Here are excerpts from my personal “Earth Meanders” environmental essays:

Cellulosic ethanol another chimerical climate “solution” that furthers biological homogenization and ecological collapse

Humanity’s epitaph may well read “Much Potential, but Cut and Burnt Themselves to Death”. Nearly every environmental crisis can be traced to burning hydrocarbons for energy, and cutting and clearing vegetation for a variety of reasons. Sadly, even as climate change awareness has grown, an understanding of root causes of environmental crises such as over-consumption remains dreadfully lacking. So now, at this late date in the Earth’s decline, it is proposed to cut and burn cellulosic ethanol biofuel produced from biomass including forest and agricultural “waste”. Vain attempts to fuel gluttonous, over-populated humanity — that is well past the Earth’s carrying capacity already — from biomass may well be the final step in the destruction of Gaia’s biosphere and our human habitat… Using woody cellulose rich biomass for energy to power industrial societies that have already passed their carrying capacities will spell the death knell for forests, humans and all of life… Energy from non-food organic biomass is only going to increase pressure on land and forests. It is the next step in the biological simplification… Ethanol produced from cellulose ultimately represents a mining of soil nutrients and of the Earth’s productive capacity. More pressure upon the land to produce ever more agricultural and plantation products will come at the cost of further deterioration of the Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems, as natural ecosystems that are already failing are asked to give yet more… The only solution to global heating and the myriad of other global ecological emergencies is to immediately begin deintensifying human impacts upon the biosphere and her natural ecosystem patterns and processes. In terms of climate, this requires targets for mandatory national emission cuts while meeting our energy, food and other needs for a reduced human population from permaculture systems and renewable, non-polluting and non-destructive energy sources that are truly ecologically sustainable. [Full Essay]