Two contrasting news pieces regarding Brazilian biofuel production add further confusion as to how sustainable it really is. On one hand, the adjunct secretary general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), Laksmi Puri, said on Thursday in São Paulo that the country’s development strategy is a model. “We analyzed the Brazilian model so as to see in which countries it might be reproduced. The use of biofuels as we imagine it is a win, win, win strategy. The environment wins, the commerce wins, and development wins too,” he said.
However, the BBC has a different story to tell. The media organization has uncovered evidence that workers are being exploited, facing long hours and very low pay. Besides, by looking at those images, we really wonder how ecologically correct sugar cane plantations can be. Besides the exploitation of cane cutters, we have to consider other aggravating factors such as the atmospheric pollution from the burning of sugarcane for harvesting (plus the fire hazard to the rainforest it represents), land and water degradation, to name but few of the problems associated with this type of fuel.
What do you think of ethanol? Can it really be flogged as a clean type of fuel?
