Two words you will never hear on your weather forecast.

These words are ‘climate change’. And the reason why you won’t hear them is that in Canada , our country is governed by people who have, it would seem, completely sold their souls to to the interests of big energy.

Think of it this way. If you believe that carbon emissions from all the fossil fuel driven machinery  from cars to factory turbines, is playing a big part in the climate change we are experiencing, then it’s not rocket science to conclude that reducing those emissions through the use of non-polluting energy sources like solar and wind would be able to have a positive effect on climate change.

The problem here lies in the question of who controls those resources. Right now big oil and big energy and their powerful lobby groups have many governments, including, in my opinion, ours, in their pocket. So any legislation that promotes in any significant programs to help develop alternative energy businesses, has pretty much a snowball’s chance in hell of getting passed. 

This has nothing to do with what anybody believes about alternative energy sources. It has to do with who controls them and can charge us for them on a per use basis. After the initial installation of a renewable energy source, the energy costs nothing to harvest. And you can bet that there are a bunch of extremely greedy people out there that don’t want to see that happen on any sort of scale.

This article is talks primarily about climate change and the Canadian government’s complete willingness to turn a blind eye to it.  Hope it makes you as angry as it does us.

https://news.vice.com/article/the-canadian-government-has-forbidden-meteorologists-to-discuss-climate-change

Are Biofuels Becoming Commercially Viable?

The argument for and against biofuels in the United States has raged back and forth for years. On the one hand, there are people who shout that one should never turn food (typically corn) into fuel. On the other hand are people shouting back that oil won’t go on forever, and they need to find a viable solution now before it’s too late. However, both sides of the argument in America are quickly being ignored. The reason for that is because biofuels have outgrown the argument, and are quickly becoming commercial industries all over the world rather than just in the first world.

The Country’s Needs

Because of advances in technology it’s become possible to create biofuels out of a wider variety of products than just corn. Fuel additives can be made from palm oil, ethanol can be strained from used vegetation, and it’s possible to make fuel from hemp as well as from algae. These are just a handful of the potential solutions. While it might have been Europe and America that took the first, pioneering steps into the idea of biofuels, the rest of the world has left them behind while searching for their own solutions.

The result of this search is that different countries have adapted different solutions based on what is plentiful in their areas. For instance, countries in South America are focusing solutions on the natural products that come out of the rain forest, while companies in Indonesia are looking to the solutions that abundant supplies of palm oil might yield. There is no reason to have a single type of biofuel for the entire world when there are different solutions readily available on so many different countries’ doorsteps just waiting to be utilized.

Sustainability Is Key

When it comes to biofuels and whether or not they’re commercially viable, the keyword is sustainability. This is the reason that the arguments can get so polarized in the United States; so many people view biofuels as either food or fuel. If biofuel was being made from algae, or from witch grass, there would be no argument because the places those plants grow are not the places that one can grow food. Or, take it a step further, if biofuels could be made from something that was generally considered a waste product, then they would be embraced as a way to reduce waste and to recycle even more. Provided that enough of it can be made to meet the demand.

The viability of a biofuel as a solution depends on how much of it a population needs. In parts of Europe where it is more common to take public transportation or to walk, where the need for any fuel will be lower, then a given solution might be quite viable. That same solution may not work in America, where there are huge spaces and where transportation is largely an individual responsibility. However, just because a solution won’t work in one country doesn’t mean another can’t use it.

This post is contributed by Linda Bailey from housekeeping.org. She is a Texas-based writer who loves to write on the topics of housekeeping, green living, home décor, and more. She welcomes your comments which can be sent to b.lindahousekeeping@gmail.com

Thanks, Linda. 

If you would like to be a guest poster on Our Green Directory, send your proposed post, fully proofed, along with tags and any accompanying visuals in j-peg form to:  jim.murray@ourgreendirectory.com.  As long as it’s ‘green’ in nature and info or opinion that would be beneficial to people looking to evolve their personal lives or businesses through the use of eco-friendly products, services or advice, all posts are welcome. We do reserve the right to reject posts that do not fit these general parameters. Thanks, Jim