Going Green

I often catch the "Live Green Go Yellow" tag line of the GM ad on my commute and every time I wonder if that's really such a great thing. Instead of depleting the reserves of oil and natural gas around the world, we will now have corn farms overrun the land at the expense of biodiversity.

Our problem is that our need for energy is insatiable - we can never have enough. Promoting biofuels as the silver bullet seems to imply that it is now okay and possible to desire an infinite amount of energy. This defies the very sustainability that biofuels tout. What if every inch of arable soil in the third world was punished with an unending cycle of corn crops and forests cleared to make room for more. Where before we may have known to stop from the fear of oil peak, now there would be no reason left to do so. Its only too easy to grow more corn.

This whole "go green" business is reminiscent of an indulgent parent giving in their child's demand for a bigger, better toy instead of doing the right thing - telling the child to make do with what she has and explore more creative ways to play with it. As with bad parenting, the long term consequences can be as unimaginable as they can be terrible.