Jörn P. W. Scharlemann and William F. Laurance
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Balbao, Ancon, Panama
(Published in Science 319:43-44, 2008)
Global warming and escalating petroleum costs are creating an urgent need to find ecologically friendly fuels. Biofuels–such as ethanol from corn (maize) and sugarcane–have been increasingly heralded as a possible savior (1, 2). But others have argued that biofuels will consume vast swaths of farmland and native habitats, drive up food prices, and result in little reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions (3-5). An innovative study by Zah et al. (6), commissioned by the Swiss government, could help to resolve this debate by providing a detailed assessment of the environmental costs and benefits of different transport biofuels. Continue reading How Green Are Biofuels? →