Word: canings
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...legislation that is now being condemned. Doubtless there will now be many claims for compensation by indigenous people. Will apologies also be made to the British children taken to orphanages in Australia last century, to internees during the world wars, to Pacific islanders kidnaped to work in the Queensland cane fields, to the unwed mothers who until the 1970s almost routinely had their children taken from them, or to the avoidable victims of our hospital system's failures? I apologize to those I have omitted from the list of the wronged. Martin Gordon, Canberra...
Maybe it was simply too good to be true. For proponents, biofuels - petroleum substitutes made from plant matter like corn or sugar cane - seemed to promise everything. Using biofuels rather than oil would reduce the greenhouse gases that accelerate global warming, because plants absorb carbon dioxide when they grow, balancing out the carbon released when burned in cars or trucks. Using homegrown biofuels would help the U.S. reduce its utter dependence on foreign oil, and provide needed income for rural farmers around the world. And unlike cars powered purely by electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells - two alternate technologies that...
...simplistic, and failing to put biofuels in context. And it's true that the switch to biofuels can have benefits that go beyond climate change. Biofuels tend to produce less local pollution than fossil fuels, one reason why Brazil - which gets 30% of its automobile fuel from sugar-cane ethanol - has managed to reduce once stifling air pollution. In the U.S., switching to domestically produced biofuels helps cut dependence on foreign oil, and boosts income for farmers. But in all of these cases, the benefits now seem to pale next to the climate change deficits. Fargione points out that...
Environmental groups also believe the government's commitment is questionable because it needs the income from Brazil's booming agriculture sector. Brazil is the world's biggest beef and soy exporter and it leads the global race to turn sugar cane into fuel. When commodities like soy, beef and grains are sought after on world markets, farmers have more incentive to hack away and create fields. Environment Minister Marina Silva said the recent rise in deforestation is due in large part to increased commodity prices. Deforestation fell along with food prices in 2005 and 2006 and now both...
...past few decades. But there's still a long way to go before you'll be able to fill your tank with switchgrass. Getting energy out of the tough cellulose molecules in a stalk of switchgrass is much more difficult than distilling it from corn, or better, sugar cane. Both the Department of Energy (DoE) and private companies like Broomfield, Colo.-based Range Fuels are developing the technology to commercialize cellulosic ethanol, but that day might still be years away. "We're doing serious technological innovation on this," Khosla told TIME recently. "Oil is a big market, and there will...