Opinion: is growing biofuel crops a crime against humanity?

Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining - Tập 2 Số 2 - Trang 97-99 - 2008
John A. Mathews1
1Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia

Tóm tắt

AbstractThere has been much hyperbole voiced against biofuels of late. At the end of October the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, stated at a press conference in New York that it was ‘a crime against humanity to divert arable land to the production of crops which are then burned for fuel’. These sentiments were then echoed by George Monbiot, in The Guardian, when he claimed, amongst other things, that ‘biofuels could kill more people than the Iraq war’.The oil lobby must be rubbing its hands with glee. Never in over a century of destructive use of fossil fuels have such charges been leveled against the internal combustion engine and the fossil fuels burnt that are actually creating the problem of global warming. Instead it is the potentially clean substitutes that are attracting all the opprobrium. © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

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Tài liệu tham khảo

LedererE UN expert calls biofuels ‘crime against humanity’Live Science October 27 2007 available at:http://www.livescience.com/environment/071027‐ap‐biofuel‐crime.html [December 10 2007].

MonbiotG An agricultural crime against humanity.The Guardian November 6 2007 available at:http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/11/06/an‐agricultural‐crime‐against‐humanity/[December 10 2007].

Swaziland spots seeds of recovery in biofuel plant The Raw Story July 29 2007 available at:http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Swaziland_spots_seeds_of_recovery_i_07292007.html[December 10 2007].

Swaziland: food or biofuel seems to be the question IRIN October 25 2007 available at:http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74987 [December 10 2007].

DuggerC Ending famine simply by ignoring the experts.New York Times December 2 2007 available at:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/world/africa/02malawi.html[December 10 2007].

Malawi's super harvest proves biofuel critics wrong –or how to beat hunger and produce more oil than OPEC Biopact December 4 2007 available at:http://biopact.com/2007/12/malawis‐super‐harvest‐proves‐anti.html[December 10 2007].

CrutzenPJ MosierAR SmithKAandWiniwarterW N2O release from agro‐biofuel production negates global warming reduction by replacing fossil fuels Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions7 pp11191–11205.http://www.atmos‐chem‐phys‐discuss.net/7/11191/2007/acpd‐7‐11191‐2007.pdf [December 10 2007].

10.1038/447143a

The agronomic advantages of Brazil in biofuels is widely acknowledged and discussed; see the WorldWatch Institute reportBiofuels for transport: global potential and implications for sustainable agriculture and energy in the21stcentury:http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5316[December 10 2007].

10.1016/j.enpol.2007.02.011

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Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining

Tập 2 Số 2

97-99

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