alternative fuels, the cost at the pumps was about 40% of the cost of standard petrol, in comparison it is 2p per litre cheaper over here.

The plants needed to produce the fuel can be, and is currently being grown in arrid, desert conditions, where no other crops are currently being grown, now how is this going to destroy communities, damage wildlife and push up fuel prices.

production of this particular bio-fuel has a negative carbon effect and for each ton produced it reduces CO2 emmissions far exceeding the current production of fuel.

 

You claim to want measures that will double the fuel efficiency of new cars, a real climate change solution. Just how do you propose to make this happen, cars are already running as efficiently as possible, and recent reports (not by eco warriors) show that if every car or fuel driven vehicle in the world, was taken off the road, then CO2 emmissions would fall by a staggering 2%, yes TWO PERCENT.

 

When are people going to realise this climate change might actually be being caused by mother nature, the earth goes in cycles, accept it.

 

Perhaps if the government banned recreational use of vehicles such as M/Homes or non essential car journeys, this would solve the earths problems, now I can't see many people on here campaigning for that, can you.

 

F.O.T.E. and others should take a hard look at their policies and demands, because by campaining to get the growing of bio-fuel crops stopped, they are depriving thousands of the worlds poorest communities of the chance to earn an income, and climb out of the poverty trap they are in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ROON]

Hi Donna, thanks for that opinion and information. I did state at the beginning, that I need to look into it more before commenting on it or forming an opinion of my own, but thought it might be a good topic for those such as yourself who obviously have considered this matter.

 

I really appreciate your comments and hopefully others will come and join in and add their two-pennies worth. I will happily be putting the other side of the coin to FOTE at the end of the thread .... I try and always be open-minded.

 

Cheers, Joy

[Basil]

On this occasion I completely agree with DM's sentiments. It is also a little known fact that Brazil is virtually self sufficient in Bio Fuel created from the by products of sugar cane production, once again having absolutely no effect on world food.

IMHO F.O.T.E. are just a group of charletons who would like to see the world dragged back into the dark ages and are supported by a membership that do not really understand their agenda.

As always just my own opinion.

 

Bas

 

P.S. There is also a UK company that is developing Bio Fuel production from the annual growth of Willow tree's, that will put up the price of asprin!!

[ROON]

Are you saying I am a chareleton Baz?

[Basil]

ROON - 2008-07-18 3:43 PM

 

Are you saying I am a chareleton Baz?

 

Please re-read my post, however if you are one of the organisers, yes. However if you are a follower I believe you do not fully understand their real agenda.

As I said just my opinion.

 

Bas

[ROON]

As I said in my post, I need to look into this particular issue more fully before forming my opinion on it. I believe FOTE do some good work but like all organisations at times get it wrong. I am not a politician who just agrees with the leaders because they are of the same 'club' .... I form my own opinions. I believe they got it right on many issues and especially Genetically modified food. If you go to any cancer site where the members are quite active and demanding answers, this GM issue comes up regularly and I feel strongly about it, and other matters concerning pollutants and insecticides... FOTE are quite informative when we need support of a more scientific nature. But again - just my opinion and we are all entitled to our own and to voice it, as are you. Joy

[Basil]

Absolutely right and sometimes we must agree to disagree. I personally have no qualms with GM food and believe it to be one of the answers to the starving in the world.

I believe that when you look into the backgrounds of some of the activists within organisations you can see what their agenda is and where it stems from, may I suggest that you look closely into Andy Atkins background for instance.

 

Bas

 

P.s. A lot of the so called science that FOTE put out is severly flawed.

[donna miller]

As Basil rightly points out, Brazil has virtually cornered the market for Flex-fuels as they call it.

However, you should not confuse the issue of alcohol based fuel as an alternative to petrol ,with the use of vegatable oil to substitute diesel fuel.

Sugar cane is used instead of the usual corn that the Americans use to produce alcohol, the cane is crushed to extract the liquid needed for alcohol production, the remaining pulp is sold on to electricity generating plants to be burnt as fuel, this means the entire plant is used and there is no wastage. Also, processing plants are extremely cheap to set up (compared to oil refineries)

New strains of the plant are being developed to allow it to be grown in cooler climates, at the moment though, it is being grown by some of the poorest nations, Africa, India and many of the Caribbean nations. Increased production can only benefit these producers, however, care must obviously be taken that essential food crops are not neglected just for the financial gain obtainable in the growing of crops for flex-fuel production

We have all seen how some of the poorest African nations, (remember live aid, band aid, lemon aid, all these charitable events raised millions of pounds that was supposed to aid the people in Africa, the reality of it was that they used the financial aid as a quick fix instead of development to ensure a better future, yes, lots of new schools were built so Lenny Henry, Billy Connelly and Bob geldof could visit and harp on about how this money would make a better world for the children, and how their belly's were now full of food instead of being distended through hunger, so instead of drilling wells, they built schools, instead of planting crops, they made bread.

