EDITORIAL – The grain gaffe

A recent Time Magazine report found that the current U.S. biofuel craze could be perpetuating… A recent Time Magazine report found that the current U.S. biofuel craze could be perpetuating the effects of global warming.

According to the report, an explosion in the demand for farm-cultivated biofuels like corn and cellulosic ethanol has raised global crop prices, spurring farmers in Brazil to expand agriculture by clearing out parts of South American rain forests at an alarming rate.

The trend isn’t limited to Brazil, either. Indonesia and Malaysia are also rapidly bulldozing forests to farms. Even ethanol production in the United States has had an effect. Increased cultivation of corn for ethanol production in the United States is displacing soybean farms and, as a result, causing farmers in Brazil and other parts of the world to expand agriculture to meet the growing need for soybeans, ultimately resulting in further deforestation.

Brazil recently announced that deforestation in the country is on track to double this year, a troubling statistic for scientists working to curb global climate change, as deforestation results in 20 percent of all current carbon emissions.

Carbon emissions, which trap heat in the atmosphere, are the primary cause of global warming – the same problem that biofuels are supposed to help curtail.

To add to the complexity of the issue, because grain and oilseeds are being used to cultivate biofuels, global food prices are increasing, putting the world’s hungry in a precarious position – a problem pressing enough to cause the United Nation’s World Food Program to call for an additional $500 million in funding and supplies.

The cultivation of alternative fuel sources has become a hot-topic policy issue in the United States, one in which presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and even John McCain, who initially held reservations about ethanol production, have come out in strong support.

The U.S. governmental support of biofuel production is obvious: On the outset, it seems like cultivating fuel from a green source would produce less net carbon emissions than nonrenewable fuels.

While this reasoning is logical, it ignores the fact that unless farm-cultivated biofuels are being grown on parking lots, they’re displacing other plants, some of which have a larger carbon dioxide-reducing capacity than corn and other agricultural plants used to produce ethanol.

This isn’t to say that biofuels are not the answer to the growing energy crisis – nonrenewable energy resources are decreasing by the day, and U.S. foreign oil dependence has been driving up the price of gas. But governments in the United States and throughout the world need to make sure they aren’t pushing a hasty “solution” to the energy crisis that is, in fact, further complicating it.

Scientists have found that some biofuel sources, like the cultivation of sugarcane, have a net positive green effect.

In Brazil, sugar accounts for 45 percent of the country’s fuel, but it’s on only 1 percent of the country’s arable land.

Ultimately, curbing the rate of global climate change will require a massive global movement – a top-down effort beginning with governments. Biofuels might not be the answer to global warming, and they certainly shouldn’t add to the problem.