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The following transcript is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Link to Audio and Episode Info Here
Show TranscriptDeconstructing
Dinner Kootenay
Co-op Radio CJLY Title:
Biofuel Boom: Greenwashing and Crimes Against Humanity
(Part I) Producer/Host - Jon Steinman Transcribed
by James Braun Theme
Music Jon
Steinman: And welcome to Deconstructing Dinner - a syndicated weekly one hour radio program
and podcast produced in the studios of Kootenay Co-op Radio CJLY, in Nelson,
British Columbia. I'm Jon Steinman, and today marks the first of a two-part
series that will be critically analyzing what is being suggested as the worst
public policy mistake in a generation.
A prominent UN figure has just recently called it a crime against
humanity, and what I'm referring to may shock even the most environmentally
conscious of individuals because I'm referring to biofuels, a technology that
is in the early stages of an unprecedented boom around the world. And the green image being painted by
industry and world leaders is doing little to convince skeptics that using
agricultural land to grow fuel is as environmentally friendly as it is reported
to be. Compounding the environmental debate, biofuels are being referred to by some
of the world's most influential international organizations as contributing to
increases in global hunger at staggering rates. The seriousness of this issue has prompted a careful
approach to addressing this topic, and this two-part series has been designed to
hopefully be the most
critical two hours of radio produced to date on this rapid emergence of
biofuels around the world. Voices heard on the program today will be JoAnn Buth
- the President of the Canola Council of Canada, Len Penner, the President of
Cargill Canada, Darrin Qualman of the National Farmers Union, Robin Speer of
the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, Eric Holt-Gimenez of Food First, also
known as The Institute for Food and Development Policy, and we will hear the
voices of UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler, US President
George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Brazilian President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. And should you not be able to catch all of today's
broadcast, we do encourage you to tune in to an archived version of this show
on our web site at cjly.net/deconstructingdinner Increase Music and Fade out JS: With so many issues to cover on this two-part series I will
remind you that more information and additional audio on this topic will also
be located on our web site. And with so much to cover in such little time, I
will introduce biofuels in as brief of a way as possible. Now, the term
biofuels can refer to a wide range of various technologies that are, in its
most simplest form, designed to act as fuel for vehicles, for homes, for heavy
equipment and really anything that currently relies on fuel. But it is
important to stress that with so many forms of biofuels already out there and
being proposed, today's broadcast will only be focusing on what can more
appropriately be referred to as agrofuels, that is fuels derived from
agricultural crops being grown on agricultural land. There are certainly other
forms of biofuel technology out there, and those will receive more attention on
future broadcasts, but it is the forms of agro biofuels that are receiving the
most political and economic attention. The money being thrown around the world
and being invested into these biofuel technologies is incredible. Prime
Minister Stephen Harper recently promised 1.5 billion dollars in incentives to
get the Canadian biofuel industry up and running. British Petroleum has
controversially invested half a billion dollars into biofuel research at the Now it's mildly important to first differentiate between the
two primary biofuel technologies that will be referred to on today's show, and
those are ethanol and biodiesel. Ethanol refers to a fuel that has been used
for decades in countries like It is this form of ethanol and biodiesel that is being
promoted by world leaders and industry around the world as being one solution
to our environmental concerns in light of a rapidly changing climate. At the
September CropLife Soundbite JS: Now before we begin to hear the voices of the proponents and opponents of the biofuel boom, I do
want to provide a quick executive summary of sorts and share with you what I for
one have learned from the research that has gone into this show. I do believe
that this biofuel boom is perhaps the greatest modern example of the inability
of our culture to holistically look at the impacts our political and economic
decisions have on the planet and on humanity as a whole. I did hear from both
sides on this issue over the past couple of weeks, and I can comfortably say
that this issue exposes the clear danger posed by the amount of unrestricted
power that we have placed into the hands of those whose interests are purely
for economic gain. But I would say most importantly, that this biofuel boom is
the greatest example of--and to use a term referred to by one of my guests
today—our "consensus trance", that is our collective denial and inability to
question anything that challenges what we perceive to be good. Perhaps the
first voice that we are about to play for you sums this up the best. The impact biofuels are having on food prices
and hunger around the world will be the focus for next week's broadcast, but given the importance of this issue, I
will play for you an introduction into the concerns being raised at the United
Nations. While hundreds of billions of dollars are being set aside for the
cultivation and production of biofuels, the United Nations' Jean Ziegler is
calling the boom a violation of human rights, and a crime against humanity. On
October 25 at the UN General Assembly's Human Rights Committee, Jean Ziegler
called for a 5 year moratorium on the biofuel rush. Who is Jean Ziegler? Well here he is being introduced at the
press conference following this announcement. Unidentified
male: Good morning; it's my pleasure to introduce Mr.
