The Problem With Green

Green isn't necessarily good.

You've probably heard all about "green" cars.

As oil reserves run out, fuel prices rise, and people worry about global climate change, biofuels are being promoted as a solution. A biofuel is simply a fuel made from biological material that has recently died, as opposed to fossil fuels, which are made from biological material that has been dead since ancient times.

In 2007, Congress mandated a five-fold increase in the use of biofuels. The US Energy Policy Act of 2005 states that 7.5 billion gallons of biofuels must be used by the year 2012. Europe is also promoting biofuels; Sweden has 1,000 biofuel stations and offers incentives for "green" car users.

Where the trouble begins…

The most common type of biofuel is ethanol, the type of alcohol that humans consume. Ethanol is usually made from food crops, such as sugar beets and cereal grains—most commonly corn. This diversion of food crops to biofuel production has two disastrous results: food shortages and sharp price increases. This is difficult enough for those of us in the US and other developed countries; imagine how much more difficult for the rural landless and urban poor in third-world countries, who cannot grow their own food.

World Bank estimates that 100 million people in Haiti and other countries have been made newly poor and hungry as a result of the recent rise in food prices. And this is only the beginning.

Turns out it's not so "green" after all.

In October 2007, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen said that nitrogen fertilizer used on crops for ethanol and biodiesel has led to high levels of atmospheric nitrous dioxide, a greenhouse gas 296 times more damaging than CO2. Nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers, as well as pesticides, run off into lakes and streams and end up in the Gulf of Mexico, creating an oxygen-starved "dead zone." So much for "green"!

Turning food crops into biofuels is also energy-intensive—farming it may take more energy than it saves. If all corn, wheat, rice, and soy crops were used to produce biofuels, it would cover a mere 4% of America's energy needs.

Finally, there's the destruction of the rainforests. As we look for space to grow the enormous quantities of corn needed to make biofuels, we sacrifice the rainforests. Tragically, experts predict that nearly half of the world's species of plants, animals, and microorganisms will be destroyed or severely threatened over the next quarter century by rainforest destruction.

This has to stop.

Fuel for cars can be made from many other things. A promising source for ethanol is switchgrass, a grass that grows wild on prairies and along roadsides, and can be cultivated on land too poor for food crops. We should also be looking at methanol, the type of alcohol that is poisonous to humans. It can be made from waste wood, seaweed, and garbage—things we're not going to eat.

Then there are solar cells, propane, electricity, and many other options. We should also be doing more to help farmers in third-world countries become more self-sufficient by teaching them better farming methods, rather than making them dependent on massive food-aid handouts from the US and other developed nations.

One SUV tank fill-up would feed a man for a year.

…If it were served as corn rather than converted to fuel.

"Green" cars that run on biofuels made from food crops are not the answer.

Unfortunately, too many well-meaning people think that anything "green" must be good. Now you know better. Please share your knowledge with others. Think about it when you buy a car and when you vote.

Corn is for people—not cars.