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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Biofuel Madness: Environmentalism exploited for political purposes By Dr. Tim Ball Tuesday, April 8, 2008 Environmentalism exploited for political purposes, Threatening world food production The biofuel madness is gathering steam, and it’s not good news for the world’s poor and hungry. Putting one man’s dinner into another man’s car hardly seems like a sensible or ethical way of solving any of the world’s problems. These are serious problems, but they miss the saddest most devastating point of all. There is absolutely no need for biofuels and especially ethanol to stop global warming or climate change--the main reason for their introduction. How did we get to “biofuel madness”? Environmentalism exploited for political purposes is the short answer. Sadly, biofuels are just the beginning. Other madness includes the carbon credit shell game that does nothing to reduce CO2; the myth that fossil fuel resources are running out; the myth of the viability of other alternative energies; the myth that pollution problems are getting worse in most of the world; the erroneous belief that CO2 is a pollutant; the failure to build adequate traditional power sources and the significant lead time to build these once the power shortages hit home, are just some of the existing problems of the exploitation. Symbolic events are most effective in shifting our thinking. Pictures of the Earth from Apollo 8 taken in December 1968 triggered the environmental movement in what is called a paradigm shift. Suddenly our planet seemed small and limited. Suddenly it appeared there were too many people and we were going to run out of everything. The pictures confirmed what The Club of Rome, founded in April of the same year, was saying. Paul Ehrlich’s book, “The Population Bomb” published in 1968 added academic legitimacy to the fear. The idea was reinforced by the publication of “Limits to Growth” by the Club in 1972. The fallacies of those positions are now coming to fruition in a most destructive way. Environmentalism was a very good and necessary change, but like all new paradigms a sequence of adoption and adaptation must follow. Initially people are wary because of innate concern about change. Gradually it takes hold as people realize the values. Environmentalism made us aware we had to live within the limits of our home and its resources: we had a responsibility for good stewardship. The problem is most people don’t know how far to take a new paradigm. For years I wondered what extremists provide to any debate. I’ve learned it is to define the limits for the majority. By taking extreme positions they cause the majority to say, hold on, now you are going too far. School students respond with cheers and shouts when I ask them if they care about the environment. When I say, “Fine, then none of your will ever drive cars.” I see a look on their faces that says, “Well I don’t care that much.” We’ve reached that point with environmentalism. A lot of necessary changes have occurred to our awareness of the environment. Still more are required, but extremists are demanding a complete and unsustainable restructuring of world economies in the guise of environmentalism. Foolishly we’ve developed global energy and economic policies based on completely incorrect science promulgated by extremists. Now it is serving to define the limits. As usual the red flags were everywhere, but a combination of deliberate misdirection by some politicians and scientists amplified by the mainstream media has fuelled the insanity. Those who dare to question are bullied into silence with accusations that they don’t care about the planet, the future, the children. Normal scientific method was hijacked by politics. Scientists create theories based on assumptions, which are then tested to determine validity before becoming accepted. Acceptance comes when accurate prediction is achieved. The hypothesis that global warming and climate change are due to human addition of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere became a fact before testing began. As Richard Lindzen, Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT said several years ago, the consensus was reached before the research had even begun. The major assumption of the theory that human CO2 is causing global warming/climate change generally known as Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) says if atmospheric CO2 increases the global temperature will increase. Unfortunately, there is no record for any time period or any duration in which assumption 2 holds. In every case temperature changes before CO2, whether it is the 600 million year geologic record, the 420,000-year ice core or the most recent record the temperature increases before CO2. Since 2000 global temperatures decreased slightly then dropped significantly in the first two months of 2008 while CO2 levels continued to increase. Ironically, proponents of AGW have painted themselves into a corner by claiming most of the recent warming is due to human CO2. Since CO2 is not causing global warming or climate change and there is no need to reduce levels. There is an even more compelling reason not to reduce it. They have misrepresented CO2 as a pollutant. Actually, it’s the most important gas in the atmosphere not because of its greenhouse properties but because it is essential to plant growth and thereby the production of oxygen. Reducing CO2 will not affect climate, but can put all life on earth in jeopardy. I prefer to leave fear to others, but the goal of reducing CO2 was pushed by exploiting people’s fears and lack of knowledge. Everyone needs to know that reduction of levels has more serious implications. Current levels are 385 ppm. At 200 ppm plants begin to suffer and at 120 ppm they begin to die. Increasing the level has great benefits for all life. Research shows most plants function best between 1000 and 1200 ppm, Commercial greenhouses are pumping these amounts in and achieving four times better growth and yield with significantly less water use. This suggests plants evolved to that level and our now CO2 ‘starved’ with atmospheric levels of 385 ppm. By working to lower CO2 levels you are diminishing the growth potential of plants. At 200 ppm they begin to die. Plants grow more vigorously so all ecosystems expand and are healthier. Activists and governments round the world are urging reduction of atmospheric levels of CO2 from the current level of 385 ppm because they incorrectly claim it is causing global warming or more recently climate change. Unfortunately, they claimed this before the evidence came in because the scientific method of testing a theory was thwarted. Now the evidence shows this is completely wrong, just as the predictions of The Limits to Growth were wrong. So in order to stop global climate change, which is not being caused by CO2, they are jeopardizing all plant growth, food production and economies.
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