Jean Ziegler, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. This
special human rights mechanism was established in 2000, and Mr. Ziegler has
been serving in that capacity since the beginning of the mandate. The Special
Rapporteur, as you know, is an independent expert; Mr. Ziegler is also a senior
professor at the Jean
Ziegler: Thank you very much for your kindness, for the
introduction; ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. I want make three remarks—I'd like to make
three remarks. First of all, the situation of hunger in the world; I give it a
definition of the human right to food. The right is the right to have a
regular, permanent and unrestricted access either directly or by means of
financial purchases to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient
food, corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the
consumer belongs and which ensures a physical and mental, individual and
collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear. This is a definition of
the human right to food. This human right is gravely violated in many,
many parts of the world, and the situation becomes worse and worse; the first
Millenium Goal will never be met because hunger in the world goes up instead of
going down. JS: As Jean Ziegler continued his analysis of world hunger, he then turned
his attention to the rapid emergence of biofuels - referring to them as
catastrophic and a crime against humanity. JZ: The second point was biofuel. You know that President Bush and
President Lula, when they came together here, proclaimed that within five
years, twenty-six million hectares of agricultural soil will be effectively transformed
to the production of biofuel and biodiesel, for the sake of climatic salvation,
for the sake of reducing the foreign debt of Brazil, and for President Bush,
which you can understand, to reduce the dependence of America from the
oil-producing countries in the Middle East where there is political resistance,
turmoil, and so on and so on. So, the individual motivation of the President of
Brazil and of the President of Bush are completely legitimate. You can
understand this argument, it's not cynicism. But the effect of transforming
hundreds and thousands and thousands of tonnes of maize, of wheat, of beans, of
palm oil into agricultural fuel is absolutely catastrophic for the hungry
people. For the hungry people,
absolutely, totally catastrophic. I give you some examples: the price of wheat,
the world price of wheat, doubled in one year; the price of maize more than
augmented four times. JS: Jean Ziegler continued his analysis of the biofuel boom by comparing
what filling one's gas tank up with 50 litres of ethanol could instead provide
to those in need of food. It is this among all else, that prompted Ziegler at
the UN General Assembly's Human Rights Committee to demand a 5-year moratorium
on the expansion of biofuels. JZ: If you have a car who goes by ethanol and you fill up your reservoir
fifty litres of pure ethanol, to make fifty litres of pure ethanol you have to
burn two hundred and thirty two kilos of maize. From two hundred and thirty-two
kilos of maize a child in JS: And that was Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the
Right to Food. Jean was recorded speaking at a press conference in And so while prominent figures such as Jean
Ziegler call the biofuel boom a crime against humanity, what do world leaders
think of converting agricultural crops into fuel? Well our very own Prime
Minister Stephen Harper is so in favour of the fledgling industry that $1.5
billion dollars of public money has been promised to get the industry going.
