CONGRESSMAN [Roilo] Golez’s concern that biofuels will eat into food security — specifically, “making beer more expensive” — strains credulity.
Couldn’t he at least think of other, more plausible reasons besides worrying about a more expensive alcoholic drink?
– Perla Limbaga Manapol, Banga, Aklan, Philippines (via e-mail)
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December 22nd, 2007 at 2:14 am
My christmas present to all of you!
“Quotes from the heart”
Dream what you want to dream. Go where you want to go. Be what you want to be because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want in life.
It’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it but its also true that we don’t know what we’re missing until it arrives.
The happiest of all people don’t necessarily have the best of everything, They just make the most out of everything that comes their way.
To love and win is the best thing, To love and lost is the next best.
Love is blind, Marrieage is a real eye opener. Marriage based on love and trust, Without it, It’s meaningless!
There are moments in life when you miss someone so much that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real.
It takes only a minute to get a crush on someone, An hour to like someone, And a day to love someone but it take a lifetime to forget someone.
Giving someone all your love is never an assurance that they’ll love you back. Don’t expect love in return; Just wait for it to grow in their heart but if it doesn’t be content it grew in yours.
Love begins with a smile, Grows with a kiss, End with a tears.
The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, You can’t go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.
A careless word can kindle a strife, A cruel word may wreck a life, Kindly word may level a stress; A loving word may heal and bless.
In giving it is always the thoughts that counts. What comes from the pocket is immaterial, WHAT COME FROM THE HEART IS ENTERNAL.
Merry christmas! and a happy new year!
From: all of us Salanas
December 21st, 2007 at 3:05 pm
At least we are talking about plants now. For over three decades now, people have been mindlessly suffocating the earth with cement in the places where people make decisions for the country. The lack of green has been as absent as the care for the environment in implementing and creating laws.
Plants for fuel, food, medicine, or even ornaments… should be brought back to the Filipino. Tuba-Tuba for fuel, Malunggay for nutrition, Gatas-Gatas for dengue, Talinum for ornamental veggies… these are what should be injected into kids in school.
The migrants from the provinces are out of their minds in scrambling to the cities. If the details of planting had been part of education, then very few will have to pick through urban garbage for food. Lives will be saved by herbal treatment. Agri by-product and organic “trash” can be converted into fertilizer or turned into charcoal bricks to save the trees from being chopped down for uling.
To me, these things are more important than knowing who killed Magellan.
We know nothing now about nature. We have no concept of sustaining our resources. We all are so dependent on the plastic bag mentality while looking up to GMA or whoever it is up there to make life easier for us.
December 21st, 2007 at 1:04 pm
kabayan, fyi
one scientific study done about the oilseed from jatropha-the plant that thrived in sub-continent of india up to the sub-saharan desert envronment. the nomadic berbers tribe of morrocan saharan desert-who where consider the world greatest desert survivalist consider jatropha as one of the poisonous plant that they fully stay away from it.
the accidental discharge-spill of processed by-product on soil and run off storm discharge will be a catastrophic environmental mishap.
i am not personally against to any of the bio-fuels initiatives, my bone of contention are that biofuels (i.e. jatropha oilseeds) source must be throughly study. what are the pharmacological and toxicological effects to human it may cause in the long short and long term exposure to it, and what are the proper way of processing and discarding the by-product waste from jatropha’s oilseeds extraction.
i am very familiar with “tuba-tuba”(jatropha), my great-grandmother in our village used to grew it for some kind of herbal medicinal use. its whitish sap from leaves, branches and outer seeds covering if it is ingested accidentally will make a grown up man exhibiting the like of a very highly intoxicated appearance followed by violent vomiting.
goats will not even venture to try to much a single leaf from it. and we all knows that goats eats anything.
GUANGZHOU, China, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Oilseed plant jatropha does not offer an easy answer to biofuels problems as some countries hope, because it can be toxic and yields are unreliable, experts and industry officials warned on Wednesday.
The woody plant can grow on barren, marginal land, and so is increasingly popular in countries such as China that are keen to boost biofuels output but nervous about food security.
But its nuts and leaves are toxic, requiring careful handling by farmers and at crushing plants, said experts at an oils and fats conference.
In addition, it is a labour-intensive crop as each fruit ripens at a different time and needs to be harvested separately. Its productivity is also low and has yet to be stabilised.
M. R. Chandran, adviser to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, told Reuters it would take five years of intensive research before jatropha could achieve productivity that would make its cultivation economically viable. The oil yield of the plant, originating in Africa and still largely a wild species, is less than 2 tonnes per hectare with large swings from year to year.
An engineer specialising in oil and fat processing plants, including for biodiesel production, said special facilities were needed for crushing jatropha nuts as they could produce a toxic vapour.
The engineer, who declined to be named, said his company hoped to seal a deal with a private investor to build one of the world’s first large-scale jatropha-based biodiesel plants in China’s southern province of Yunnan before the end of this year.
December 21st, 2007 at 12:44 pm
To philkid and Jerry Gervacio,
There are biofuel plant sources that does not need much water, nor would it necessarily affect our food supply or degrade our environment. Biodiesels have even less impact on water and food resources.
Check out my blog response to chris galon, 20.12.07 10:32 am.
December 21st, 2007 at 2:00 am
Fossil fuels is bound to be depleted. The search for renewable and cheaper sources of energy and for cleaner fuels is a world concern. Let’s be thankful that there are people who thought about that.
Bio-diesel from Coco-Methyl Esters or coconut oil is not only feasible, it is reality.
In Ethanol, corn has been produced by U.S.A. for a very long time now even before the issue of biofuels. The U.S.A is the biggest producer of Ethanol. That more and more of their grains are being diverted to bio-fuel production because of the bio-fuel craze may be a sad thing. Sa States ‘yon. That is in ‘States’. But this is a problem of corn importers like Mexico which I believe does not spare the Philippines because we are actually corn importer, too. We are surely affected.
Sugar cane is a perennial tropical crop. They are naturals of the tropics and not in places where there is winter. Sugarcane produce 120 metric tons per hectare while corn, a short term crop, makes 8 metric tons per hectare at best.
Food prices is expected to climb because of the Ethanol program. Many grain and grain based products will be seeking new level. there is nothing anybody can do about that.
But better price for agricultural produce, if transmitted to farmers, will also motivate them to plant more. Today ,many of our farmers are “lazy” and we have territories that are idle and half idle.
Give the masses of farmers a break!
Magnegosyo ka na lang, doon din lahat uuwi ang mga pera na yon, but not if like one reader puts it - its all the monopoly traders that benefit every time.