Hummingbird

This picture was taken by a classmate of mine , the insectologist Kim, when we all went to Costa Rica to study sustainable business. In Monteverde, they have a hummingbird garden. I love these little guys, and they can show us a bit of how everything comes around. Read on to see how.

A google search tells me there are 320 species, some of which migrate from Central America to as high up as Alaska each year. How they manage to make it in Alaska, I don't know, but perhaps they drink whiskey instead of nectar. In the fall, the migratory ones, including the most well known, the ruby-throated hummingbird, migrate southward and then cross the Gulf of Mexico. They're freaking smaller than my hand and they cross a giant gulfy abyss! Makes me wonder why I have trouble crossing my bed to get up in the morning.

Anyway, currently there are several hummingbird species that are endangered, and others are experiencing population declines. This is due to habitat destruction along their migratory path, here in the US, and in their wintering home of central/South America.

Currently, the rainforest is being cut down for agriculture by slash and burn methods and for growing crops to make ethanol.

First thing not too good about that: nutrients are held within a rainforest trees' roots. So when the trees are cut down, the nutrients go with them, and thus, there are only a couple of years of good growing before the soil is nutrient poor and unable to grow anything. A better way for both agriculture and the rainforest is to cultivate small squares and move on - creating a patchwork effect. Most crops can be grown in and amongst rainforest trees, and indeed that's where they first evolved.



Second thing not too good about it: ethanol's no better for the environment than gas, and in some ways is more harmful.




Why, you may ask? Aren't I being environmentally unfriendly by not supporting ethanol?

Ethanol uses no less energy to produce as gas/oil. The crop used to make it (here in the US) is corn. I'll write another post about our love affair with corn. The journal Science has published studies on ethanol, and concluded that corn-based ethanol has similar greenhouse emissions as gasoline. It's also less fuel-efficient, and requires more trips to the gas pump, and has to be trucked around, which further contributes to our gas needs. And, we can't forget that corn grown with un-sustainable, un-environmentally and people friendly methods doesn't really further any environmental cause. Plus, it's genetically engineered corn..

Ethanol is being embraced because it allows us to continue our dance with corn and maybe possibly get less reliant on foreign oil (see ethanol's largest coalition's website here) while creating a new industry to invest/profit from. Proponents say that ethanol will get cheaper as more people invest in it. Right now, it's more expensive than gas, even though the US heavily subsidizes it....My question is why we don't do this push with solar energy, which makes a whole lot more sense.

All this said, there is a place for ethanol. Refineries are substituting ethanol for a water-supply-polluting oxygenating agent (MTBE). However, it's a mistake to think that we should make ethanol our prime supply, or make it beyond an oxygenating agent. And, the ethanol we make should be from sustainably grown sources.

Cellulostic ethanol looks better to me - cellulostic ethanol uses all parts of a plant whereas ethanol only uses corn kernels. Canada and I think.. Minnesota?.. are looking into this with switchgrass, a native grass that's easy and fast to grow, and would be easier on the earth. Currently it's not cheap enough.

However, I think the best thing now is probably be bio-diesel, which reduces volume from our waste stream and runs clean, and for which a converter can be put on any diesel car. We can continue experimenting with ethanol, but right now, I say it doesn't do anything better for the earth and us.

See summary of Cornell's scientists findings about ethanol not being better here and here
See Business Week's Q+A on ethanol here
See CATO Institute's (and Chicago Sun-Times) article on ethanol here

You can also type ethanol into google and see tons of lobbyist sites from corn growers and ethanol companies.