Here's Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaking in Stephen
Harper: Well thank you very much, Carol, for that kind
introduction. Minister Strahl, Minister Ritz, representatives of the Canadian
Renewable Fuels Association, President and CEO of the facility here, Lionel
Labelle; it's a pleasure to be here today with an announcement that I know is
good news for With
leading edge technology and abundant supplies of grains, oilseeds and other
feed stocks, Last
December, our government began to move As
it currently stands, however, A
project, I might add, that our government was proud to play a role in
developing. Primarily owned by local farmers, the Gardiner Dam
Agro-Energy Ethanol Facility will convert 10 million bushels of wheat into 100
million litres of ethanol a year once it's up and running. I think I
rounded the numbers a little bit there. This represents a tremendous economic
opportunity for JS: Stephen Harper speaking in Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva: (translator - Lula's voice in background)…to
the final incorporation of the energy blend of our two countries. It is a major
satisfaction, that I was very pleased to know about President Bush's decision
to give greater value to biofuel within the energy blend of the Today the entire society is reaping
the fruit of these efforts, and other countries want to share JS: Now I do want to play one more clip from LLdS:(translator)
JS: Brazilian President Lula. And here is George
W. Bush: And I, like the President, am very upbeat
about the potential of ethanol and biodiesel; and that's why we're here. People
have wondered why the President of the One of the things I like, as the President
noted, is that a good ethanol policy and good alternative fuel policy, actually
leads to more jobs, not less. In other words, at this plant there are jobs. But
as the President noted, when you're growing your way out of dependence on oil,
you're dependent upon people to work the land. And the distribution of wealth,
the distribution of opportunity, to farmers—particularly to smaller farmers in
our respective countries—will enable the economy to be more on firm
foundations. Ando so Mr President, your
vision is absolutely correct. JS: To give you a better idea as to how lucrative and valuable biofuels are
seen to be to the In this next clip, President Bush continues
with more reference to his biofuel goals, and judging by his first sentence, he
does not seem to have a teleprompter. But his concluding remark is most
important. Take a listen. GWB:
And in JS: Now it's this final remark by Eric Holt-Gimenez thinks so, and he is the
Executive Director of Food First, also known as the Institute for Food and
Development Policy. The Eric
Holt-Giminez: Yes, well, technically fuel crops are
renewable because you can grow them over and over again, but in practical terms
that doesn't mean that they're sustainable. So what's happening here is that
the industry is attempting to greenwash fuel crops by saying "renewable", and
by association leading people to think that that means they're sustainable. But
in fact, a lot of industrial agriculture is not sustainable at all, and in fact
is one of the major causes of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, as well as
erosion, deforestation and landlessness. So it's really pretty evasive to use
that term, I think. It doesn't quite describe things the way they really are. JS: The very use of the word renewable to promote the biofuel industry was
most apparent during my recent attendance at the September CropLife JoAnn
Buth: You also have to remember that biodiesel is a
renewable fuel….we also get the benefits of less tillage in summer fallow. We
also see the savings in terms of fuel because of that one less pass, and also
we documented a reduction in herbicide use. JS: Standing out from these two segments was one, the reference to biofuels
being renewable, and two her reference to the inputs required to grow such
crops. What are these inputs, but fossil fuels, petrochemicals for tractors,
herbicides and pesticides, perhaps natural gas for fertilizers, only a sampling
of the countless non-renewable fuels
required to grow biofuel crops. While the term renewable may be true, it is
certainly deceptive and misleading to suggest that biofuels are renewable when
they require so many non-renewable inputs. And so, following her presentation,
a media scrum ensued with about five members of the media following up with
questions. None of them questioned the environmental message, and so, I chose
to do just that, and what occurred following the asking of my question, may shock you, and it presents a
clear illustration of the inability of Canadian media to critically question
this major issue. Once I finished asking the question, the media in the
surrounding scrum proceeded to turn off their cameras and audio recorders and
walk away. Now take a listen to her
evasion of the question, and try not to be distracted by those representing JS:
(interview clip): Now biodiesel is referred
to often as a renewable resource, but you indicated of course there's all these
inputs to go into the growing of these crops such as fossil fuels, petroleum,
natural gas, which are non-renewable resources. Can you speak to this? JB: Well, when you take a look at the total energy balance for biodiesel,
if you take into consideration everything in terms of growing the crop it takes
about a litre of diesel to produce two and a half litres of canola biodiesel.
So that's taking everything into consideration. If you're producing petroleum
diesel it takes about a litre of petroleum diesel. So that is taken into
account, and yes it's not as—you know, the energy balance is different than
biodiesel, but it is a renewable so you're able to pay into it every year,
whereas with strictly fossil fuels obviously you're drawing down completely.
