Biodiesel. Is this another example of environmentalists destroying the rain forest?

Question

5,000 acres of land in the State of Yucatan in Mexico being cleared to cultivate crops for biodiesel.

Answer 1

Where do you get your opinion from are you watching it happen or does it come from the internet.???

Mexico looses 500.000 hectares per year

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

But It is not The Environmentalists who are doing it ,

It is the Corporations

http://byderule.multiply.com/journal/ite...

Chiapas looses much more

The Environmentalist have been trying to save the Jungle of Lacadona for years ,appeals on TV,the army  has been involved,National campaigns to save the jungle still going on right now

But all to no avail

The poor continue to slash and burn to superimpose unsustainable farming.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

We see trucks laden with exotic timber almost daily coming down the mountain ,in Guerrero

But it is dangerous to try and intercept them ,the drivers are armed and highly paid (motivated)

http://byderule.multiply.com/photos/phot...

Every once and a while we stop and fine or jail some of the locals who deforest and sell their timber

but the corporate traffic gets through

Corrupt officials continue to issue false licenses,and the American Market continues to buy the timber and the exotic pets that fall victim to the deforestation and subsequent loss of habitats.

Bio diesel is far from being an Environmentalist project

It is mostly American Government,coupled to local poverty and corruption.

There is famine in many places which is allowed to happen ,i think it is part of the depopulation strategy

the world produces more than enough food ,but MORE than half is diverted for the production of Ethanol,

this is not the Environmentalist doing

tuba and lover of truth are the only ones here, it seems ,who can see

Answer 2

What hard vacuum in place of your brain leads you to want to blame the environmentalists for this?

Answer 3

As shown by some of these answers.  Environmentalists always blame someone else for the problems they cause.

"The best part about being a liberal is never having to say your sorry."

Answer 4

The left always wants to be judged on their good intentions even while they leave a path of destruction in their wake.  Clearly the law of unintended consequences always applies when you try to enact feel good legislation or have governments mandate alternatives.  They would like to replace petroleum with feel good alternatives that have no cost.  The problem is that there are none.

Answer 5

Yes, producing ethanol fuel from food crops and and biodiesel in cleared rain forests has tremendous negative consequences:

"The United States will not be able to produce sufficient biomass for biofuel domestically to satisfy its energy appetite. Instead, energy crops will be cultivated in the Global South. Large sugarcane, oil palm, and soy plantations are already supplanting forests and grasslands in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, and Paraguay. Soy cultivation has already resulted in the deforestation of 21 million hectares of forests in Brazil, 14 million hectares in Argentina, two million hectares in Paraguay and 600,000 hectares in Bolivia. In response to global market pressure, Brazil alone will likely clear an additional 60 million hectares of land in the near future (Bravo 2006)."

http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/biofuels/...

The biofuels boom will further consolidate their hold over our food and fuel systems and allow them to determine what, how and how much will be grown, resulting in more rural poverty, environmental destruction and hunger. The ultimate beneficiaries of the biofuel revolution will be grain merchant giants, including Cargill, ADM and Bunge; petroleum companies such as BP, Shell, Chevron, Neste Oil, Repsol and Total; car companies such as General Motors, Volkswagen AG, FMC-Ford France, PSA Peugeot-Citroen and Renault; and biotech giants such as Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta.

http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/biofuels/...

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/hot_...

"E85, a blended fuel consisting of 85-percent ethanol and 15-percent gasoline, has been championed (by GM in particular) as a viable and green solution to the petroleum problem. Unfortunately, both adjectives are a stretch. You could fill volumes with debate over the benefits and social, fiscal, and environmental costs of ethanol, at least the starch-derived strains, so we won’t.

What you need to know is that E85 reduces the fuel economy of any vehicle burning it by about 25 percent."

"Pres. George Bush recently announced a proposed mandate for 35 billion gallons of ethanol production by 2017, so you’ll probably see more vehicles so equipped, regardless."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080207/ap_o...

"The widespread use of ethanol from corn could result in nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions as the gasoline it would replace because of expected land-use changes, researchers concluded Thursday. The study challenges the rush to biofuels as a response to global warming."

"Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning," says the Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of the corn-to-car fuel process. His findings will be published in September, 2001 in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug...

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A hectare is about 2.5 acres, so over 70 million acres of rain forest has been clear-cut already for soy cultivation in Brazil and Argentina.  Deforestation dramatically accelerates global warming, threatening a large percentage of species on this planet (including humans).  Does that sound like the work of "environmentalists"?

Clearly the major global companies behind this money-making scheme are not "environmentalists", no matter how "green" they paint their activities in their marketing pitches.  The fact is, people who believe their dishonest "green" marketing, who fail to take the time to educate themselves, who fail to understand and listen to environmentalists, allow this sort of travesty to occur.  

Your senseless finger-pointing, at the people who need public support to stop the damage, will only allow the problem to continue and to get worse.

Answer 6

I think you're right. And using food for fuel is equally audacious. People are starving and the US is turning its breadbasket into a fuel source. We could drill for oil until a real alternative is found.

Answer 7

no it's an example of capitalism destroying the rainforest.

Answer 8

No it is the greedy agribusiness in bed with big government who is trying to spin GW to help them make a buck.

Don't get me wrong GW is a real issue and Bio fuel can be part of the solution. You just don't use foods such as corn to make ethanol, it only increases the price of corn. In the united states corn is subsidized more than any other crop to the tune of 16+ billion dollars. The average farmer now makes in the range of 70,000 dollars plus. They spend big money to lobby congress to keep them as rich as they already are. It is a big scam that is robbing the American taxpayer.

The solution is not to throw out bio fuel all together but to use waste fuel such as fryer grease, high efficient crops like switchgrass, and to grow in areas most food crops could not grow. Jatropha is a perfect example of a bio-fuel crop that is grown in arid like regions. It produces a whopping 40% plus oil from its fruit.

http://www.jatrophabiodiesel.org/

The blame is not the environmentalist which have been crying out against ethanol for some time. Put the blame where it really belongs, corporate interest and among their commodities the politician.

Answer 9

No, because the environmentalists don't want us to burn bio-diesel they want us to live in grass huts and pedal bicycles.

Answer 10

It certainly is.

Not unlike the way environuts have blocked , and still block, nuclear power plant construction for the last 30 years, leading the power industry no choice but to burn cheap hydrocarbons mined from the earth to satisfy the global demand for energy.  And you see where thats gotten us.