Years ago I was balancing a lot of my time as an environmental activist between the Sierra Club, Green Peace, and a local organization called CCAN.  This was about 2002.  My boyfriend at the time – I’ll call him Doug for the sake of privacy - was also an environmentalist, but we approached things with very different views.  In particular, I recall a conversation we had, right before Toyota release the first generation Hybrid.  I was talking about what a true innovation it was, to harness wasted energy and use it to charge a battery.  I said it would be some time before anything trumped this.  I was studying aerospace engineering at the time, and I tended to analyze everything from the engineer’s perspective.  No worries, I’ve since gotten over it.  Doug, ever the pursuer of justice for all, told me that I was wrong.  He explained that his belief was that biofuels would be the true innovator and savior of the Earth and redeem man of his carbon-fixation (a pun for you biochemists out there.)

 

You could not imagine the debate this triggered.  OK…if you’ve read any of my blogs, maybe you CAN believe the debate it triggered ;-)  I told Doug that MY view was that for the world to create enough bio-fuel to reduce it’s carbon emission, well, quite frankly, we’d need a heck of a lot more grain.  He refused my argument that bio-fuels would exacerbate world hunger to a never-seen-before magnitude.  He flat out laughed at me.  Now I’m an optimist, sure, but I deal with my optimism with a heavy-handed dose of reality.  Doug, bless his soul, was/is the incendiary optimist whose passion prevented him from ever having a reality check.  He would ignite into fits of kindness, providing great warmth to all those who surrounded him.  My opinions, alas, we often use used for tinder.

 

Just a few weeks ago I sent Doug an email.  It contained a link to a now-hot debate.  Are Biofuels Responsible for Food Shortage?  The (not surprising to me) answer, is YES.  Doug, unfortunately, can not deny the existence of my arguments as he likes to do, forgetting my brilliance in retrospect.  This particular debate was punctuated not only by a night on the couch (him, not me)…but because I introduced my idea to the members of all three of our local environmental groups.

 

Now of course, this is the sort of crap I hate.  You say something to someone who you think is going to listen and they get a “This blond girl is nuts” look.  I get that a lot.  Like, a WHOLE LOT.  Honestly, I highly suspect that at least half of the time it is undeserved.  Presenting this idea was one of those times.  Yet, sadly, with each group, I was basically told “Nothing is as evil as what greenhouse gases are doing to our Ozone” or it just “will not happen that way.”  The director for CCAN was the only one who ever took me seriously.  I dropped the group not long after; orbital mechanics was stressing me out.  In retrospect I wish I had stayed to force my argument.  But in retrospect I know I stopped studying aerospace engineering anyway, the only time-consumer keeping from my activism.

 

There really is no moral story here.  Wait, I meant no moral to the story.  ;-)  I wanted to introduce something that I believed in long ago (kinda long ago) and was “tush-tushed” away by people I expected to listen.  I got over it.  I found a nice group of people eager to listen to my ideas.  I wrote a personal blog called “101 Ways Business People are Better than Environmentalists.”  That helped to purge the scorn from my system.  That being said, it really is not about my wounded ego, though it is a nice wrapper for my thesis here.  I would like everyone here to understand that there is NO answer to our world’s energy crisis except to reduce consumption.  Biofuels, being “carbon-neutral” are better than fossil fuels, if you only look at the most obvious footprint…the impact of dense hydrocarbons on our atmosphere.  Clearly, if you Google “food shortage” and biofuels, you will see there is more to it.  We are merely trading one resource for another.  Stealing from Peter (sorry Peter) to pay Paul. 

 

I would love input and commentary on this.  I would really like to stay away from politics this time, guys.  So for that reason I am setting comments to “needs approval.”  I hate doing it, but I must.  I will not approve any comment that contains “Bush”, “Republican”, “Hate-monger”, “Capitalist” (no, wait…I approve capitalists), “Democrat”, “Pelosi” (on my blocked list permanently!), and OBAMA.  In any derivative, synonym, Wheel of Fortune-esque, or Mad Lib style.

 

This is me being purposely Non-Political!!