Read the article by George Monbiot that inspired this post.
This blog has talked about biofuels before. Not much, but it is an important environmental issue to consider.
The issues around Biofuels highlights why holistic plans are needed that address all aspects that are to be considered. In engineering practices, you ALWAYS gather all known requirements, known risks and known restrictions together (to some level) before making any plans. This Biofuels issue shows an idea has been taken and run with, without considering all requirements.
Engineering plans start by building an architecture that all sub-systems can exist within. The global environmental problems require a new architecture to be built around how our planet operates. We have a bit of time, but we should start now and use this time to get it RIGHT.
Take building a bridge. Some groups of people may want a giant 200 meter tall structure that has 8 lanes. The restriction may be that the geology on the banks will not support such a weight, with the geology only able to support 4 lanes. We have a similar restriction - we can't support the number of cars (and the population) we have at the current resource level consumption.
The architecture we need to build in this case will support all aspects of our environmental problems. I can suggest the following requirements and restrictions that will go towards forming our environmental architecture (and that impact on the choice of biofuels):
- Support for alternate fuels to reduce consumption of fossil fuels
- Reduce number of vehicles
- Increase transport by walking, cycling etc...
- Reduce deforestation
- Stop continued growth of world population
- Reduce species loss
- Reduce water usage
- Encourage local farming
- Reduce energy use
- Increase energy efficiency
- Happy and healthy citizens
The world cannot keep going at the current pace. And before mother nature bitch slaps us to the ground, we should consider all these requirements and more before building any solutions.
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