[Cross-post from the Biofuels-biz list.] Mark,
Well, my post certain punched a lot of your buttons. I appreciate your taking the time to reply so passionately. As should be obvious by now, I am not familiar with the homebrewing community beyond the few individuals I know regionally who make BD and my own as yet unrealized pretensions towards making my own fuel for a while now. I agree with you that homebrewers, small producers, and large producers have different agendas and (possibly) overlapping interests. I am sure you read my posts carefully Mark, so you know that I never suggested homebrewers “give anything up to a representative, or a representative organization.” In fact, I said specifically that most homebrewers would probably not be interested in belonging to a “biodiesel association,” and that no such association could ever replace local ties. I also NEVER said anything about, as you put it, “unagreed-to representatives, etc!), so please, no matter how agitated you feel, try to refrain from setting up straw men. My focus is really more on independent producers who are making a (small) business of biodiesel. But, my point is that everyone, homebrewers included, are affected by regulations, taxes, and so on, and that giving a voice to these concerns that would be heard by those who set regulations and taxes might be a good idea. You don’t have to sell me on the merits of decentralized networks, neighborhood-scale projects, and empowered community members. I work with those every day. But you may need to sell some individuals in power on those concepts if you are worried about them messing things up. Since you express great concern over government regulation of homebrewers, and rightly so, how do you plan to let policy-makers know that you want to be left the f*#k alone? I would suggest that (unfortunately) posts to this forum are not going to do it. Mark, you wrote, “and I know for a fact that many of the homebrewers don't have the time, nor enough in common as individuals, to waste time forming lobbying organizations or whatnot.” I certainly can’t gainsay that. But I wonder if you have enough in common as homebrewers to see to your collective interest as homebrewers (i.e. the right to continue homebrewing uninfringed by pesky laws and regulations. The possible organization and regulation you are agonizing about is not a new phemonenon; it happened to people who built and flew the early airplanes; to those in the nascent radio broadcasting industry; to the original organic farmers. Adoption of technology goes through phases, and if something becomes more lucrative as a business, more people will enter and want (or get without wanting) regulation, standards, etc. Personally, I would be happy to see homebrewers go on doing their thing, unaffected by these changes. Sadly, I doubt that is likely. The anecdotes you have related bolster that view. WRT certification, although I didn’t say so specifically, I was actually thinking about third-party, private-sector (nonprofit) certification, not a government program. When I mentioned organic certification I was thinking of Oregon Tilth, CCOF, etc., not USDA organic standards. What happened to organics was lamentable, but I think it had less to do with poor government than it did with the fact that the proposed regs were developed at a time when agribusiness (General Mills, ADM, Birdseye) was realizing the huge growth potential in organic foods and was jumping into the market with both feet. The standards proposed in ’98 reflected their interests (and those of corporate farms), more than it did the pioneers of organics. What is interesting was the reaction. USDA received more public comments (over a half a million IIRC), way more than any federal agency had ever received on any proposed standards. How did this happen? It happened because these voices of the public were focused through the efforts of, yup, organizations—food cooperatives, environmental organizations, local farm and agriculture organizations. They got the word out and got it out well. Now, in part, this reflected the effectiveness of diffused networks of activists and interested consumers. But it also reflected a LOT of hard work by formal organizations. Back to certification. I come from a background studying certification and labeling, mostly of forest products and food. I don’t know if certification and labeling would work for biodiesel, whether or not it would be a good idea, what the effect on consumer behavior would be. I threw it out as a possibility. The thing is, I don’t think anyone else knows either, including you and Keith. No one has done (to my knowledge, and I’d love to be wrong on this ‘cause I like hard data) market research on how consumers make choices on alternative fuels for their automobiles, what influencing their decision-making, how risk-averse they are, and so on. I originally stated that I thought they are risk-averse and Keith asserted the opposite. I hope he’s right. But we really don’t know. I do know that, generally speaking, labeling and brand identification does a lot for marketing and consumer acceptance, and that consumers like standardization (hence part of the popularity of MacDonalds, Starbucks, etc.). Certification is one way to build a brand. Finally, an issue implicit in all these discussions is whether fostering widespread social change can be accomplished more effectively from the bottom-up (or out) or from the top-down. Or whether it can be done both ways contemporaneously, and whether or not that requires cooperation from the two sides. I really don’t know what the answer is for biodiesel. Regards, thor Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
