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Saving and restoring forests better for climate than switching to biofuels

A new study in the journal Science ($ub req'd) validates what many have been saying here in Gristmill: Biofuels, especially those from the tropics, are far worse for the planet than regular old crude oil.

The study finds that we could reduce global warming pollution two to nine times more by conserving or restoring forests and grasslands than by razing them and turning them into biofuels plantations -- even if we continue to use fossil fuels as our main source of energy. That's because those forests and grasslands act as the lungs of the planet. Their dense vegetation sucks up far more carbon dioxide and breathes out far more oxygen than any biofuel crop ever could.

When you destroy that wilderness, much of the carbon stored in its living matter is either burned or otherwise oxidized -- which is why the destruction of tropical forests accounts for more than 20 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions (more than China produces). Meanwhile, we'd be saving all the creatures that rely on those wildlands for habitat. The scale is huge: replacing even 10 percent of our gas with biofuels would require 43 percent of U.S. arable land.

Are you listening George Soros? What about you, Center for American Progress? And you, Barack Obama?

If you don't have access to Science, here's the free write-up from The New Scientist (and you can take action on this issue here).

If at First You Don’t Succeed, Keep It Pretty Much the Same

U.S. Forest Service re-revises forest-management rules In March, a federal judge put the kibosh on the U.S. Forest Service’s revision of forest-management rules that had directed local managers to give economic concerns as high a priority as ecological health and removed requirements that managers ensure viable populations of native wildlife. Having not succeeded, the agency […]

Except not really

The NYT had an article this weekend that might as well have been titled "Dems Corrupt, Green Companies Gorging on Bonanza of Earmarked Pork and Wasting Your Money."

Really? Let's look at the evidence they present.

Exhibit A is Sunpower Corp, which received a $20 million grant from the DOE. Where did those funds come from? The President's Solar America Initiative, announced in his February 2006 State of the Union address -- which, as I pointed out at the time, merely returned funding for solar research to the levels enjoyed under the Carter administration (a modest $148 million). Hardly a bonanza.

So, here we have a competitively bid project, out of a ridiculously small program that was contained in the president's budget and passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, used as proof that Dems are giving away the house to green companies.

Dems? No. Earmarked? No. Pork? No.

And all of this about a bill that Republicans are fighting and the president has threatened to veto specifically because ... wait for it ... it has the temerity to reduce tax incentives and subsidies to fossil fuel industries!

Your liberal media at work.

And that’s not cool, man

This is a very, very big deal. If nukes have to go offline just when you need them most, that's a huge monkey wrench in plans for a nuclear resurgence.

Given that this much-discussed (if less observed) resurgence centers on precisely those states most likely to suffer crippling heat waves, this is a huge problem for investors. The last thing anyone wants after dropping two big ones ($2B) on a nuke plant is to have to buy juice at more than $100/mWh on the spot market during a heat wave.

Given the likely temperature trends that we've already unleashed, this is bad news; without air conditioning, most of the South is already damn near uninhabitable; if we use more coal to make the A/C work, then we're not just shooting ourselves in both feet -- we're heading north at that point, blasting away.

That’s One Way to Highlight Shrinkage

Some 600 nudes pose on receding Swiss glacier Giving climate-change awareness an infusion of sex appeal and highlighting the issue of glacial melt, Greenpeace teamed up with photographer Spencer Tunick over the weekend to bring together 600 volunteers for a nude photo shoot on Switzerland’s Aletsch Glacier. “People posing on the glacier, it’s like they […]

There’s Cash in Them There Fires

Oil fires in Nigeria can be source of cash for impoverished residents Some residents in Nigeria’s oil-rich river delta have resorted to setting fires to an oil pipeline to force companies like Shell to pay citizens to enter the area to put out the fire. One of the most recent blazes, which was extinguished only […]

Back to Mystery Meat

Organic-lunch project pulled out of Chicago elementary school A school-lunch chef has pulled his Organic School Project out of a Chicago elementary school after district officials balked at his plans to expand the program to more schools. The first and only organic meal program in the nation’s third-largest school district had also provided Alcott Elementary […]

Unable to Flush With Success

Sanitation a big problem worldwide, says U.N. The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation, but we won’t wait until then to ply you with depressing statistics: One-third of the global population has no access to a toilet. In 38 African countries, more children under the age of 5 die from diarrhea […]

They’re still common, but they make no sense

A little while back I praised Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for opposing new coal plants in his home state. Now he’s clarified his position: he opposes new coal plants anywhere in the world. Word. One grumpy note. Look at this: Michael Yackira, president and chief executive officer of Sierra Pacific Resources, said his […]

Umbra on community-supported agriculture

Umbra, Please illuminate CSAs for us, how they work, and how your readers can join one. Thanks! (And by the way, that photo of a peach in your recent column is an apricot.) Bobbe Santa Fe, N.M. Dearest Bobbe, Alas for stone-fruit misidentification. Hopefully corrected by the time this question hits the screen, but still. […]