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Eli Witek
CHEM 111


The Trouble With Biofuel

Biofuels are problematic not only because the process may use sources of food in a time when people go hungry, and may actually take more net energy to produce than traditional fuels (two common criticisms), but because, fatally, a handful of multinational corporations (in particular the biotech agriculture industry) have a monopoly over the market. The oligopoly controls the two main sources of the sugars necessary for the seemingly most viable biofuel, bioethanol: corn and sugarcane. Biotech agribusiness can patent plant genetic material-- i.e. seeds-- enabling a few huge companies to control all corn and sugarcane production, which has resulted in genetically modified monocultures that require pesticides and fossil fuel based fertilizers, conveniently made by the same handful of corporations.

Currently, according to the Erosion, Technology, and Concentration Group (which examines the socioeconomic effects of biotechnologies) three companies control 39% of the world market of seeds, and 44% of seeds under intellectual property: Monsanto, Dupont-Pioneer, and Syngenta. Monsanto alone controls 90% of all genetically modified seeds. According a Washington Post article published November 29th, 2009 they are responsible for 93% of all soybeans produced in the U.S. and 80% of all corn. Some perspective on corn production in the U.S. is necessary to fully understand why these statistics currently make biofuel a nightmare proposition.

Corn is in the particular position of being a steadily increasing crop that, paradoxically, farmers sell at a dollar less than what it costs them to grow. Farmers rely on government subsidies to make up the difference; the Farm Subsidy Database calculates “..Corn subsidies in United States totaled $56.2 billion from 1995-2006.” And yet, farmers are forced to squeeze more and more bushels of corn per acre than ever before, creating a flood of cheap corn, mostly from Monsanto’s GMO seeds.

Monsanto, a one-time manufacturer of napalm and Agent Orange, controls these GMO seeds, modified to withstand the insecticide Roundup that they manufacture. Farmers who once saved their seeds over generations now buy their seeds (and pesticides) from Monsanto. Those that do not are vulnerable to lawsuit for patent infringement from seeds that blow into their fields. Even if they have not violated any laws, Monsanto, who can afford it until the farmer is bankrupt, can indefinitely prolong a lawsuit.

The GMO corn and soybeans owned by Monsanto function as raw materials in an industrial food system that obscures what we eat from where it came from. As chronicled by authors like Michael Pollan (The Omnivores Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), the majority of surplus cheap corn is found in our food, where items are overly processed, allowing corporations like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland to siphon away direct profit from the farmer, now less than 1% of the total U.S. population. The meat we eat is by virtue of corn: the industrial meat industry cost effectively feeds chickens and pigs corn as well as salmon and cows (grass eaters). The vast, seemingly irrational state of affairs has been underwritten by the U.S. government for the sake of private profit of agribusiness aristocracy. When the government subsidizes the farmer, they really enable increasing earnings and control for a few private businesses. The U.S. government also subsidizes the sale of ethanol, another boon to the companies.

One of the problems with conceptualizing the argument as food or biofuel is that the same corporations have a firm grip over both. Biofuels in this context are just another way agricultural corporations manipulate a demand for excess crops. The U.S. is the world’s largest producer of ethanol, mostly produced by corn. (Renewable Fuels Association) Clearly, Monsanto has good reason to be heavily invested in biofuel production. In 2007 they entered a 1.5 billion dollar partnership with the German company BASF Ag, the largest chemical company in the world, with the aim of expanding GMO crops to supply the increasing demand for biofuels. (Monsanto.com)

The push for corn as a source of biofuel is not because it is a green alternative, but because that is what the corporations want. Monsanto is just one example of powerful corporate interest (corn is just one example of biomass they are invested in): Syngenta, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Novartis, Tyson (who allied with oil company Conoco-Philips to produce biodiesel from animal fat) ConAgra, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, are just some of the predatory businesses that have converged on biofuel. Biomass as fuel is a problem in a capitalist and oligopolistic market, where powerful companies can patent plant material—patent biomass, essentially---and promote it as a green alternative in fuel to the detriment of people and the environment. Biofuel is touted in a redux of the environmental crisis in 20th century brought about by toxic chemicals and “a better living through chemistry” (DuPont’s one-time motto). Biofuel from bioengineering may seem like a plausible solution, but the leaders in biotechnology are the big corporations.

