Danny Westneat offers an anecdote-rich view of trying to "go green" with the family automobile, confirming that whatever the merits of lessening dependence on oil, the current biofuel phenomenon appears headed toward its own entry in the unintended consequences hall of fame.
Posted by Eric Earling at May 05, 2008 07:55 AM | Email ThisAt the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the "dignity" of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called "plant rights" is being seriously debated.
A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is enough to short circuit the brain.
Reading that piece makes one wonder how many liberal failures have to occur before a person begins to get it.
This business with "biofuels" and "ethanol" is rapidly backfiring on the left who repeatedly doom themselves with feel-good ideas they haven't exactly thought through. To the left drilling in ANWAR is disastrous. But dedicating vast amounts of land that was used to grow food to producing inefficient fuel that can't even be distributed through pipelines makes sense to them.
Liberals are going to have to start defending their dumb ideas. Even better, they may have to actually begin to admit, as Westneat perhaps is, that they are wrong.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on May 5, 2008 08:54 AMWind, tide and solar are good additives, but hardly the answer.
Where now, mon amis?
Posted by: swatter on May 5, 2008 09:54 AMDemocrats once accused Republicans of wanting old people and children to starve to death because the Republicans wanted to end the welfare state's food stamps program. So why are they silent on the government program that's actually causing starvation and food shortages? Oh. Right. The ethanol boondoggle is their idea.
Danny, meet Ron:
"In a quest to lower my impact on the environment, I calculated our [family's] carbon footprint if we cut our use of electricity and natural gas in half, switched our two cars for a single Toyota Prius and reduced our annual mileage by half, tripled our train travel, and never took an airplane. Furthermore, what if we became vegetarians, ate only local organic food in season, bought only second-hand clothes, furniture and appliances, never went to movies, bars or restaurants, and recycled or composted all our waste? Even then our combined carbon footprint would be 7.3 tons per year, but that would get us just below the world average of 4 tons per capita annually... The creators of Carbon Footprint claim that everyone in the world must eventually emit no more than 2 tons of carbon dioxide per year. When did Americans last emit so little carbon dioxide? Around 1870." --Ronald BaileyPosted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on May 5, 2008 10:33 AM
Not to worry about liberals having to defend themselves though; in 20 years the media and historians will have turned it around to evil profit-driven conservatives that tried to force biofuels on us.
Posted by: Frank Black on May 5, 2008 11:05 AMCalifornia is bragging that they are in the forefront of the "green revolution" but they are simply exporting their electricity generating to Washington (falling water) and Arizona where they generate using gas, oil or coal.
I am of the opinion that this "green revolution" or "saving the planet" is nothing more than a long series of three-card monties that cripple the poor . . . the people among us least able to cope with market disruptions.
Naturally, these three-card monites are being run by Democrats . . . "the party of the people." Ha, ha, ha, ha!!
This "Little Ice Age" is estimated to have been the cause of death for 2/3 people worldwide during this time.
The "Little Ice Age" that preceded that one was in 10,000 BC...it killed off 65% of all life on earth...and the human population has been estimated to fallen to between 50,000 to 75,000 persons worldwide!
In recorded history every time there has be a "warm" period...the earth has exploded with Life, Bananas grew in the highest of latitudes and it was like living in Florida every where. Even the hottest of places would be like Phoenix in summer. With the Ice Capes melted, the water supply goes up...that is how Ying & Yang works.
Hey...Al Bore...I think I would vote for Global Warming over another Ice Age!!!
The weather is just like Hillary Clintons explanation of her war vote, we just do not know. Were hit or miss on next Tuesday's weather much less the year 2058?
Relax; we will replace oil when we need too. American ingenuity will kick in and the next great fortune will be made. It is not pretty but historically accurate.
We just need to run out of oil first and that is why I drive an SUV, so we can run out sooner. I consider myself to be in the vanguard of the environmental movement and I think that people that insist on driving hybrids are prolonging our dilemma, and that is selfish. Come on, don't you care for Mother Earth.
It is not about what fuel a car burns, it is about removing cars completely.
The worker drones must be herded into buses and trains.
Posted by: Vince on May 5, 2008 12:44 PMPlus while there is some logical evidence that so far the spike in food prices is not due PRIMARILY to the diversion of productive farmland in the US to ethanol and biodiesel, the huge impact that it WILL have if we do not quickly change course is looming right in front of us:
The current illogical government mandates for a huge additional increase in the amount of ethanol beyond what is currently being produced. If those mandates are not recinded, then you bet it will cause further major upward pressure on world-wide food prices; very possibly to the point of serious crises in much of the 3rd world.
And Bill Crutchon is right on when in #2 he sez:
''To the left drilling in ANWAR is disastrous. But dedicating vast amounts of land that was used to grow food to producing inefficient fuel ...... makes sense to them.''
This is a case where VP Cheney is exactly right (but no matter how overwhelming the facts, I expect the left will never be able to admit that Dick Cheney is right about anything):
ANWR totals about 20,000,000 acres.
Even large-scale oil exploration and production in ANWR using modern drilling methods would disturb perhaps ~2,000 acres. That's only ONE PART in 10,000; i.e.: The ''sky will fall'' claims of the left that opening ANWR to oil production would destroy it is patently absurd on its face.
The question is not whether or not we are ever going to drill in ANWR:
OF COURSE we are going to do it eventually; i.e.:
As world-wide oil consumption leaps in the next few decades due to India, China, etcetera, demand will eventually outstrip maximum supply efforts. And think of all the critical products petroleum gives us besides transport fuel:
Fertilizer (without which the green ag revolution dies), lubricants, plastics, and a long list of etcetera.
The real question on ANWR is not IF we drill, but rather:
Are we going to develop the ANWR petroleum resource on a careful, measured, and deliberate schedule that will minimize disturbance to that part of Alaska; or are we going to wait until the situation is truly desperate, with the result that it will have to be done on an all-out panic basis; with the resulting higher risk of damage.
There is also a bunch of folks at OSU who've come up with a way to get biodiesel from algae. I just Googled it... the figures they give is that soybeans produce 48 gallons of biodiesel per acre. Algae can currently produce 819 gallons/acre, and they think they might get it up to 5,000 gallons/acre.
Posted by: Mike H on May 5, 2008 02:03 PMIf they can figure out a way to utilize waste to produce "cellulosic" ethanol more power to them. I think the key question is whether or not land that could better be served by growing food would be used to provide their "woody biomass".
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on May 5, 2008 05:23 PMAll of the eco-fantasy provides a lot of righteousness for leftist knobs until it runs up against truth. And then the carbon offset scams fold, windmills turn out to be expensively subsidized, biofuel starves people and is more expensive than gas, and the Sun is in a minimum and the earth is actually getting colder, with no regard at all for Al Gore and his trumped up lies attempting to advance Marxism.
Comedy indeed.
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 5, 2008 07:26 PMPoint well taken -- however, only 1/6th of the arable land in the US is currently under cultivation (do to government policies).
Second, corn is very land and energy intensive, cellulosic means...well, yard waste...and other "biowaste", switchgrass, which can grow very densely in a smaller area.
Posted by: John Bailo on May 5, 2008 09:44 PMEither Cantwell thinks we can't remember that far back or that we can't make this simple logical connection: if you don't find new sources of oil eventually the price will rise to meet demand.
I don't know whether Cantwell is trying to cover her ass by launching a diversionary investigation into high gas prices or whether she is a gross economic ignoramous.
Posted by: Bill K. on May 6, 2008 12:06 AM