Biofuels are Eviil, Part 233223

Byoliveridley

The biodiesel boom has a high environmental cost, however. Critics say it’s contributing to global warming. Tropical forests help remove millions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. Burning and clear-cutting not only eliminates one of the planet’s crucial air-filtration systems, the process also releases even more carbon dioxide into the air, in smoke or as gases released during the decomposition of forest waste. Annual clearing of Indonesia’s carbon-rich peatlands alone releases some 1.8 billion tons of greenhouse gases, according to a Greenpeace report. Indonesia is the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind the U.S. and China, says the World Bank. “We liken what’s going on [in Indonesia] to pouring petrol on a fire,” says Martin Baker, a Hong Kongā€“based communications officer for Greenpeace International. “It’s completely ridiculous to produce green fuels from places like this.”

When Biofuel is Bad for the Environment – TIME

This just makes we want to jit my head against the wall. Tropical forests are some of the most efficient sinks of carbon, and countries that hold these sinks should be paid as well as countries that are sources of carbon. Yes, this means setting a realistic carbon pricing scheme that can eliminate this perverse incentive to destroy tropical rain forests so Western nations can claim to be environmentally friendly.

This is not a bribe, or an incentive, it is recognition of the fact that carbon sinks have a monetary value.

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    Byoliveridley

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  • Obama, Oil and Canada

    Byoliveridley

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    Chemical Warfare

    Byoliveridley

    This story from a local Chicago TV station does an excellent job of documenting the chemical weapons dropped on Vietnam by the United States in the 1960s, the effects they still have on Vietnam, and the Americans who handled these so called “defoliants”.

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    During the eight years of the Vietnam War that the U.S. Military dusted the Vietnamese landscape with Agent Orange, it was only intended to kill vegetation. It was a combination of two herbicides 2,4D and 2,4,5T mixed together into the most potent plant killer ever made. It was spread over 3 1/2 million acres of forests and crops to kill the trees and vegetation so the United States troops could see the enemy. The Armed Forces were told it was harmless. But in March 1978, Bill Kurtis broke the story on CBS 2 that American veterans of Vietnam who had been exposed to Agent Orange were complaining of illnesses, birth defects among their children, skin rashes, cancer, nervous problems and respiratory problems.

    orange3_small.jpgPeople tend to blame dioxins for all the health effects. But 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, constituents of Agent Orange, are no spring chickens. Exposure during spraying, especially of the grossly excessive amounts that rained down upon Vietnam, can cause various health effects as well, not to mention long-term devastation of entire ecosystems.

    Side note: New Zealand, in 2004, apologized to New Zealand’s “veterans” for their exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. Not a word to the Vietnamese, of course.

    Side note 2: A US Federal court, in 2005, dismissed the first claims brought by Vietnamese plaintiffs against Dow Chemicals and Monsanto, here was the government’s  reasoning:

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    Image courtesy of Reuters shows a Vietnamese child, one of many with birth defects associated with Agent Orange exposure.