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Post by marchesarosa on Apr 19, 2011 8:47:04 GMT 1
www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/biofuels-policy-may-kill-200000-per-year-in-the-third-world-118770124.html Biofuels Policy May Kill 200,000 Per Year in the Third WorldTUCSON, Ariz., March 28, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — U.S. and European policy to increase production of ethanol and other biofuels to displace fossil fuels is supposed to help human health by reducing “global warming.” Instead it has added to the global burden of death and disease. Increased production of biofuels increases the price of food worldwide by diverting crops and cropland from feeding people to feeding motor vehicles. Higher food prices, in turn, condemn more people to chronic hunger and “absolute poverty” (defined as income less than $1.25 per day). But hunger and poverty are leading causes of premature death and excess disease worldwide. Therefore, higher biofuel production would increase death and disease. Research by the World Bank indicates that the increase in biofuels production over 2004 levels would push more than 35 million additional people into absolute poverty in 2010 in developing countries. Using statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Indur Goklany estimates that this would lead to at least 192,000 excess deaths per year, plus disease resulting in the loss of 6.7 million disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) per year. These exceed the estimated annual toll of 141,000 deaths and 5.4 million lost DALYs that the World Health Organization attributes to global warming. Thus, developed world policies intended to mitigate global warming probably have increased death and disease in developing countries rather than reducing them. Goklany also notes that death and disease from poverty are a fact, whereas death and disease from global warming are hypothetical. Thus, the biofuel remedy for global warming may be worse than the disease it purports to alleviate. The paper also shows that based on the World Health Organization’s latest estimates of death and disease from global warming and 23 other global health risk factors (for the year 2004), global warming should be ranked last or second last, depending on whether the criterion used is the burden of disease or death. Policies that subsidize or mandate biofuels benefit neither Mother Earth nor humanity. Here is the paper itself by Indur Goklany published last month in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. www.jpands.org/vol16no1/goklany.pdf
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Post by marchesarosa on May 21, 2011 13:57:29 GMT 1
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Post by marchesarosa on May 23, 2011 13:08:40 GMT 1
German “Green” Biogas Plants Producing Deadly Botulism - “Could Be Catastrophic To Wildlife”By P Gosselin on 19. Mai 2011 German sporting and dog magazine Wild und Hund reports that thousands of domestic and wild animals are falling ill from tainted waste from green “climate-friendly” biogas plants, which is then used as an agricultural fertilizer in fields "Wild und Hund" has put out a press release announcing a report appearing in its latest issue, now available at news stands today. The Wild und Hund press release reads as follows (slight editing added for international readers): DEATH FROM THE BIOGAS PLANT – CHRONIC BOTULISM There’s been a terrible suspicion for years. The residue from biogas plants that produce “clean” green electricity is causing a deadly disease among domestic and wild animals, and humans - chronic botulism. Wild und Hund not only examines the disease, but also looks into the background as to why such a hazard has not been publicly discussed for 10 years. In the aftermath of Fukushima, the public wishes to shift to renewable energy sources. Today in Germany already over a million acres of land are producing corn for biogas plants. German Agriculture Minister Ms Ilse Aigner announced on 27 April 2011 that land used for growing plants for producing energy will be significantly expanded to an area anywhere between 4 to 6 million acres. Today biogas plants are sprouting everywhere in the countryside.
However, the supposedly environmentally friendly supply of energy is likely hiding a lethal bacteria in its waste. Christoph Boll of the hunting magazine WILD UND HUND has investigated the disease, whose existence has been denied by the industry, and whose impact on wildlife could be catastrophic to wildlife. In the German region of Vogtland in Saxony, 600 cows and the farmer himself fell seriously ill. Diagnosis: chronic botulism. And that was no isolated incident says Professor Dr. Helge Böhnel of the University of Göttingen. The scientist reveals that the number of sick animals observed runs to 4-digit numbers. Dr Böhnel is convinced that chronic and visceral botulism could impact all birds and mammals – including humans.
In general botulism is a lethal type of poisoning. But chronic botulism can also stealthily drag on in small quantities for years. Dr. Böhnel believes that biogas plants are “very likely” the source. How is it caused exactly? In early spring when harvesting biomass plants, foremost green rye, young wildlife end up getting minced by harvesters and end up as an ingredient in the biogas plant brew. In a addition slaughterhouse waste and other meat, such as old hens, along with manure slurry, get thrown in as raw material. At a brewing temperature of 40°C, bacteria multiply with abandon, which in turn leads to the production of enormously resistant botulinum spores that survive the hygienisation process (heating to 70°C). The waste material that is left at the end of the biogas process then gets used as fertilizer for agriculture, and so the spores wind up spread all over the landscape where they get ingested by grazing animals (domestic livetsock, wildlife, birds, etc.). Once in the digestive tract they then convert into the bacteria that produce the deadly toxin. Often the amount of toxin is not sufficient for a quick death, rather the poisoning is slow and chronic.”So add another to the list of wonderful things delivered by the green revolution, which already includes a mercury contaminated environment from energy saving lights, birds getting shredded by windparks that have devastated the local landscape, biofuels that drive up the price of food and so lead to hunger for millions more, etc. Finally, I wonder if they use this all-natural fertilizer from the “clean” biogas plants as a fertiliser for the organic food farms? notrickszone.com/2011/05/19/biogas-plants-producing-deadly-botulism-could-be-catastrophic-to-wildlife/
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Post by marchesarosa on May 23, 2011 14:26:11 GMT 1
Rereke Whakaaro at Jo Novos'a blog says
The slurry from the brewing of bio-gas, when used as a fertilizer, has the ability to poison sheep and pigs, because the spores can attach to growing grass. Depending on time between ingestion and slaughter, and the tests conducted, the meat can pass inspection and end up in the human food chain. We are told that cattle are not affected because the heat generated in a cow’s stomach is sufficient to kill the spores. Now there are probabilities at each stage of that process, so it only occurs under certain conditions. But we know it can happen, so I believe that we should adopt the precautionary principle and demand a total shut down all bio-fuel plants, world-wide. Our children’s health may depend on it.
