Memo to Environmentalists: Carbon Production Can Be a Good Thing
David S: “Continuing to burn growing amounts of fossil fuels is a much faster way to damage the planet than replacing our energy sources with renewables.”
No David, you actually just don’t get it. The inputs required to convert crops into fuel mean that there is an environmental cost associated with producing this fuel. There is some debate about whether or not there is any net benefit from ethanol in terms of greenhouse gas emissions when compared with petroleum. If we also must cut down rain-forests to make room for bio-fuel crops then the whole prospect is much more costly (in terms of environmental impact). In the case of a corn crop I believe it takes 200 years to pay back the damage of deforestation (both in releasing stored carbon in the forest and lost carbon sequestration over the life of the crop). So in other words, it doesn’t get paid back and we cause immediate damage of higher magnitude than normal fossil fuel use.
