first met was, “So, do you come around here often?” As astrology developed into a cottage industry, awkward moments were made less excruciating when couples began asking, “So, what’s your sign?” For today’s romantics, a generation of global warming/climate change lemmings, the new ice-breaker (literally) seems to be, “So, can you believe this global warming? What are you doing to reduce greenhouse gasses?” My eco-pulse has quickened by merely writing a brief description of such an encounter!Not only is that question a unique conversation starter, it also demonstrates a keen awareness of the hip sociopolitical phenomenon sweeping the globe. The War on Terror or Operation Iraqi Freedom are mere bylines compared to what many believe is the most pressing story of our time. The following headlines from today’s news coverage are only a small sampling of the countless global warming/climate change stories dominating global media outlets each day:
“Global Majority Wants Action on Climate Change.”
“Global Warming Leaves Russians Cold.”
“UN Chief Urges Immediate Climate Action.”
“Schwarzenegger Urges UN to Move on Climate Change.”
“Rising Seas Threaten US Historical Sites.”
Could anything send a more convincing message of responsibility and commitment to a prospective “soul mate” than passionately expressing a lifelong dedication to reducing one’s greenhouse gas emissions? Any woman will embrace a man’s efforts to control his gaseous emissions of any kind, but particularly those pesky greenhouse gasses that are allegedly going to be the death of us all one day. To global warming devotees, bulging biceps or bounteous beauty take a back seat to biofuel usage as desired mate traits.
Yet what will happen to the star-crossed eco-lovers when they learn that a trait once held as a treasured virtue is actually a vice? Such love spell breaking news appeared yesterday in an
article by Times (London) reporter Lewis Smith titled, “Study: Biofuels May Produce More Greenhouse Gas than Oil.” The thump you would have heard, if more media outlets had published the story, was the sound of millions of collective environmentalist jaws hitting the floors of their hybrid vehicles as they realized how lovingly and blindly they had embraced biofuels that now appear to be uglier than their declared nemesis, big oil. As our farmers rapidly convert their fields to accommodate the burgeoning ethanol industry rather than food production while millions starve in agriculture-poor African nations, the scientific revelation that ethanol and rapeseed biofuels produce high levels of nitrous oxide should be particularly disheartening to ethanol-enchanted environmentalists.It’s not as if the study was part of a global conspiracy by big oil to further its allegedly insidious interests. The study was a collaborative effort of British, American, and German researchers, one of which was a Nobel Prize-winning expert on ozone. Before you buy a hybrid vehicle or applaud your congressman for working to expand ethanol production as a means to save the world from global warming catastrophe, pause a moment and examine what renowned scientists, rather than Alarmist Al Gore, discovered about those bewitching biofuels (bold emphasis added by Capital Cloak):
A renewable energy source designed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions may be contributing more to global warming than fossil fuels, a study suggests.
Measurements of emissions from the burning of biofuels derived from rapeseed and corn have been found to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than they save.
Other biofuels, especially those likely to see greater use over the next decade, performed better than fossil fuels, but the study raises serious questions about some of the most commonly produced varieties.
Rapeseed and corn biodiesels were calculated to produce up to 70 percent and 50 percent more greenhouse gases, respectively, than fossil fuels.
The concerns were raised over the levels of emissions of nitrous oxide, which is 296 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Scientists found that the use of biofuels released twice as much as nitrous oxide as previously realized.
…The findings illustrated the importance, the researchers said, of ensuring that measures designed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions are assessed thoroughly before being hailed as a solution.
"One wants rational decisions rather than simply jumping on the bandwagon because superficially something appears to reduce emissions," said Keith Smith, a professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and one of the researchers.
Corn for ethanol is the prime crop for biofuel in the U.S., where production for the industry has recently overtaken the use of the plant as a food. In Europe the main crop is rapeseed (one variety of which is canola), which accounts for 80 percent of biofuel production.
"The significance of it is that the supposed benefits of biofuels are even more disputable than had been thought hitherto," Smith told Chemistry World magazine.
…But they concluded that the biofuels "can contribute as much or more to global warming by N2O [nitrous oxide] emissions than cooling by fossil-fuel savings."
The research is published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, where it has been placed for open review.
The research team consisted of scientists from Britain, the U.S. and Germany, and included Professor Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on ozone.
…Dr. Dave Reay, also of the University of Edinburgh, used the findings to calculate that with the U.S. Senate aiming to increase corn-ethanol production sevenfold by 2022, greenhouse-gas emissions from transportation will rise by 6 percent.
In their rush to gain the political favor of environmentalists, congressmen are tip-toeing through and around a growing body of expert scientific research that is debunking the hysteria over greenhouse gasses almost as fast as Al Gore produces them jetting around in gas guzzling private aircraft or keeping cool in his palatial homes.
Devotion tends to blind one to the faults of his or her beloved. Environmentalists enjoyed an energetic elopement with ethanol and other plant-derivative biofuels. Now that the flaws of their betrothed have been exposed by a Nobel Prize winner and an international team of environmental experts, the relationship they so cherished with biofuels may soon wind up wrecked on the rocky shoals of reality. The honeymoon with ethanol has led only to a mournful rendition of “Love on the Rocks.” Neil Diamond proved prophetic with his second line, “Ain’t no surprise.”
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Biofuels, Ethanol, Rapeseed, Greenhouse Gasses, Global Warming, Climate Change, Al Gore, Nitrous Oxide, Greenhouse Emissions
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