And the other thing you need to take a look at, too, is the carbon emission
side of things. And if you look at the carbon emissions you see a dramatic
decrease in carbon emissions with the use of biodiesel; and then because
growers are able to use zero tillage, you also get soil carbon. So when you
look at the balance overall you are looking at a very positive message, or a
very positive endpoint in terms of canola biodiesel. JS: Now I will say the actions by the other media to not record this
critical question was a shock to say the least, and to be quite honest, I was
barely able to listen to the response to the question as I was far too blown
away by sponsorship
announcement JS: Now I did present this audio
clip to Darrin Qualman, the Director of Research for the Saskatoon-based
National Farmers' Darrin
Qualman: The most interesting philosophical distinction
that you can make here is between renewable and sustainable. Yeah, these are renewable fuels but the
question is: are they sustainable? And that really comes down to a question of
scale. And to explain, you can think about past biofuels, past renewable fuels:
the world used to run on renewable fuels, biofuels. We heated our house with
wood and we lit it with whale oil. And when you think about something like
whale oil, when they started collecting whales, killing whales and bringing
them back and extracting oil, that was a renewable, sustainable resource. The
whales would renew themselves by reproducing, and as long as you didn't kill
whales faster than they could reproduce it was actually sustainable. But as you
scale that up, and try to double and redouble and redouble the amount of oil
you took, the resource remained renewable, it just ceased to be sustainable in
that you soon get down to your last pair of whales, and you kill them and you'd
be done. So what I think they are trying to do is they're saying "renewable"
and they're trying to trick you into hearing "sustainable". And the two are
very different. JS: This audio clip from the CropLife conference was also presented to Eric
Holt-Gimenez of Food First. In his response he refers to these energy balance
figures that you heard JoAnn Buth reference. But before we hear from Eric,
let's first look at what energy balance means given the industry uses it to
promote the benefits of biofuels. And so here again is Darrin Qualman DQ: The energy balance debate is a difficult one. It helps to frame the
question this way: what sorts of energy sources are rich and abundant enough to
power the civilization that we've created here, a civilization of megacities,
and jets, and cars, and trains, and food transported around the world, and
bringing in our manufactured goods from JS: And so now with a better understanding of what energy balance means,
here's Eric Holt-Gimenez, commenting on JoAnn Buth's response to my question on
the term renewable. I will note that Eric uses the term Peak Oil, and for any
listeners who have not yet heard this term, it is used in reference to the
point at which global supplies of oil reach their peak - a point that is said
to have already occurred. EH-G: What she says is, for the most part, technically correct. It's what she
doesn't say which makes the difference, of course. The fact that canola has a
two-and-a-half or three to one return on energy investment sounds good,
actually it's terrible. Petroleum is twenty to one right now; it started out as
a hundred to one, the last century it's been going down but it's still twenty
to one. So this isn't a good substitute by any means. So we're not gaining a
tremendous amount in terms of energy; we're losing a tremendous amount, and
what that tells us is that we will never be able to run our present fuel
systems on agrofuels because the return on the energy investment is just so low
to make those fuel systems in their entirety inoperable. You just can't do it.
And so what this means, of course, is that agrofuels are not about some sort of
transition into a renewable fuel economy, or sustainable fuel economy, at all.
One, because they're not sustainable and two, because the fact that they're
renewable doesn't mean that they're taking us anywhere, because they can only
be additives at best, and they can only be an add-on at best, at a very small
percentage by the way, to our present oil economy. And so what's really happening here is that the
oil industry and agro industry are combining and consolidating to transform our
food and fuel systems under one huge corporate industrial roof, where they're
going to have all this oligopolistic control over both systems; and this is
about extending the period of Peak Oil.
