As the horrendous effects of climate change collide head on with our planet, millions around the world suffer through floods, tsunamis, earth quakes, and droughts. It is our responsibility to restore our planet in peril, if not for the sake of our beautiful earth, for its current and future inhabitants. The restorative measures which we take must be calculated with prudence and creativity, but always through an emphasis that puts precedent on earth’s residents. Biofuels have quickly become a popular response towards offsetting our addiction to oil. Its development and promotion, however, has ignored this modis operandi, while its benefits offset by its detrimental impacts to human life and our planet.
Their impacts on farming have been tragically felt by abandoned fishing communities in the Gulf of Mexico. Farm lands used to raise corn for ethanol are located near rivers tributary to the Mississippi River. In order to mass produce corn more fertilizers and pesticides are required. These are eventually carried into the Mississippi River and discharged into the Gulf of Mexico. These foreign chemicals cause “Dead Zone” due to increased Nitrate levels. These “dead zones” are stripped of oxygen, and nothing is allowed to live. The online science article in How Stuff Works, explains that these pollutants contain phosphorus and nitrogen, which are excellent food for algae. The 2007 dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the largest since measurements began in 1985. It was mapped at around 7,900 square miles -- bigger than several U.S. states.
Not only are biofuels harmful to the social structure of human life, but they are also dangerous to our environment, leading to deforestation and an imbalanced agronomy. In Indonesia alone, 44 million acres of forest have been razed to make way for production of palm oil an ethanol biofuel based product. Deforestation has also sucked aquifers dry and increased the use of fertilizers and agrichemicals. Farmers eager to...