Beware of Bush’s “Clean Fuel” Proposal

George W. Bush may have gained a little political breathing room on the global warming issue in his State of the Union address with his proposal to replace a portion of gasoline use with biofuels but many environmentalists are far from impressed by the proposal according to an article in The Independent. One environmentalist pointed out that using ethanol to replace gasoline would result in carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation and processing of ethanol. Also, in industrialized countries fossil fuels play a large role in growing crops such as corn that can be used for making ethanol. Another criticism involved transforming coal into a liquid for use as a transportation fuel. It was pointed that this technology would result in twice the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted as fuels based on petroleum. Although Bush seems to have at least grasped that global warming is a serious problem it is apparent that we will have to wait for a new president in 2009 before anyone occupying the Oval Office offers truly serious proposals, such as a mandatory cap on carbon emissions, to avert the very real risk of catastrophic climate change.