How actually green, how efficient is bioethanol? First of all, “…growing corn to produce ethanol, according to a 2007 study by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, consumes 200 times more water than the water used to process corn into ethanol.” (http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2251) And according to Michael Pollan,

“…(Corn) consumes tremendous quantities of fossil fuel. Corn receives more synthetic fertilizer than any other crop, and that fertilizer is made from fossil fuels — mostly natural gas. Corn also receives more pesticide than any other crop, and most of that pesticide is made from petroleum.” (http://pollan.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/the-great-yellow-hope/#more-24)

The idea that growing crops out of fossil fuels which you can then make into biofuel to replace fossil fuels is an absurd proposition generated by our agricultural paradox: lots of corn that costs more to make than it is worth.

And are these GM crops even safe?

“In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto’s GM maize.” (http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/three-approved-gmos-linked-to-organ-damage/)

The consequences of monopoly control are by no means limited to the United States. The corporations are multinational, and have the ability to manipulate the global market with far-reaching impact. In a globalized context, corporations like Monsanto have undermined the self-sustainability of local economies. Weighing in on the food or fuel debate, Monsanto claims “…there is virtually no connection to biofuels and these unfortunate shortages around the globe” (Monsanto.com). But according to a leaked report from the World Bank, “…biofuels have forced world food prices up by 75%” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy). While, as Michael Pollan writes in The Omnivores Dilemma “…Since the Nixon administration, farmers in the United States have managed to produce 500 additional calories per person every day (up from 3,300, already substantially more than we need)” (103), the number of people who chronically go hungry has exceeded 1 billion. (U.N. World Food Programme) Food shortages, oil price spikes and biofuel demands have only benefited the corporations: the social justice non-governmental organization GRAIN reports “…for 2007, Cargill's profits increased 36%; Archer Daniels Midland's by 67 %; ConAgra by 30%; Bunge's by 49%; and Dreyfus's profits in the last quarter of 2007 grew by 77%. Monsanto's profits increase was 44% over 2006 and Dupont-Pioneer's 19%.” (http://alainet.org/active/23996)

Empirical science ignores the larger context of biofuel creation and is open to some degree of manipulation. Private biotech companies fund and present research as they see fit (which is why we hear about the energy efficiency of converting corn to ethanol, and not the extreme inefficiency in the process of growing corn). When agribusinesses successfully lobby the government to promote ethanol, they are bending public perception away from the very serious issues concerning the larger picture of biofuel production in the current situation; namely, biofuels will only benefit them.




Livejournal gets mad if I try and put in my works cited. So, sorry.

Here is a book report I wrote on this. Disclaimer: I kind of recommend the book actually, since it does a good job of pointing out how far from "nature" we are in the classroom.

Eli Witek
GES 390
Last Child In the Woods

Author Richard Louv provides a heartfelt if flawed case for the necessary existence of what we refer to as ‘nature’ in the growth of a child in the United States in his book Last Child In the Woods, published 2005. His argumentation style presents his position as commonsensical, which unfortunately doesn’t allow for a clear elucidation and assessment of the opinions held by dissenters. Without counter-arguments, the author comes off as if he is preaching to the choir. Louv also overly relies on nostalgia and cheesy imagined scenes, and thus undermines his strongest point--the need for nature in human existence--which is further undermined by being presented as obvious. In addition, Louv manages to quite thoroughly describe what he calls a ‘nature-deficit disorder’ without truly examining the underlying causes. The purposes of the book seem to be more oriented towards convincing the general public of the authenticity of a link between our current problems (obesity, ADD, depression) and our increasing disconnection from the environment, than examining the disconnection itself. Louv argues that this disconnection is a disease, while discussing and proposing solutions that only address the symptoms (disease indicators). Without a closer analysis, the book and Louv’s position feels massively lacking, arranged (such as it is) in alternating statistics, anecdotes, and blanket unquestioned assertions.

