Dream fuel or eco-nightmare?

by JAG - LASC Wed Jun 04, 2008 13:29

We want to acknowledge the Cork based organisation Ethical Development Action for making it possible to count on the day with the presence of Camila, the Brazilian speaker.

she will be also doing some presentations in Cork. If you want any further information on her Cork programme you can contact them at

edacork@gmail.com

by billy idle Wed Jun 04, 2008 17:56

As amply demonstrated by the impending total destruction of what is left of the Indonesian rainforests which were already in big trouble having been ruthlessly exploited by foreign multinationals who gained access to these precious irreplaceable natural resources by propping up the American supported corrupt military regime of Suharto from the late sixties to 1998. Various ethnic groups also suffered when the attempted to stop the rape and pillage of their lands in Borneo, Sumantra and elswhere.
Now biofuels in the form of vast palm-oil plantations appear the final nail in the coffin of these unique rain-forests which are some of the richest in terms of biodiversity on the planet and are the only home of charismatic animals such as the Sumatran Tiger, Orang-utan, Proboscis monkey, Sumatran Rhino, Borneo Forest elephant, and countless other species of plants and animals, not to mention numerious tribes with their own unique culture particulary on the island of New Guinea. The wanton destruction of these forests is releasing huge amounts of CO2 and even worse methane(which is 17 times a more powerfull greenhouse gas compared to CO2) since many of them grow on the Indonesian equivalent of peat bogs which release these gas's when the tree cover is removed. All this flys in the face of the so-called "biofuel saving the planet " arguement.

Of course I haven't even mentioned the loss of land for food crops as huge multi-nationals move in and grab the best land to grow this stuff. Already huge amounts of land in America have now been lost to food production thanx to biofuel subsidies pushing up the price of food for everyone and of course hitting the poor and vulnereable the most.

As an illustration of how futile growing biofuels are it has been estimated that if all the land in the US was turned over to biofueles, it would only provide 12% of Americas transport needs and that before one takes into account the huge amount of energy it takes to grow these crops.

Basically biofuels do not make sense at any level

If that was

by SUV Wed Jun 04, 2008 20:44

It's just that the economic pressures of the world economy mean that it becomes profitable to get poorly paid slaves in the third world to chop down their forests and grow this stuff, then send it over to us in big ships so we can shove it in our big cars. Just more proof of the insane wasteful and destructive mentality of global capitalism.