As We Stand on the Brink of Catastrophe, Bio-Fuels are no Magic Bullet

Having made ethanol into this magic elixir, politicians, financial investors, and the occasional environmental organization are masking the need for far deeper investigation and solutions.

The burgeoning reality of global climate change, rooted in a century of over-consumption of fossil fuels, is merging with another crisis with the same basic root cause–the looming depletion of inexpensive oil and gas supplies (“peak oil”). Combined, they bring the world to an unprecedented and profoundly dangerous moment that threatens global environmental and social crises on an epic scale.

These crises potentially include a breakdown of the most basic operating structures of our society, even industrialism itself, at least at its present scale. Long distance transportation, industrial food systems, complex urban and suburban systems, and many commodities basic to our present way of life–autos, plastics, chemicals, pesticides, refrigeration, et al.–are all rooted in the basic assumption of ever-increasing inexpensive energy supplies.


One would think that such threatening circumstances would bring clear and effective movement from the leaders of national governments, acting on behalf of present and future generations. So far, however, with a few exceptions, the response of most governments has been inadequate to address the scale of the problem. This is particularly the case in the U.S., where government, politicians, and most corporations are still hoping to somehow convert the climate and peak oil crises into a new business opportunity.

We are seeing a lot of scurrying and postulating, as each sector, government, business, and that odd new third sector–presidential candidates–are engaged in a mad rush to identify magic elixirs to solve the energy problem while pushing corporate growth and unabated consumerism. By avoiding reality, they make the problems worse, and real solutions more difficult to achieve. Solutions so far include, for example, desperate grabs for the last remnants of oil and gas supplies, thus the war in Iraq.

AlterNet