There are many misconceptions about ethanol and Brazil. The letter to the editor, "Cutting down rainforests to grow biofuels may be self-defeating" (Feb. 8), decrying the "hoopla" in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's excellent Feb. 5 feature, takes the mainstream America view of world environmental problems: that they are caused by selfish foreign countries, while we Americans are the guardians of the globe.
To link ethanol to the rainforest is inaccurate. The Amazon basin is one-half of Brazil's territory. Sugar cane for ethanol is not grown there, but in the savannah (cerrado), which constitutes most of the remaining half. The savannah, not the Amazon, is Brazil's agricultural powerhouse, but only half of it is under cultivation. Without even considering the Amazon, Brazil has the land to feed itself and much of the rest of the world and still produce biofuels.
"Rainforest" has become an American code word for dodging our own responsibility for the globe's environmental woes. We speak of the forest as "the lungs of the world," the global filter for greenhouse gases. But where do those gases come from? Not much from Brazil, not when compared to the United States. One state alone, California, emits more than all of Brazil. Is Brazil obligated to maintain its forest, at its own expense, as a filter system for the fallout from American consumerism, especially when the United States rejects international environmental initiatives, such as Kyoto?
When we are so arrogant, we cannot claim the tropical forests as "ours." The only rainforest that is "ours" is the Pacific Northwest, the world's largest temperate rainforest, which has long been given over to logging interests. Forgetting the "rain" part, we began leveling our eastern forests centuries ago. But that was then and this is now, and Brazil is being asked to do as we say, not as we did.
Brazil is in fact doing a great deal to preserve the Amazon. But it is an area equal to most of the western United States. How would we do if we had to patrol all of our western mountains, deserts and forests for poachers and squatters, even with satellites, infrared images and aircraft, as Brazil does? It's not so easy, and Brazil deserves support for what it is doing, not criticism.
Americans who follow the "rainforest" line when it comes to biofuels are buying into the "hoopla" of the American petroleum and corn industries, which have long shown themselves to be no friends of the environment. Domestic corn ethanol is a zero-sum game. Corn ethanol yields almost no net energy gain over the energy required to produce it, almost all of which comes from petroleum. Petroleum is simply being converted into ethanol, which is profitable only because of the 54-cent-per-gallon taxpayer-financed subsidy and the 51-cent-per-gallon import tariff. Brazilian cane ethanol, on the other hand, yields eight times the net energy of corn and requires only one-half the planted area.
Cane ethanol is a clean, renewable alternative fuel that could greatly benefit Florida, the United States and the globe. To share in the benefits, however, we must import it, as shown in the Sun-Sentinel's feature. Furthermore, under Gov. Charlie Crist's proposals, Florida could greatly benefit by becoming the ethanol import hub.
We Americans are blinded in our headlong rush to consume ever more and to bend the rest of the world to our "needs." We should slow down, face reality and employ all available means, principally reduction of consumption but also measures such as alternative fuels, to lessen our aggression against the globe.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-forum18ethanolsbfeb18,0,3858998.story
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