Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Feb 10, 2008, at 11:13 AM, EarthNSky wrote:

> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?em&ex=1202706000&en=d42cfa6f14c01268&ei=5087

I read that. For those who did not, here's the essence:

Together the two studies offer sweeping conclusions: It does not  
matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared, the  
greenhouse gas contribution is significant. More important, they  
discovered that, taken globally, the production of almost all biofuels  
resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new lands  
being cleared, either for food or fuel.

“When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are  
using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses  
substantially,” said Timothy Searchinger, lead author of one of the  
studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton  
University. “Previously there’s been an accounting error: land use  
change has been left out of prior analysis.”