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[BlasterBates]

Doctors Warn that Biofuel Could Cause Mass Deaths Around the World

[DimPrawn]

Doctors Warn that Biofuel Could Cause Mass Deaths Around the World

But if we don't rape the rainforests to grow crops for biofuels and let millions of people starve, then in 1000's of years time it might be a tiny bit warmer, and then we'd all be dead if we kept our jumpers on?

[pjclarke]

95% of the internet is tulip

'Doctor's warn'. Or do they? This is based on an article on the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JPANDS). Sounds like a legitimate source, but here is the wiki entry...

The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is not listed in major academic literature databases such as MEDLINE/PubMed[37] nor the Web of Science.[38] The National Library of Medicine declined repeated requests from AAPS to index the journal, citing unspecified concerns.[3] Articles and commentaries published in the journal have argued a number of non-mainstream or scientifically discredited claims,[3] including:

* that the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are unconstitutional;[39]
* that "humanists" have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution;[40]
* that human activity has not contributed to climate change, and that global warming will be beneficial and thus not a cause for concern;[41]
* that HIV does not cause AIDS;[42][43]
* that the "gay male lifestyle" shortens life expectancy by 20 years.[44]

Hmmmm. That said, there is a grain of truth ... first generation biofuels have been pretty much a disaster and Greens have been warning that this would be the case since at least 2004.

Most of the blame lies with AgriBusiness, the EU bureacracy and the US Government, George Bush especially set ambitious targets for the adoption of bioethanol as a way of further subsidising his mates in the oil industry. If you account properly for all the energy costs required to make the stuff from the oil-based fertilisers through to the energy needed to run the refineries, 1st generation biofuels actually consume more energy than they release, so canny oil companies have been reprofiling themselves as 'green energy' producers and investing hundreds of millions of $ in R&D and their production.

Second gen fuels from non-food crops, crop residues and waste show more promise, tho.