Articles by Biodiversivist

‘Biodiesel’ is looking worse and worse

An example of a long-lived and wildly successful marketing scheme is the station wagon with oversize tires and a four-wheel drive transmission, repackaged as the Sport Utility Vehicle. The only significant difference between these and the cars our parents drove is the mental image planted in our heads by marketing. And the real beauty is that you get to pick from two images:

1. People envy you for having enough disposable income and leisure time to use your car for sport, skiing in the mountains or driving down the middle of your favorite trout stream to do a little fly-fishing.
2. People envy you for owning such a utilitarian vehicle, one befitting a rugged individualist who hauls tools and supplies to job sites (the Marlboro Man).

The glue that binds all this together, of course, is status-seeking behavior -- a genetic propensity for most social primates.

Another wildly successful recent marketing scheme is the word biodiesel. Bio is the Greek root for life: biosphere, biodiversity, and biology. Let's see how well this image of preserving life holds up against the reality of biodiesel.

You take a habitat filled with biodiversity, a forest (temperate/tropical) or grassland (Cerrado/Conservation Reserve), bulldoze and burn all vegetation, plow up the soil, sterilize it with herbicides and insecticides, and finally plant a single genetically modified crop on it. You now have a large flat expanse of land devoid of all life save a single species -- as I have said before, a mall parking lot plus one. The process used to produce the crop is by any definition industrial.

Doing this to produce food is one thing; doing it to feed our cars borders on immoral.

A new subculture has recently sprung up based around biodiesel use. It is a badge of honor (a status symbol) to own a car that runs on biodiesel in this circle, just as a Prius is in other circles. Devotees believe they are sticking it to the man (oil companies). Never mind that oil companies (or companies that look very much like them) will eventually own all biofuel production. As with the SUV, it is based on false marketing from industry televangelists, propagated by believers devoid of critical thought.

Time to cut through the marketing crap and give this fuel a more accurate label: Industrial agrodiesel. We need a new bumper sticker: "Biodiesel: feeding the planet to our cars." And no, I'm not a shill for the bumper sticker oligarchy.

Along with a rambling social commentary

Sicko is Michael Moore's best film yet. It brought tears to my eyes and infuriated me at the same time. I saw it last night with my youngest daughter. Ah, let me think here, how am I going to give this an environmental twist? How about using our pathetic health care system as another example of how dysfunctional our political system has become, the same one we are counting on to protect our biosphere and us from peak oil and global warming?

The film documents how Hillary Clinton was beaten into submission when she tried to reform the system and how even she is now beholden to the industry. And who is to blame for this? Would it be the politicians, the lobbyists, or the ignorant, self-deluded American citizens who allow the lobbyists to buy the politicians because they are terrified of losing their jobs, everything they are paying off, and their health care to boot? All of which is covered in the film, by the way.

Temptation

Just a few days ago I met with a potential client who very much wanted me to design a rural green home on the edge of a wetland. He would have to compensate for the damage the home would do by funding the planting of native flora to help restore another wetland.

I declined even though it would have been interesting and lucrative. I am fully aware that he will just hire someone else and besmirch the wetland anyway. This happens to me on occasion. I refuse to design rural homes or cabins, especially off-grid ones, purely out of a sense of self-righteous indignation. They are sores on the face of the planet. I don't really blame those who are chasing their eco-fantasy, and I don't really blame those who will eventually do the designs for them, I just don't want to participate in the rape of the planet any more than necessary.

But today, I got the following email:

Each country will have to find its own way to carbon neutrality

Thankfully the lay press has finally stopped calling for the United States to follow Brazil's lead for energy independence. The blogosphere took over where the lay press left off on that misdiagnosis, although I still hear the echo once in a while. Turns out, Brazil may be heading for an energy crunch of its own. According to this article in the Economist, Brazil may be experiencing blackouts within five years if the economy grows as predicted.

Because they are fat with rivers, they plan to build more dams, which is one of those damned damned if you do dam, damned if you don't dam situations. Apparently they already get four-fifths of their energy from dams, and there are still lots of rivers to tap. Wind, solar, and geothermal power don't enter the discussion -- I suspect because they are not as cheap.

But then there was this: