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January 10, 2008
Biofuel Boondoggle Destroys Rainforest
The biofuel boondoggle does more than drive up food prices. It also results in the destruction of the precious rainforests that serve as the planet's lungs.
From the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute:
"American taxpayers are spending $11 billion a year to subsidize corn producers — and this is having some surprising global consequences," said [STRI staff scientist William] Laurance.
The US is the world's leading producer of soy, but many American soy farmers are shifting to corn to qualify for the government subsidies. Since 2006, US corn production rose 19% while soy farming fell by 15%.
The drop-off in US soy has helped to drive a major increase in global soy prices, which have nearly doubled in the last 14 months. In Brazil, the world's second-largest soy producer, high soy prices are having a serious impact on the Amazon rainforest and tropical savannas.
"Amazon fires and forest destruction have spiked over the last several months, especially in the main soy-producing states in Brazil," said Laurance. "Just about everyone there attributes this to rising soy and beef prices."
(High beef prices are also caused by biofuel mandates, which effectively put cattle feed into gas tanks.)
High soy prices affect the Amazon in several ways. Some forests are cleared for soy farms. Farmers also buy and convert many cattle ranches into soy farms, effectively pushing the ranchers further into the Amazonian frontier. Finally, wealthy soy farmers are lobbying for major new Amazon highways to transport their soybeans to market, and this is increasing access to forests for loggers and land speculators.
The contrived European market for palm oil as a biofuel is having a similarly disastrous effect on the rainforests in Indonesia, unfortunately for orangutans.
But it is nice to know that the posturing bureaucrats shoving biofuels down our throats care about the environment they're destroying.
Hat tips: Coyote Blog, Reason. On a tip from BUUUUURRRRNING HOT.
Posted by Van Helsing at January 10, 2008 7:19 AM
Comments
Because moonbats would rather burn down a tropical rainforest that permit the environmentally responsible extraction of petroleum from a hellhole on the north slope of Alaska, or from the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico.
Posted by: V the K at January 10, 2008 7:27 AM
By the way, did you know cheerleading is now a "human right"?
Posted by: V the K at January 10, 2008 7:30 AM
I've been saying it for months. Now they finally notice only when it gives them an angle to impose more restrictions on human freedom.
Posted by: Archonix at January 10, 2008 7:38 AM
When Castro pointed out the negative effects of using food for fuel, it was probably the only time I ever agreed with an old fart commie like him.
Posted by: Anonymous at January 10, 2008 8:08 AM
Meddling with markets inevitably causes distortions that misallocate resources. This should be obvious to everyone by now, but ignorance of history and economics allows the scams to continue. The companies profiting get the moral cover of saving the planet while they rake in public money. The environmentalist organizations prove, by supporting programs that do more harm than good, that the primary goal is economic control rather than ecological preservation. This same sort of thing is happening in the U.S., where marginal farmland that had been allowed to return to forest or prairie has been put back in service to grow corn to burn our cars. If it made sense, you wouldn’t have to pay people to do it.
Posted by: Beef at January 10, 2008 8:12 AM
I'm glad this is happening. Once the moonbats realise what they have done and how they were scammed by the "global warming" con, they will tear into each other and NEVER recover their political and social power!
Posted by: KHarn at January 10, 2008 2:12 PM
Wait, won't they just blame Bush, neo-cons and Big Oil for planting agent provocateurs and move on to the next State of Fear scam?
Posted by: BUUUUURRRRNING HOT at January 10, 2008 7:19 PM