Ultimately, Louv’s points are entirely colored by traditional Western, Christian beliefs, which suspiciously poke out of the corners of otherwise coherent arguments until the last section in the book, where Louv finally extends his argument from necessity of human-nature connection to encompass the usual, and ill-advised, notion of ‘God.’ Here is his real thesis: “We cannot care for God if we do not care for his creation.” (299) By presenting the above as an unquestioned fact, he is almost, but not quite, saying that we cannot care for nature if we do not care for God. Like many believers, Louv is unable envision a world in which the absence of a God character (used virtually interchangeably with the term ‘spirituality’) does not immediately dissolve ones morals, identity, and connection to the world. He quotes ecologist Gary Paul Nabhan, “‘Science is the human endeavor in which we are frequently reminded how wrong we can be.’ If scientists rely only on reason, then ‘our work has no meaning. It needs to be placed in some spiritual context.’” Louv begins a new paragraph and writes, “So does the environment. Children are the key.” (303) Louv commits the logical fallacy ‘begging the question,’ which follows a line of reasoning whereby a conclusion is claimed, or assumed, and is therefore true. Obviously, just assuming something is true does not provide evidence that it is. The fact that one fellow happens to think science is meaningless without a spiritual dimension is not a proof that either he or the author are correct in this assumption. One would imagine than anyone buying the idea of God in the first place would think anything without spiritual context is meaningless.

Another example of Louv’s leaps in logic is his attribution of the radical difference in the way children now experience nature to a kind of technological anti-naturism. Blaming technology oversimplifies our society’s’ trajectory—a “bad habits” argument that fails to actually question why we have arrived where we are, which also nicely avoids blaming anyone specifically while blaming almost everyone generally. From the onset, Louv is as vague on what nature actually is as he is on why, exactly, we have engendered such a de-natured society: “For the purposes of this book, when I use the word ‘nature’ in a general way I mean natural wildness: biodiversity, abundance --- related loose parts in a backyard or a rugged mountain ridge. Most of all, nature is reflected in our capacity for wonder. Nasci. To be born.” (8) Although we instinctually “know” what nature is, what Louv is referring to, perhaps it is that very assumption of knowing that needs to be examined; after all, our assumptions are what have led us to our present societal disconnect.

And, what, exactly, do those last three lines mean? “Most of all”—so, most importantly-- “nature is reflected in our capacity for wonder.” Nature is understood in our human centric terms, for what it inspires in us, which seems like another disconnect from the actual ‘nature.’ Nasci is Latin, often used in the full phrase nascor, nasci, natus- to be born, to spring forth. Louv employs weak sentimentality to contend that the way we can reconnect with nature is through rekindling our wonder and admiration of being born, of our origins. At the very least, Louv is revealing how the distinction between the human and the natural world is part of the fundamental structure of our language. But Louv’s actual point behind his emphasis on wonder and birth in solving our broken relations with the world is revealed through the words of the religious environmentalist Paul Gorman in Louv’s final section; “(The future is) about awakening to creation… The most important thing is the awakening. That joy of awakening and discovery is what it’s like to be a child.” (302) In the middle of quotes by Gorman, Louv says, “Through nature, the species is introduced to transcendence, in the sense that there is something more going on than the individual. Most people are either awakened to or are strengthen in their spiritual journey by experiences in the natural world.” (302) The statement is not put in terms of what Paul Gorman believes, or even the author’s own opinion, but rather presented as simple fact. The implication is that not only are the non-religious not truly connected to nature, but that if only they were, they would of course be ‘awakened to their spiritual journey.’ Maybe this would not be such an issue if Louv gave an explanation of what spirituality actually is, for him (at least within the book) rather than using it in a way that is interchangeable with “connection to nature” and belief in God. Spirituality does not necessarily equate to transcendence, and contrariwise, transcendence does not have to be tied to spirituality, and neither must hew to traditional Western conceptions of a deity. Like the term ‘nature,’ an exact definition of ‘spiritual’ is elusive and easily malleable to suit purposes and philosophies. Louv is remiss in utilizing this term without at least acknowledging its tricky, multi-faceted character.

Louv continues to demonstrate a continuance of Western ideology and the incredibly familiar, deeply ingrained, and religiously based, hierarchy imposed by religion. The collected history of Occidental Christian thought has instilled the basic perception that humans are experiencing the world in a way that is superior to all other things (and not even all humans, just white men), which is not only an obvious source of our disconnection from nature, but also serves and has served as the justification for many kinds of oppression throughout the whole of human existence. Louv’s own ingrained human/nature divide is evidenced when he, talking about educational programs that incorporate the natural world, abruptly wonders: “What message will the students take home about human involvement in nature? Will they learn that humans have always shaped nature in order to sustain it, in order to survive? This question is at the heart of the future of environmentalism.” (233) Here is another statement that appears virtually out of nowhere - this time smack in the middle of a pile of anecdotes. Louv’s seemingly innocuous wondering obscures his basic assumption that humans and nature are two separate things.