It's not about some transition beyond Peak Oil; it's about extending the
period of Peak Oil, and if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense from an
industrial point of view. Because if Peak Oil at one hundred dollars a
barrel—we're almost there right now—and if it goes beyond that, you want to
extend that period, stretch it out as much as possible, and agrofuels allows
the industry to do that. So they'll be able to get the most on their return of
investment from the Peak Oil period. Unfortunately this isn't taking us into
any post-oil fuel economy. It's not taking us into the future of anything. It's
just using up the resources that we have now under the benign term of
renewables. listener
support announcement JS: This is Deconstructing Dinner,
a syndicated weekly one hour radio program and podcast produced at Kootenay Co-op
Radio in Nelson, British Columbia. I'm Jon Steinman. Today marks part one of a
two part series titled "Biofuel Boom: Greenwashing and Crimes Against
Humanity". On today's part I we focus on the accusations that the push to
convert agricultural crops around the world into fuel for our cars is
camoflauged in greenwashing. Greenwashing refers to any positive environmental
messages that are, with further analysis, not positive at all. Next week we
will expand upon last week's announcement by the United Nations Jean Ziegler,
that biofuels are a crime against humanity as they are driving up food prices
around the world and accelerating hunger rates. There will also be a wealth of
information on this topic that will appear on our web site at cjly.net/deconstructingdinner.
Now I do want to continue on this topic of the
environmental impacts of biofuels. It is no debate that industrial forms of
agriculture have led to widespread and negative environmental impacts and one
would hope that such impacts are factored in to any environmental messages
promoting the use of biofuels derived from such industrially grown crops. And
so I asked Darrin Qualman of the National Farmers Union this very question as
to how holistic of an approach does the industry and government use when
assessing environmental impacts and energy balance figures. DQ: The proponents of bioenergy take a best-case scenario when it comes to
energy balances, and when it comes to economics around their product. They're
not taking full account of all the various costs. When we look around the world
at the current system that's just trying to produce food--and really the
bioenergy component isn't very big yet--when we look around the world at what
our food system is doing when it comes to water depletion, when it comes to
water pollution, whether it be the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico or Lake
Winnipeg or other water bodies, when we look at soil erosion and loss of crop
land we see that we've got a system that's drawing down it's resources, and
that needs to be taken into account. Also, focusing more directly on biodiesel
and ethanol, you really have to carefully calculate the fossil fuel inputs that
go into making these. And when you do that you find that estimates made by the
proponents aren't very credible, and the truth is a little less positive than
they purport. And often the energy balances are very borderline; certainly with
ethanol, many people say that you put in more energy than you get out and
biodiesel may or may not be any better. JS: Now given the many environmental impacts of these forms of agriculture
used to grow biofuel crops, it certainly raises the question of how the
proponents of the industry address such environmental concerns. In this next
clip we hear Canola Council of Canada President JoAnn Buth, again speaking at
the CropLife Canada conference in September. JB: In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, this is some work that was done
by Hadi Dowlatabadi from the JS: Now I'll end the clip there because she continues on speaking about the
benefits of these new hybrid and genetically modified crop varieties. But her
efforts to make a connection between biofuels and crop varieties concerns
Darrin Qualman. I did send Darrin the clip you just heard, and here's his response. DQ: She's trying to connect together purported environmental benefits of
zero till to biodiesel, and there's no real connection. Good or bad, zero till
farming and the replacement of tillage with chemical herbicides and the
introduction of genetically modified crops, that was a revolution that started
in the mid-90s and really has nothing to do with biofuels. So if they're
somehow trying to claim an environmental benefit from reduced tillage and
connect that to biofuels, they're grasping. JS: Such efforts to connect biofuels to environmental issues don't stop with
the Canola Council of Canada. Representing the biofuel industry in JS:
(interview clip): When looking at just the
requirements of this system, of growing canola, or soy, or corn, that in order
to really get this final biofuel product, they do require these non-renewable
resources such as the fertilizers you mentioned. And so, yes, maybe the
technology is allowing for a decreased usage of them, but right now they're