Now we know that education is important, but fresh clean water is more so, you can teach kids out in the open, or under a tree, but if they haven't got water to drink and irrigate crops, the nice new blackboard and books are of no use. My point in this digression, is that Friends of the Earth's claim about destruction of food sources etc, can only occur if the lure of immediate financial gain is allowed to cloud the need for essential food production, greed is the issue here, not the growing of essential crops for fuel production.

Sugar cane absorbs high levels of carbon dioxide, so the more plants that are produced, the higher the benefit to the environment.

 

The complete article is in the March 2008 issue of Readers Digest, and makes interesting reading, as it gives a lot more information on the subject.

 

Sorry if this was a bit long winded.

[ROON]

Not at all longwinded, Donna. Very informative in fact. Thank you. Joy

[colin]

The F.O.T.E article has been 'twisted' to emphasise the point they want to make BUT that R.D. story was written by the biofuel camp, the truth lies somewhere in between

[Mel B]

Unfortunately the growing of crops for bio-fuels IS causing a problem. These crops are going towards making fuel instead of being used for food. This is part of the reason why some foodstuffs are going up quite heaftily in price. Some of the prime farm land in Lincolnshire, for example, that used to grow food crops, has been turned over to bio-fuel crops.

 

Similarly, in some developing countries, large swathes of forest are being destroyed so that more crops can be grown to produce bio-fuels, devastating the local wildlife and unfortunately the land then starts to suffer as its fertility is drained out of it to produce these crops. Then they move on to cutting down more forest, etc, etc, it goes on and on.

 

There is no simple answer to any of this. It will take many different things to sort out how best to meet the demand for fuel, simply growing crops to 'feed' the demand is not a long term solution. Unless something is done though, we will end up thinking it is more important to have plenty of fuel for our vehicles than to be able to afford food to eat.

[CliveH]

To be fair the great work Brazil has done in developing new fuels actually skewed EU thinking and I do agree with FOTE on this single point - but agree totally with the other assessments that they are charlatans and "watermelon politicos" (the organisers and leaders Roon - NOT those that are simply members) who play at being green now that the communist states are all but gone. (Watermelon - Green on the outside - red on the inside)

 

The issue as I see it is that we do not have enough agricultural land to produce our own biofuels within the EU. So the 10% target (set by watermelon politicos in Brussels on the back of Global Warming Hysteria) means that we will have to import the biomass we need to produce the bio diesel.

 

This means that countries outside of the EU have a choice - stop growing food to produce biomass for bio fuel or hack down more natural habitat to grow both.

 

All this when the IPCC is backtracking on its doom laden scenarios because the latest data now show that Global warming stopped in 1998.

 

This does not mean we can all "carry on regardless" - we should conserve more energy but adhering to a 10% biofuel target that causes habitats to be destroyed and food prices to skyrocket is the opportunity cost of allowing the "We are all gonna die" Global warming nutters to have more influence on our lives than they should.

 

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html

 

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/climate-change-confirmed-global-warming-cancelled

 

[Tomo3090]

The money raised by Live Aid, many Western governments and NGO' etc, (and still being raised by them), did pass on immediate help to starving people. After all if you are starving, and I mean proper starving not just missing the odd meal, then you need a special diet to stop your bodys' systems from destroying itself. These special diet packs are expensive so a lot money had to be spent there. They then spent money on the infrastructure of many towns and villages, putting in drains, water pumps and providing medical aid and advice, providing seed and animals and giving advice to the many differing problems faced by the people in the drought hit countries.

 

They also provided money for schools so that the children of these countries could get an education and grow up to help their own communities develop futures where they don't have to rely on aid and handouts.

 

Sadly though these droughts are not one off problems and real long term planning and such is required. So is international aid to stop debts spiralling out of control and allow some breathing space so that the need to grow cash crops, i.e. biofuels, to pay off national debts can be replaced by the growing of food crops.

 

There are problems of corruption and stealing too. These could also be helped by more developed countries setting up more transparent financial contracts and banking systems but we live in the real world where that is never going to happen because both sides gain too much from it.

 

We are all subjected to lies and distortions by governments all over the world, (even your Readers Digest is paid for with money from some really right wing American organisations), so it is difficult to find the real "truth" on any of this subject, but surely helping people, of any nation, to avoid seeing their children die of preventable disease and hunger takes precendence over political and religeous ideas.