My city’s weekly paper ran a cover story with a funny subtitle.
“Old Message: We’re doomed
New Message: Not necessarily”
The name of the article was Hope for the Planet. It contained some encouraging news from environmental scientests who see potential for us to reverse course on global warming. Some of them were a little too caught up in the craze over biofuels, so I wrote a letter-to-the-editor and they published half of it. I offer you the uncut version.
More Agriculture, Less Agrofuels, Soil not Oil
Tracey Holloway’s policy suggestions on climate change (Hope for the Planet, April 17 Cover Story) make me want to jump start her gubernatorial campaign, if only she would reconsider her support for investments in agriculture based biofuels, also known as agrofuels. Researchers who have studied agrofuels have concluded that even if all cropland in the U.S. were used to grow corn and all the corn were used to make ethanol, we would not produce enough ethanol to replace our over consumption of gasoline.* Instead of growing crops to feed that over consumption, we could be addressing the climate crisis by supporting those enthusiastic young people who want to make careers out of growing food for their communities.
Relocalization of our food system will be an essential piece of building resiliance in the face of environmental threats. This is the message of Vandana Shiva, internationally renowned farmer who recently lectured in Wisconsin. Her latest book exposes how the rush to subsidize agrofuels is actually an environmentally dangerous move largely driven by and for big agribusiness companies like ADM, Bunge and Cargill. Get a copy of Soil not Oil today, and find out why the only Green in agrofuels is the color of corporate profits.
*The studies I refer to include a report, “The False Hope of Biofuels,” profiled in The Washington Post, July 2, 2006
