Word: corns
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...that people at risk for breast cancer or alcoholism "should pass on the pint and order soda." Soda?! Since when is soda a healthful option? In a day and age when herb-infused and antioxidant-laden beverages abound, couldn't he have recommended something other than carbonated high-fructose corn syrup? Helena Chen, ALISO VIEJO, CALIF...
...peace agreement. Rift Valley tourist towns, known for their wild flamingos, were particularly hard-struck by bloodshed. A house in Naivasha was deliberately set on fire, killing 14 people inside. Idyllic little towns like Njoro are now divided along distinct tribal lines. Meanwhile, unkempt fields littered with corn stalks line both sides of roads that wind through the territory of various ethnic groups. Farmers say they are too afraid to prepare their harvests for fear of being attacked...
...producers in general have had a tough couple of years. As food prices soar worldwide, people are growing ever more worried that biofuel production can drive up the prices of staple foods. Tens of thousands of Mexicans marched in January 2006, for example, to protest the rising price of corn, used in the U.S. to make ethanol. Virgin and partners claim that their airplane fuel is, as Branson says, "completely environmentally and socially sustainable." It's not made from staple-food crops or from crops that required deforestation. But even coconuts and babassu have their problems: the oil yield...
Many environmentalists have been making the case against biofuels for some time, arguing that biofuel production takes valuable agricultural land away from food, driving up the price of staple crops like corn. But the Science papers make a more sweeping argument. In their paper, Fargione's team calculated the "carbon debt" created by raising biofuel crops - the amount of carbon released in the process of converting natural landscapes into cropland. They found that corn ethanol produced in the U.S. had a carbon debt of 93 years, meaning it would take nearly a century for ethanol, which does produce fewer greenhouse...
This is all depressing news, especially if you're a corn farmer. Biofuels are one of the few alternative fuels that are actually available right now, but the evidence suggests we be better off not relying on them. But even Fargione doesn't argue that we should ditch biofuels altogether. Biofuels using waste matter - like wood chips, or the leftover sections of corn stalks - or from perennial plants like switchgrass, effectively amount to free fuel, because they don't require clearing additional land. "There's no carbon debt," notes Fargione. Unfortunately, the technology for yielding fuel from those sources - like...