TalkClimateChange

I think we can all agree the unintended consequences of mandated levels of bio-fuels have had some really devastating results globally. The World Food Programme says the increase in food costs has devastated their 2008 hunger relief programs. Mono-agriculture has reduced crop diversity and added to the problems of nitrogen contamination of water systems as the primary bio-fuel crop of corn requires much more fertilizer than other food crops. This is, through agricultural run-off to the rivers, creating massive dead zones in our oceans like the one in the Gulf of Mexico.

Crop futures are rising fast due to increasing demand for food diversity, each week countries are being added to the list of those who have halted the export of food staples such as wheat, soybeans and rice. Brazil is increasing changes in land-use from rain forest to fuel crops, with bio-fuel becoming the nations largest industry, something Prince Charles has recently realized and has proposed needs to be stopped. So when we know we have had some immediate detrimental effects globally as a direct result of this ill-conceived energy policy why is it still the premier method of mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, and why are more countries committing to it as a central theme of climate change energy policies?

Action, Eggs, Basket

It comes from a commitment to mitigation and a lack of viable alternatives. When governments are forced to act under the pressure from environmental concerns they must be perceived as acting rather than waiting for a better solution. This “solution” was easy and a relatively mature technology, so they ran with it. Now that they have committed to certain targets and made massive investments they cannot abandon the policy. When governments get involved they cannot let an industry fail, it is bad for their re-election campaign.

Now we may be facing a climate change problem this year that was relatively unforeseen; a shorter, and in direct contradiction to Global Warming, a colder growing season then previous years. Faced with all this more and more countries enact energy policies with bio-fuels at their heart to further compound the problem. Putting all your future fuel eggs in one basket is what created the dependency on oil in the first place.

Failure is an Option

I look at this as an indictment of the commonly accepted approach to mitigation; that the government should lead the way in what we attempt to do. I know that in a free market system, without government direct investment and mandate, that bio-fuels would have been found as a non-viable alternative and simply failed in the marketplace. This is one of the basic tenants of free market capitalism, not only do you have the right to a fair market to succeed in; you also have the basic right to fail miserably and completely.

I feel that the bio-fuel from food crops industry and the significant investment in it should be abandoned as a failed attempt, we should not press on, spending more capital and adding to the rising cost of living with a blind eye to the unintended consequences and valiantly hoping a solution to the new problems can be discovered. Not every idea is good nor will every measure we attempt succeed, in that light we should accept our fallibility and move on. Viable and effective advances will succeed and be replicated for the benefit of all, bad ones will fail and should be allowed to, and that is the nature of the evolution of our civilization. Somewhere through the last decade we have lost sight of this.

The definition of futility is repeating the same process over and over and each time expecting it to finally work. ( Rapid Mouse Clicking Anyone? )

That leaves us with the question, “Knowing the policy and the product is a failure should we continue to finance and mandate bio-fuels from food crops as a greenhouse gas mitigation measure?”

Further Reading

World Food Programme : http://www.wfp.org/english/?ModuleID=137&Key=2778
BioFuels in Brazil: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol.html
Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone: http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/index.html