The Royal Society - cloth-eared numpties

Nature Climate Feedback reports on the Royal Society's pronouncements on the looming biofuels disaster.

When it comes to lowering greenhouse gas emissions, the report points out, there are biofuels and biofuels. That is, while some plant fuel sources promise as much as 80% greenhouse gas savings over fossil fuels, it's also possible to keep trashing the planet by using unsustainable methods to produce and supply renewable fuels. Unless the UK sets emissions targets per se in its fuel policy, warns the report, the new UK rules and the EU Biofuels Directive that they reflect "will do more for economic development and energy security than combating climate change".

Splendid. So what are the eminences grises at Britain's premier scientific society proposing we do about it?

[T]o ensure that biofuels are sustainable, says the report, you have to monitor carbon absorption and emission - along with other environmental and socioeconomic impacts - along the entire supply chain, starting in the crop field and ending at the tailpipe.

Now the total of the "environmental and socioeconomic impacts" is big-important-scientist-speak for a concept which you and I know as the PRICE. Regular readers here will have picked up on this remarkable tool before, but for the uninitiated-but-still-jolly-clever denizens of the RS, I'll give you a clue. You can find out the PRICE by telephoning someone called a SALESMAN. He will give you the number you are after. (But remember to ask for the PRICE rather than the "total of the environmental and socioeconomic impacts along the whole supply chain". Firstly it's quicker, and secondly he's less likely to call you a "cloth-eared numpty". Or worse.)

So, having put the cloth-eared numpties right, it's worth pointing out that, no matter how daft a bureaucratic scheme our scientists can come up with...the EU can get there first:

In the runup to the Royal Society report, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told the BBC that the EU recognized the problem and intended to introduce just such a monitoring scheme.

The whole world's gone mad. 

Comments

[Thortung]

The thing I've never understood about biofuels from rape and other such crops is surely the farm machinery required to plant and harvest it uses more fuel than is obtained from the crop? Or am I being completely dense?