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"Veterans of the diaper wars know that environmental costs aren't always what they seem....power to run the washer and dryer for cloth diapers, not just the landfill impact of disposables, for instance. (Cloth comes out only a little bit ahead; it's a clear winner if you run your appliances on sun or wind.)"

"In the United States, almost all ethanol comes from corn. When you tote up the carbon emissions caused by clearing land to grow corn, fertilizing it and transporting it, corn ethanol leaves twice the carbon footprint as gasoline."

"...if your utility burns dirty coal inefficiently, hybrid electrics are worse. If you plug in at night, when most people do, you'll also be using more coal-generated electricity."

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ORIGINAL: Sanity

Here's an interesting article. It seems that in many ways, the feel-good rush to go green is doing far more harm than good.

At least Al Gore's making a nice profit, though!

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"Veterans of the diaper wars know that environmental costs aren't always what they seem....power to run the washer and dryer for cloth diapers, not just the landfill impact of disposables, for instance. (Cloth comes out only a little bit ahead; it's a clear winner if you run your appliances on sun or wind.)"

"In the United States, almost all ethanol comes from corn. When you tote up the carbon emissions caused by clearing land to grow corn, fertilizing it and transporting it, corn ethanol leaves twice the carbon footprint as gasoline."

"...if your utility burns dirty coal inefficiently, hybrid electrics are worse. If you plug in at night, when most people do, you'll also be using more coal-generated electricity."

(Click here to read more)

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Even hybrid electric cars aren't a clear plus. If your outlet gets its juice from the standard U.S. electricity mix (half of which is generated by burning coal), hybrid electrics emit half the greenhouse gases as standard gasoline cars. But if your utility burns dirty coal inefficiently, hybrid electrics are worse. If you plug in at night, when most people do, you'll also be using more coal-generated electricity.

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ORIGINAL: DomKenQuite a difference the whole quote makes. The choice of whether a plug in hybrid is the way to go is to check into whether your local electric utility generates/buys power from plants that burn low grade coal. Which as te above quote indicates isn't that common, i.e. not the standard in the US.

Dumping ethanol, the crux of the article, isn't particularly controversial inside the environmental movement. Ethanol is being championed primarily by the corn growers/processors and the energy independence advocates.

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Sounds Good, But ...

We can't afford to make any more mistakes in how to 'save the planet.' Start by ditching corn ethanol

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Begley: Let's Ditch Ethanol

• There is a finite amount of traditional fuel sources such as oil and coal.
• The world population is rather large and saturated at the moment.
• There is only so much land available producing food for the population.
• We do need to be mindful of the consumption rate of our finite resources.
• We do need to be mindful of our environmental effects.
• There will always be people/politicians/industries that try to make a buck off of our needs (environment, homeland security, flood protection...) but their bogus or overstated claims don't mean the need isn't real.
• If you want to save energy get off of your fat ass and walk instead of drive for some the errands you run (not directed and any poster at all. that is, the "you" is inclusive).
• Hopping in a school buss sized SUV and waiting in line for 20 minutes at Starbucks to buy an organic coffee on the way to Walmart to buy eco-diapers is just plain silly.