very much reliant on such large-scale monocrop systems that require these
non-renewable inputs. Do- Robin
Speer: Well, not if a canola farmer in JS: And that was Robin Speer of the Toronto-based Canadian Renewable Fuels
Association. Now Robin disagrees that any reference to biofuels as being green
is in any way misleading. But he did introduce a number of comments that
deserve to be addressed both now and on next week's part II of this Biofuel
Boom series. For one, Robin Speer suggests that farmers are involved in the
ownership of new ethanol and biodiesel plants. Next week we will hear comments
from both Darrin Qualman and Eric Holt-Gimenez who challenge the use of such an
argument and suggest that any farmer control of these plants won't last and
current trends are suggestive of this. Robin Speer also refers to biofuels as
being clean burning, yet another questionable comment. While biofuels may be cleaner burning, there are emissions
being created from the burning of such fuels, and to refer to them as clean is
simply not true. But let's take a quick look at his reference to biofuels
leading to a reduction in air pollutants and in doing so; let's first take a
listen to this radio advertisement created by the Association (music
in background) Unidentified
boy 1: Ethanol makes cars less stinky. Unidentified
girl 1: It makes city air clean like country air. Unidentified
girl 2: My dad says ethanol's good for the planet. Unidentified
boy 2: It looks a lot like corn, only bigger. Unidentified
girl 3: Ethanol helps the trees make good air. Unidentified
boy 3: My teacher said that ethanol reduces
greenhouse emissions, and that's good. Unidentified
girl 4: Ethanol cleans up the nozone. Male
announcer: Children's
voices: I grow ethanol. (music
ends) JS: Now again, the comment that stands out from this eco-focused
advertisement is the young girls reference to ethanol helping trees make good
air, similar to Robin Speer's suggestion that biofuels reduce air pollutants.
Now I've just spent significant time looking into this issue over the past few
weeks, and I can say with confidence that suggesting ethanol helps trees make
good air is absurd, when in the global South forests are rapidly being
destroyed as we speak to make way for the government-set mandates announced
here in the global North. And so we will look into this on next week's part II,
because the inability to address the rapid deforestation in Brazil, Malaysia,
Indonesia and run an ad campaign suggesting biofuels help trees make good air,
raises many questions. But most importantly, it introduces the tone in which
the Canadian industry speaks when referring to Canadian biofuels. There is a
very nationally-focused rhetoric that comes out of any dialogue on biofuels,
one that seems to believe that what happens within our borders doesn't impact
what happens elsewhere. Eric Holt-Gimenez of Food First also shares this
concern and helps introduce what will be a focus for next week's show. EH-G:
And what's particularly disturbing is that in the US
and in Canada so much of the discussion is just about what's happening
nationally, without seeing how the industry and these renewable fuel standards
and mandatory targets are fuelling deforestation and landlessness abroad. As if
we're somehow disconnected or divorced from that; it's just about our national
farmers and our national industry, and should we protect it or not, and what
are the targets going to be. In fact, it's directly connected to this
destruction happening in the global South, and we have to bring that into the
conversation. JS: And this is Deconstructing Dinner
and that was Eric Holt-Gimenez - the Executive Director of Food First, a food
and development policy organization based in Now let's also take a quick look at another
comment made by Robin Speer of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association. He did
swiftly dismiss my questioning of the countless non-renewable resources
required to grow these biofuels, by indicating that a canola grower could very
well be fuelling their tractor with biofuels. Now given the energy balances
referred to earlier, such as the one barrel of energy rich petroleum being
required to produce 1.5 barrels of ethanol, it seems like quite the stretch to
suggest that replacing that barrel of petroleum with a biofuel is going to
result in any leftover fuel to use in cars, buses or planes. Darrin Qualman of
the National Farmers Union comments on such an idea. DQ: Imagine running a biodiesel system on only biodiesel, that you use that
sort of energy to make your fertilizers, and to run your tractors and run your
trucks, and all of that. And if you did that you would have a really renewable
system, if you took everything into account. But you'd also have a system that
ran around and around and around and used up a lot of energy producing energy,
and really generated very, very little surplus but generated a lot of CO2 along
the way. So I think one way to actually sort this out would be to sit down and
figure out what a biodiesel-fuelled biodiesel system would look like, how much
CO2 it would produce, and whether it would actually produce any usable surplus