Even for beloved Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, humans are the only being to substantially alter the world:

“Considering the whole span of earthly of earthly time, the opposite effect, in which life actually modifies its surroundings, has been relatively slight. Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species—man—acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.” (Carson, The State and Nature, 236)

The fact that she is writing from 1962 should only shock one at how, even less than 50 years ago, almost everything in the Western world was determined in terms of and through the eyes of, men. And even though Carson is telling a cautionary tale, the quote reveals our ingrained collective assumption of uniqueness. We often involuntarily ignore that all creatures alter their environment in order to sustain it, and in order to survive. The fact that we were much quicker at altering things hardly seems like an indication of our superiority, especially as it seems to have been generally for the worse. We only see through our limited eyes, and with our limited sense of time. And of course, the Bible tells us that the earth is 10,000 years old, and God created the bunny rabbits just as they are now. The earth then is not conceived of as dynamic and forever changing, of which we are just a part, but as a static resource, God-given. There are traditionally only two choices: humans may abuse the earth (nature) as they see fit, or they assume stewardship. In his afterword, written in 2008, Louv makes it clear that the idea of stewardship, for him, is not far away from that of ownership. Pulling on heartstrings with an anecdote about an old rancher: “And then the man began to cry. Despite his embarrassment, he continued to speak, describing the source of his sudden grief---that he might belong to one of the last generations of Americans to feel that sense of ownership of land and nature.” (Notes from the Field 357)

When we consider ‘nature’ or ‘the world’ in traditional Western terms we are subconsciously distancing humans from all other living things, sorting ourselves into one category and everything else into another. Humans and nature become an I/Other relationship, where humans are of course the “I” and the “Other” is not-I. Although Othering does not necessarily equate to oppression, it often provides the basic justification. To define ourselves by what we are not has gone hand in hand, historically, with baseless suppositions on what is superior and what is inferior, the latter of which is presumed to not deserve the same privileges as the former, and moreover, actually deserves to be exploited.

Louv quotes Jennifer Wolch, who actually examines this issue of the human/nature as a false dichotomy, and deserves to be quoted in full (along with Louv’s response):

“‘Agreement about the human/animal divide has recently collapsed,” she writes. “Critiques of post-Enlightenment science have undermined claims of human-animal discontinuity, and exposed the deeply anthropocentric and androcentric roots of modernist science. Greater understanding of animal thinking and capabilities now reveals the astonishing range and complexity of animal behavior and social life, while studies of human biology and behavior emphasize the similarity of humans to other animals. Claims about human uniqueness have thus been rendered deeply suspicious.’

“Some of us, myself included, are less comfortable with a total rearrangement of the relationship. We’re not quite ready to pass laws requiring equal housing for possums.” (249)

Like those who make the argument that legalizing gay marriage will lead to people marrying donkeys and rocks, Louv is being dismissive and reductive. When he finally invokes God five chapters later, Louv degenerates into improvable patter and sentimental claptrap. When Mister Rogers, of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, tells the author’s young son that Mother Earth and God are kind of like your mom and dad, Louv attempts to defend this useless and ridiculous story by saying “Maybe this statement isn’t exactly politically correct (what about single parents?) But it worked for Matthew. Then Mister Rogers said something so quietly only my son could hear, and Matthew smiled.” (306) Even besides the fact that this story only contains a thin metaphor about Earth and God and tells us exactly nothing about anything he’s been talking about, Louv forgets about kids with gay parents, kids with a lot of parents, few parents, no parents, and any other possible way there is to be in a family.

While I appreciate and actually agree with Louv’s greatest point—leave no child left inside---his arguments were all too often based on faulty reasoning, assumed paradigms, and touchy-feely appeals to emotion.

Officials of China’s 637,001 villages seem especially prone to excess regulatory zeal. Until being overruled by higher-ups in 2005, for instance, officials of a village in Chongqing forced unmarried women to pass a chastity test before receiving compensation for farmland appropriated by the government. They argued that only virgins deserved compensation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/world/asia/26salute.html?pagewanted=2&ref=world