Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Bio Fuels Do More Harm than Good

While many people are touting bio fuels as one of the possible answers to our energy problems, a study by the UN is saying that they may actually do more harm than good. The converting of crops to corn and using this corn to make fuel is causing corn prices to rise and could cause food shortages in developing countries. In China, water is being diverted from people and being used to grow bio fuels. In other developing countries natural forests are being cut down in order to plant bio fuels. In India, people are being told to move off of their land in order to grow 30 million acres of jatropha trees for bio fuels.

People are so desperate for a solutions to energy woes that they actually end up doing more harm than good. Cutting down some of the few forests left in the world so that people can drive their cars cannot possibly have a positive effect on the environment. It is important that we keep developing new technology and spending research dollars on alternative energy but we have to realize that nothing we have developed this far is a good solution. It may take a major scientific breakthrough for us to be able to solve our energy problems and if this does not come I don't see how we can sustain our way of life for the next 100 years without completely destroying the earth.

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