[SustainableTompkins] more on biofuels concerns

[GayNicholson at aol.com]

September 20, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist


Dumb as We Wanna  Be

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN  
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/thoma
slfriedman/index.html?inline=nyt-per>

São  Paulo, Brazil

I asked Dr. José Goldemberg, secretary for the environment  for São Paulo 
State and a pioneer of Brazil’s ethanol industry, the obvious  question: 
Is the fact that the U.S. has imposed a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff  to 
prevent Americans from importing sugar ethanol from Brazil “just stupid  
or really stupid.”

Thanks to pressure from Midwest farmers and  agribusinesses, who want to 
protect the U.S. corn ethanol industry from  competition from Brazilian 
sugar ethanol, we have imposed a stiff tariff to  keep it out. We do this 
even though Brazilian sugar ethanol provides eight  times the energy of 
the fossil fuel used to make it, while American corn  ethanol provides 
only 1.3 times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make  it. We do this 
even though sugar ethanol reduces greenhouses gases more than  corn 
ethanol. And we do this even though sugar cane ethanol can easily be  
grown in poor tropical countries in Africa or the Caribbean, and could  
actually help alleviate their poverty.

Yes, you read all this right.  We tax imported sugar ethanol, which could 
finance our poor friends, but we  don’t tax imported crude oil, which 
definitely finances our rich enemies.  We’d rather power anti-Americans 
with our energy purchases than promote  antipoverty.

“It’s really stupid,” answered Dr. Goldemberg.

If I  seem upset about this, I am. Development and environmental experts 
have long  searched for environmentally sustainable ways to alleviate 
rural poverty —  especially for people who live in places like Brazil, 
where there is a  constant temptation to log the Amazon. Sure, ecotourism 
and rain forest soap  are nice, but they never really scale. As a result, 
rural people in Brazil  are always tempted go back to logging or farming 
sensitive  areas.

Ethanol from sugar cane could be a scalable, sustainable  alternative — 
if we are smart and get rid of silly tariffs, and if Brazil is  smart and 
starts thinking right now about how to expand its sugar cane  biofuel 
industry without harming the environment.

The good news is  that sugar cane doesn’t require irrigation and can’t 
grow in much of the  Amazon, because it is too wet. So if the Brazilian 
sugar industry does  realize its plan to grow from 15 million to 25 
million acres over the next  few years, it need not threaten the Amazon.

However, sugar cane farms are  located mostly in south-central Brazil, 
around São Paulo, and along the  northeast coast, on land that was carved 
out of drier areas of the Atlantic  rain forest, which has more different 
species of plants and animals per acre  than the Amazon. Less than 7 
percent of the total Atlantic rain forest  remains — thanks to sugar, 
coffee, orange plantations and cattle  grazing.

I flew in a helicopter over the region near São Paulo, and what  I saw 
was not pretty: mansions being carved from forested hillsides near the  
city, rivers that have silted because of logging right down to the  
banks, and wide swaths of forest that have been cleared and will never  
return.

“It makes you weep,” said Gustavo Fonseca, my traveling  companion, a 
Brazilian and the executive vice president of Conservation  
International. “What I see here is a totally human dominated system in  
which most of the biodiversity is gone.”

As demand for sugar ethanol  rises — and that is a good thing for Brazil 
and the developing world, said  Fonseca, “we have to make sure that the 
expansion is done in a planned  way.”

Over the past five years, the Amazon has lost 7,700 square miles a  year, 
most of it for cattle grazing, soybean farming and palm oil. A similar  
expansion for sugar ethanol could destroy the cerrado, the Brazilian  
savannah, another incredibly species-rich area, and the best place in  
Brazil to grow more sugar.

A proposal is floating around the  Brazilian government for a major 
expansion of the sugar industry, far beyond  even the industry’s plans. 
No wonder environmental activists are holding a  conference in Germany 
this fall about the impact of biofuels. I could see  some groups one day 
calling for an ethanol boycott — à la genetically  modified foods — if 
they feel biofuels are raping the environment.

We  have the tools to resolve these conflicts. We can map the lands that 
need  protection for their biodiversity or the environmental benefits 
they provide  rural communities. But sugar farmers, governments and 
environmentalists need  to sit down early — like now — to identify those 
lands and commit the money  needed to protect them. Otherwise, we will 
have a fight over every acre, and  sugar ethanol will never realize its 
potential. That would be really, really  stupid.


Copyright 2006  
<http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html> The New  
York Times Company <http://www.nytco.com/>


----------------------------------------------------
Gay  Nicholson, Ph.D. 

607-533-7312 (home office)
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gaynicholson at aol.com

Sustainable Tompkins 
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