Look, folks, I would not have posted the article if I did not think it worthy of this group and of potential interest. I was trained in environment and management at the master's level, and sustainability and the concepts mentioned here are well-established and known, as is the author of the study. My present work in this field is a direct result of the thesis project undertaken for that degree, and that interest in biodiesel and SVO came directly from my interest in renewable resources, recycling, agriculture, economics, air quality, rural economic development, and sustainability. Many people on this list share those interests and in fact are inspired and motivated by them to engage in production and use of biofuels.
The fact that it was published where it was, and the other people on the team (if you take the time to look it up), should tell you something about the credibility of this work. Like any news article, there is more detail behind the scenes and that is easily found by a visit to the web site mentioned. The report mentioned here is part of a body of work and a concept (the "ecological footprint" concept, pioneered by Dr. Bill Rees at the University of British Columbia) There are certain facts of life that you cannot ignore - public policy is made by people in all levels of government, around the world. They are making decisions and setting policy, subsidies, grants, taxes and laws that we will all be living with in the future. They should be educated in the concepts related to this study, and thank goodness they are, through the hard work of people like Wackernagel, Rees and many other well-respected researchers. Biofuels interest is one small piece of this lager puzzle of how we can improve the quality of life for the projected soon-to-be-10 billion human inhabitants of the planet, at the same time we reduce resource demands so that carrying capacity (an ecological concept, also well established) is not exceeded to the point of collapse. Ecosystems can and do collapse. We tend, as humans, to think it cannot happen to us, and a lot of that thinking stems from an economic system that was born in a time of such vast resources that the creators could not and did not include natural systems and resources in the calculations of how it was all to work - they were assumed to be limitless. History tells us they are not, we are rapidly running out of new frontiers to run to, and large-scale mega project technological "fixes" may not be able to bail us out often enough - many have already proven to be catastrophic failures. Suggest some might want to get a little more informed, it might change your views. If you have a scientific, well researched counter-argument, by all means publish it in a peer-reviewed and respected scientific journal and then maybe Reuters will print a small article that others can use tobase attacks upon you without really taking the time to study what they comment on. As they say, there is opinion, and there is informed opinion. Regards, Edward Beggs, BES, MSc http://www.biofuels.ca ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Free $5 Love Reading Risk Free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/3PCXaC/PfREAA/Ey.GAA/9bTolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://www.webconx.com/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