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Ah, yes, the children and the Precautionary Principle!
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 3, 2011 16:59:27 GMT 1
I was wondering whether this type of slurry used as fertilizer could be implicated in the e-coli outbreak in Germany.
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Post by StuartG on Jun 3, 2011 22:57:24 GMT 1
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 8, 2011 18:28:47 GMT 1
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 10, 2011 8:26:51 GMT 1
Yearly changes in corn and wheat prices since the mid 19th Century. Figure 1 from Sumner, “Recent Commodity Price Movement in Historical Perspective”. After the 2008 peak prices subsequently dropped. Recently they have begun rising again, although they are below the 2008 levels. SOURCE: American Journal of Agricultural Economics wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/09/41401/
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 10, 2011 8:35:23 GMT 1
The above graph does not reveal a detriorating long term global warming-related trend, does it?
The recent price increases reveal extra demand coming from the increasingly affluent population of the BRIC rapidly developing nations in my opinion. The reduction in Russian wheat supply because of last year's drought and fires was the sort of blip that has occurred many times before when harvests have been adversely affected by weather.
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 14, 2011 12:11:49 GMT 1
Goklany, I.M. 2011. Could Biofuel Policies Increase Death and Disease in Developing Countries? Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 16: 9-13 It's only a short article with these .... Conclusions. 1. Biofuel policies are retarding humanity's age-old battle against poverty. 2. Since according to the World Health Organization's latest estimates, 141,000 deaths and 5.4 million lost DALYs (Disability-Adjusted Life Years) in 2004 could be attributed to global warming (WHO 2009), biofuel policies may currently be deadlier than global warming, especially since the inertia of the climate system means little or no reduction in these numbers from any slowing of global warming due to any increase in biofuel production from 2004 to 2010. www.nipccreport.org/articles/2011/jun/1jun2011a4.html
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Post by jonjel on Jun 14, 2011 16:21:46 GMT 1
There are 24 messages on this thread, all but 3 by Marchesa.
What the hell are you trying to prove Marchesa? That a pump action shot gun is more effective than a well aimed rifle?
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 14, 2011 18:30:16 GMT 1
Most of my posts constitute a reference archive for myself and others, jonjel. It is easy to lose track of developments and research findings. I'm not here primarily to argue the toss with the likes of you but to increase my own understanding.
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 15, 2011 11:14:35 GMT 1
E. Coli Engineered to Produce BiodieselScienceDaily (Sep. 11, 2010) — One mention of E. coli conjures images of sickness and food poisoning, but the malevolent bacteria may also be the key to the future of renewable energy. Desmond Lun, an associate professor of computer science at Rutgers University-Camden, is researching how to alter the genetic makeup of E. coli to produce biodiesel fuel derived from fatty acids. "If we can engineer biological organisms to produce biodiesel fuels, we'll have a new way of storing and using energy," Lun says. Creating renewable energy by making fuels, like making ethanol out of corn, has been a common practice in trying to achieve sustainability. However, Lun says, "It's widely acknowledged that making fuel out of food sources is not very sustainable. It's too expensive and it competes with our food sources." One alternative is to modify the E. coli microorganism to make it overproduce fatty acids, which are used to make biodiesel. "Fatty acid molecules aren't that different from a lot of fuel molecules," says Lun, a Philadelphia resident. "Biodiesel is something that we can generate quite easily. E. coli has been used as a lab organism for more than 60 years and it's well-studied. We know a lot about its genetics and how to manipulate it. We've got to make quite drastic changes to do it and it requires major intervention." That's where Lun's computer science expertise comes in. Lun builds computational models of the E. coli organisms to determine what would happen if changes are made. Those changes could include removing enzymes to enhance fatty acid production. "We call it synthetic biology," he says. "It's sort of the next stage of genetic engineering. Instead of making small changes to specific genes, we're really modifying large sections of genome. We're putting in entirely new traits rather than modifying existing traits." Lun explains, "The unique aspect of my work is this emphasis on computational modeling as a way of guiding it. Even these simple bacteria are immensely complex. Computational modeling can offer a way to speed up the process and make it a faster, better process." Fatty acid production in the altered bacteria would be enhanced, paving the way for biofuel development. Lun is collaborating with researchers from Harvard University on his E. coli project. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100903104828.htmhttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100903104828.htm
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Post by eamonnshute on Jun 15, 2011 11:39:55 GMT 1
"It's widely acknowledged that making fuel out of food sources is not very sustainable. It's too expensive and it competes with our food sources."
So what would the E. coli be fed on without competing with our own food sources?
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 15, 2011 12:07:37 GMT 1
Presumably not corn.
Seriously, I have no idea what medium these organism require to replicate themselves.
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