energy in the end or not. A lot of the surpluses in terms of energy that come
out the other end of the pipe in terms of biodiesel are actually just a
reflection of the amount of petroleum fossil fuels put in the other end. JS: And that was Darrin Qualman, Director of Research for the
Saskatoon-based National Farmers' But if today's part I of the series hasn't been
enough to convince you that the environmental messages coming out of the
agriculture and biofuel industries shouldn't be critically questioned, the next
few clips you are about to hear should do an adequate job. With the biofuel
industry being as young as it is here in JB: Okay, let's switch to biodiesel. Normally I wouldn't use this as the
example of biodiesel's benefits to the environment; (laughter in background) I
could have put my 2000 Jetta TDI up here, where I do use a biodiesel additive,
but it would have been pretty boring. This car has just been absolutely amazing
in terms of generating excitement. The biggest hits on grower's websites has
been looking for where the jet funny car is going to be. And so we're going to
try and capitalize on this, and we'll be launching a canolabiodiesel.org
website where we hope to essentially have the schedule for the funny car up
front and centre, where we can draw people in and then educate them more on
canola biodiesel. JS: An image of this canola biodiesel jet car will be up on the Deconstructing Dinner web site for you
to check out. But we also have something else here to share with you. This is a
recording from August of this year, of the canola biodiesel jet car showing off
it's power at a test farm just south of Unidentified
female: Erica, keep your hands on your ears. sound
of jet engine revving up JS: And again, if this hasn't convinced you of the absurdity of the
environmental messages being attached to agricultural biofuels, take a listen
to this. This is the radio ad we heard just earlier produced by the Canadian
Renewable Fuels Association of which the Canola Council of Canada is a member.
But this time, the ad has been altered just a bit. music
in background Unidentified
boy 1: Ethanol makes cars less stinky. Unidentified
girl 1: It makes city air clean like country air. sound
of jet engine revving up over music Unidentified
girl 2: My dad says ethanol's good for the planet. Unidentified
boy 2: It looks a lot like corn, only bigger. Unidentified
girl 3: Ethanol helps the trees make good air. Unidentified
boy 2: My teacher said that ethanol reduces
greenhouse emissions, and that's good. Unidentified
girl 4: Ethanol cleans up the nozone. Male
announcer: Children's
voices: I grow ethanol. Music,
jet engine noise ends JS: Now for anyone who missed the first segment of today's broadcast, we did
play the announcement by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the federal
government has promised $1.5 billion dollars of public money to fund this
industry and more "environmentally friendly fuels". And again here's a clip of
Stephen Harper and what he would
sound like if he was standing beside the Canola biodiesel jet car. SH: jet noise in background JS: Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaking in July 2007 in Strongfield soundbite JS: Again, you've heard some segments today that were compiled at the
CropLife Canada conference I attended back in September 2007. On next week's
part II, you can expect to hear more of this inside information into I do want to stress, though, that biofuels
refer to many different technologies and this Biofuel Boom series here on Deconstructing Dinner is only focusing
on the biofuels derived from industrial agricultural crops. It is for these
crops that global attention and global financing is currently directed, such as
ethanol and biodiesel products being derived from corn, soy, canola, palm,
sugarcane and wheat among others. The focus for next week will be on the food vs.
fuel debate, especially in light of the October 25th demand at the
United Nations for a moratorium on biofuels. UN Special Rapporteur on the Right
to Food Jean Ziegler referred to biofuels' impact on food prices around the
world as a crime against humanity. You will hear the Canadian Renewable Fuels
Association calling this UN representative ill-informed, and you can tune in
and find out why. We will also look into the promise that biofuels will support
farmers both here and abroad, and we will quickly explore the murders and
violence that Columbian paramilitaries are carrying out in the name of biofuel
production. We will learn more about the $500 million biofuel research funding
given to the sponsorship
announcement That was this week's edition of Deconstructing Dinner,
produced and recorded at Nelson, The theme music for Deconstructing Dinner is courtesy
of Nelson-area resident Adham Shaikh. This radio program
is provided free of charge to campus/community radio stations across the
country, and relies on the financial support from you the listener. Support for the program can be donated through our web
site at cjly.net/deconstructingdinner or by dialing 250-352-9600.
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