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 Kong–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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  • Why land use is critically important for climate change

    Byoliveridley

    That’s the argument from a new paper published in Science today, written by Princeton University’s Tim Searchinger and others. The upshot? Clearing out forests to use the wood for bioenergy clearly has an environmental cost, but that’s simply not accounted for in any of the prevailing climate-change programs. Kyoto, the European cap-and-trade plan, and the House climate bill all treat bioenergy as carbon-neutral; nobody counts the effect of disappearing forests.

    via Environmental Capital

    In my long blog post earlier this morning, I briefly alluded to the fact that proposed Canadian climate change legislation explicitly excludes land use. Well, bad idea! I am surprised this is being trumpeted as a major new finding, hasn’t it been obvious for at least the last few years that biofuel carbon neutrality is very dependent on how land use patterns change?

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    Canada loves asbestos (in third world lungs)

    Byoliveridley

    In a normal world, when something is severely restricted in your country, you would not export it to another country under the pretense that used under certain, very restricted conditions, your product only causes a moderate increase in cancer.

    While the federal government projects an image of being a helpful, international Boy Scout on issues ranging from peacekeeping to nuclear proliferation, Canada has a peculiar relationship to asbestos.

    globeandmail.com: Asbestos shame

    But we don’t live in a normal world, because asbestos is exported from Canada to India where it is added to cement.

    Tushar Joshi, a noted New Delhi occupational health expert, is flabbergasted over asbestos sales by a country of Canada’s stature. “As a developed country, you expect more civilized behaviour,” Dr. Joshi says. Canada’s activities are “beyond comprehension,” he adds, calling Ottawa’s promotion of asbestos “a black spot on a sparkling white dress.”

    yes, well said. It is very mysterious that asbestos use in India went up in the 1980s just as evidence about its incredibly destructive effects on respiratory systems had curtailed use in most of the first world. Clearly, third world lungs are not as important as Canadian lungs.

    Asbestos is one area where Canada lags even behind the US. And Canada’s environmental practices are going to come under increasing scrutiny as climate change unfreezes the great white North and exposes the resources underneath.

    Canada, the world is watching.

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    The NY TImes on India’s Water Issues

    Byoliveridley

    The New York Times starts a three part series on water issues in India.
    In Teeming India, Water Crisis Means Dry Pipes and Foul Sludge – New York Times

    The crisis, decades in the making, has grown as fast as India in recent years. A soaring population, the warp-speed sprawl of cities, and a vast and thirsty farm belt have all put new strains on a feeble, ill-kept public water and sanitation network. The combination has left water all too scarce in some places, contaminated in others and in cursed surfeit for millions who are flooded each year. Today the problems threaten India’s ability to fortify its sagging farms, sustain its economic growth and make its cities healthy and habitable. At stake is not only India’s economic ambition but its very image as the world’s largest democracy.

    This has not changed since I was a kid, we had the exact same problems growing up, and it is not likely to get any better real soon. Depressing to read first thing in the morning.

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    Chinese coal mines in BC: Missing the forest for the trees

    Byoliveridley

    The story of a Chinese company in BC hiring Chinese workers has received a lot of attention. Much of the attention has focused on the company’s decision to game the temporary worker system in order to avoid hiring “Canadian” workers. Many of the objections are made on nationalistic grounds, “OMG, THEY”RE TAKING CANADIAN JOBS”, which then leads down the path of racist anti-Chinese sentiment. This Tyee article (disclaimer: I am a Tyee monthly funder, but obviously have no editorial input!) summarizes the issues involved very well. Recent changes to Canada’s immigration laws make this kind of hiring logical, because it is now okay to pay temporary workers with little/no bargaining power 15% less than you would pay locals. Of course you have to document that there were no qualified locals, but as this particular incident indicates, there’s little/no actual enforcement unless a fuss is made.

    I find temporary worker programs to be problematic because they provide no path to citizenship, no permanence for the people who want it, and cause ugly divisions in the community. If you think there are not enough “workers” in your community, open your borders, let them in and pay well, you’d be surprised.

    I wanted to highlight two obvious issues that to my mind are as important:

    1. Carbon Bomb. It’s a coal mine! How many people in BC, which preens gloriously on its carbon tax, are aware that coal is BC’s Number One export? What is the point of having a carbon tax for consumers when producers get to make money off that carbon for free? Whether the coal is burned in BC, or in China, it causes the same damage. Whether the coal is used to generate power, or to make steel, it puts out the same amount of carbon dioxide. Whether the mine uses Chinese workers or locals, it produces the same climate changing emissions. So, why instead of making coal producers pay the real costs of their product, are we enabling them to evade carbon taxes, royalties, and save even more money by reducing wages? Also, coal mining is not employment intensive, as countless other people have pointed out. So it’s not really about the jobs either. Kevin Washbrook of StopCoal made this point as well in the Tyee article I linked to earlier.
    2. Does this mine have right to be there? The West Moberley First Nation, part of a Treaty 8 band is opposed to the project on its land. That should be the end of the story. The state of Canada has responsibilities as a settler entity to obtain free, prior and informed consent on development from the people it colonized. The US is a bit more honest in this regard as it regards the colonization as a thing of the past and gives its indigenous peoples little/no rights. Canada’s different, the indigenous here have specific standing because of Canada’s existing colonial links and Canadian governments and courts routinely confirm this standing. The BC government is currently negotiating treaties with many First Nations communities including the West Moberley First Nation.

    We’re trying to set up a climate and environment disturbing, cost and tax evading coal mine on land that belongs to someone else using easily exploited temporary workers we can be racist towards.

    coal

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    Arsenic a rising risk?

    Byoliveridley

    This is new information? Tell that to the millions of Bangladeshis and Indians suffering from Arsenic for many years now.

    As groundwater use increases due to population pressure and overexploitation of freshwater, expect this problem to get worse.

    Arsenic in Drinking Water Said to Be Rising Risk – New York Times

    Naturally occurring arsenic in drinking water poses a growing global health risk as large numbers of people unknowingly consume unsafe levels, researchers said on Wednesday.

    The problem is bigger than scientists had thought, and it affects nearly 140 million people in more than 70 countries, according to new research presented at the annual Royal Geographical Society meeting in London.

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    The US guts Environmental Assessments

    Byoliveridley

    Environmental assessment in the U.S. was enshrined in law for the first time when President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on January 1, 1970. Since then, however, the U.S. has slowly cast aside its role as a leader in the field of environmental assessments, as successive administrations have chipped away at the scope of NEPA, experts say. The cuts have reached a crescendo with President George W. Bush’s administration, and proponents of these assessments worry that pressure to develop natural resources with little oversight of the consequences will lead to an unsustainable future for the U.S.

    ES&T Online News: Environmental Magna Carta under siege

    Well, perfect. Now you can claim very factually that “you don’t know of any harmful effects of your actions”.

    The fact is, the attack on NEPA has come, chronically, from a relatively small group of commodity users—timber companies, highway builders—who simply oppose having the public and environmentalists get in the way of their plans and programs,” Houck maintains.

    Can’t say it any better. Information is very important and one thing this Bush administration has been very successful at is reducing the flow of information.

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