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Thanks to Al Gore the results of his actions will last a lot longer than his concerts
"Shifting to a greater reliance on ethanol and green bio-diesel fuels will reduce global warming pollution and enhance our national and economic security." - Al Gore
And what do they have to show for this switching?
What good or damage as a result?
How about...
"By promoting bio-diesel as a substitute, we have missed the fact that it is worse than the fossil-fuel burning it replaces"
Welcome to...The Most Destructive Crop on Earth
For those who don't know. This is the plant that the most productive yields for green bio-diesel comes from.
Because it is cheaper than biodiesel made from any other crop. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2214#more
These are the countries where the plant is being grown. Southeast Asia: Malaysia, Indonesia, Sumatra, Borneo, - the Tropics.= The rainforests.
The SCALE OF THE of the rain forest DESTRUCTION on Borneo IS just STAGGERING. The animated gif below, derived from Google Map, is zooming in on some of the oil palm plantations in the South-West part of the Borneo Island.
At large scale you can see the actual smoke from the forest fires. http://maps.google.com/
This is the habitat that the crop is replacing.
Currently 14 of the island's 20 major rivers originate in the region and it is one of only two places on earth where endangered orangutans, elephants and rhinos co-exist.
And this is what is happening to those animals. http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/09/16/indonesia.palm/ http://www.savetheorangutan.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/SBR_pages_28-32.pdf
KUALA SELANGOR, Malaysia, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Malaysia's most famous insects, a colony of fireflies that blink like Christmas lights, top the list of wildlife hit by a thick haze of pollution from Indonesian forest fires.
"At one time the tourists waited for the boats, but now the boatmen wait for the tourists."
"They are the most popular firefly colony in southeast Asia, in terms of accessibility and the impact of their synchronised flashing, so they become an eco-tourism draw," said Andrew Sebastian, of the Malaysian Nature Society, which manages a nature reserve nearby.
Laurence Kirton, a biologist with the Forestry Research Institute of Malaysia, has spent three years studying the fireflies, did not say how much the figure had dropped, but felt park officials' estimates of about 50 percent were not too far off the mark.
Plants rely on insects to reproduce by spreading their pollen grains and insect activity dampened by the haze could delay the pollination of flowering plants, said Andrew Sebastian, of the Malaysian Nature Society.
The haze would also disrupt the migratory journeys of birds seeking warmer climes as the northern hemisphere winter nears.
"Birds coming from as far as Russia, Siberia and Japan are faced with the haze after flying thousands of miles to get here, so we fear for them," Sebastian said. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KLR127372.htm
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As Alternative Energy Heats Up, Environmental Concerns Grow
The bluish smoke is at times so dense that it leaves the city dark and gloomy even at midday. The haze has sometimes closed Pontianak's airport and prompted local volunteers to pass out face-masks on city streets. From July through mid-October, Indonesian health officials reported 28,762 smog-related cases of respiratory illness across the country.
"I feel it in my breath when I breathe," said Imanuel Patasik, a 26-year-old delivery man, as he sat in one of Pontianak's many open-air coffee shops on a recent evening. When the smoke is really bad, he wears a mask to work, but still wakes up feeling sick. "It's part of life here," he said with a sigh.
The large parts of Southeast Asia in smog, including Singapore and Kuala Lumpur -- underscores a troubling dark side of the world's alternative-energy boom. Among other problems, the fires set to clear forest land spew millions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, experts say. In doing so, they exacerbate the very global-warming concerns biofuels are meant to alleviate.
Such side-effects aren't an isolated problem. In Indonesia and Malaysia, forests are being slashed for new energy-yielding crops or other unconventional fuels. In India, environmental activists say, water tables are dropping as farmers try to boost production of ethanol-yielding sugar.
Some experts are also concerned that crops for biofuels will compete with other farmland, possibly driving up global costs of basic food production.
Proponents of alternative energy, including palm-oil industry executives, say the dangers are exaggerated and are outweighed by the benefits the new fuels promise.
As oil prices have surged, a number of companies, including Chevron Corp., have announced plans to build or invest in biodiesel plants. In a recent report, Credit Suisse analysts said there is enough refining capacity under development to produce as much as 20 million metric tons of fuel annually by late 2008. That capacity, more than twice that of today's levels, would "easily soak up" all the world's available palm oil -- creating demand for even more plantations.
Indonesian authorities hope to capitalize on such demand to bring economic growth to some of its most impoverished regions. The government is offering low-interest loans for plantation companies with a goal of adding 1.5 million hectares of new plantations over the next five years. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06339/743714-28.stm