Noble, neat and wrong

"For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong" (H.L. Mencken).

Take biofuels, for instance. As a solution to greenhouse emissions and the salvation of the universe, it sounded so good, so noble, so elegant. So Congress jumped on it like a duck on a june-bug and passed a bill last December mandating huge increases of the stuff. It was a political freebie: it made the environmental lobby happy, and conferred eternal job security on the agricultural industry. Farmers would make corn and lawmakers would make hay, and all would be right with the world.

Turns out the bill wasn't fueled by science so much as popular political winds. The studies touting benefits of growing more corn, soy, and grasses to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and our dependence on fossil fuel neglected to factor land use into the equation. 25% of U.S. corn now goes to make ethanol. Since we still need corn for eating, and for feeding cows to make meat, we need to find the extra land somewhere, and we're cutting down forests to get it.

When you cut down forests, you're burning up all that carbon stored in the soil, and releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere --- more than you're diminishing by using ethanol in your automobile's tank.

Tim Searchinger of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson school says "For every mile you drive with biofuel, you're actually doubling greenhouse gas emissions." Put that in your car and smoke it.