Green Fuel Controversy
Something occured to me today as I was listening to the radio, concerning bio vs. fossil fuels. It occured to me that there is no difference. Is there? Lets look deeper. To the best of my knowledge, "fossil fuels" are generically named becuase they come out of the ground, such as coal, oil, etc. "Fossil" referrs to the fact that (coal for example) is just layers of compressed ferns and other tropical green matter. After millions of years under tremendous pressure and heat, they return to their native state of carbon, which all living thinsg are made of, in the form of bituminous coal. In a nutshell, coal is just compressed, aged layers of prehistoric plants. Is this consdiered organic? I would think so. How about other bio-fuels? Biodiesel for example. Made from vegetable oil, the oil goes through several chemical processes to remove glycerine from the oil, remove soap, and return the treated oil to a PH of about neutral 6. Where does the oil come from? Vegetables. In a nutshell, bio-diesel is just treated vegetables; right? So the question is what makes these two so different and divided? When you think about it, everything is organic. Nothing has come from space, so as Einstein said, "Matter can neither be created or destroyed", unless we mess with atoms and so on and so forth. Plastic came from earth, glass came from earth, gas, oil, drywall, shoes, bricks, everything. Disposal of this "modified organic material" should not me minimized. Properties of the object can change, and we know now as humans what that means and how we dispose of certain "modified orgainic materials". At this point (I hope), we have established that everything can be traced back to something underground. But why do we continue to stress the need for a sloppy solution to our problems so quickly? We know that there is plenty of resources under our feet that will last us for years to come. I think that now is the "realization point". We know that at the rate we are going, we cannot survice another 100 years. Now is the time to begin research. Look into practical solutions to reduce waste until we find a proven, reliable, long term solution. Until then, there is plenty of organic fuel under the ground. Whether President Obama realizes that remains to be seen.... Lets look at that Suburban. We need a positive attitude that says "How can we take this car and run it on something else." rather than throw the idea of a comfortable car away. God bless all you people who will ride your bikes to work. Kudos to the people who are here looking for longer lasting green solutions. However, to all you Prius owners, if you are out to save money, good luck. If you drive one to save the planet from the unproven myth of "global warming", good luck to you too. If you drive one just so you can tell everyone else they should be like you; the glorified model of a green life, then you bought the car for the wrong reason.
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Open Mind, you have some compelling thoughts here. One thing to keep in mind is that the carbon released form fossil fuels was slowly stored up and sequestered over millions of years- it was not part of the biosphere- the living cycle- during that time. True biofuels are usually defined as t hose that are derived from recent living matter- from annual plants like corn, soy, switchgrass to perennials like trees. But in either case the carbon is no more than a year to a few decades old- it's part of current lifecycles. Where we've gotten into a tough spot is taking millions of years of sequestered carbon and suddenly burning and releasing it into the atmosphere in a span of about 150 years or so. That's what's causing the climate crisis of today and tomorrow. It's like we're spending all of our savings at once rather than living off current income. And in this case the "money" spent is also warming the planet to where it was millions of years ago when all that carbon was in the lifecycle. It won't stop life, but will change our planet significantly and make it tougher for humans and many other species who've gotten used to the climate range of the past 650,000 years.(That's how far back the natural ice records of atmosphere go.) .
Fossil fuels are better used perhaps in building durable goods that can be reused time and again, rather than for fuels which are burned up after one use.
Love,
Liv
You bring to light the point that earth goes through cycles. Everything from governments to washing machines do. It is true that all this carbon is being released at once. Taking a log for example. If it decays on the ground, heat is created, before it just becomes a pile of mush over several years. If you burn the log, all the heat is released in the combustion process. Either way, the same amount of Carbon is released between these two scenarios.
By the way, someone in the world has yet to prove if this "Global Warming" is caused by Carbon. How about solar activity? How about earth's fragile orbit?
Prove to me that America is the cause fro worldwide panic