Transportation 533
Transportation
Along with electricity, the biggest use of energy worldwide is as fuel for
transportation in trains, airplanes, trucks, buses, and automobiles. Just as
with electricity, people in wealthy countries use more fuel for transportation
than people in poor countries. Pollution from burning fuel for transportation
is a major cause of illnesses such as asthma, bronchitis, and cancers, and also
causes global warming.
In order to burn less fuel and have more fairness in transportation, people
in wealthy countries, especially the United States, must use more public
transportation (trains and buses) and fewer private automobiles. Cities and
transportation systems must encourage bicycles instead of cars.
The problem with plant-based fuels
When the automobile engine was invented, it was
made to run on fuels made from plants, such as
vegetable oil or alcohol. But soon after, when petroleum
became cheap to produce, gasoline and diesel fuel (both
made from petroleum) became the main fuels used to
power automobile engines, as well as motorcycles, trucks,
and airplanes. The petroleum industry worked very hard to
prevent plant-based fuels from being used.
Now that oil has again become expensive, many
countries are turning to plant-based fuels to replace
petroleum. Fuel made from palm, soybeans, canola, maize,
or other plant oils is called “biofuel” or “agrofuel.” This
seems like a good solution because plants are renewable.
But there are many reasons why agro-fuels will cause
more problems than they solve.
• Producing oil from plants that could be used for
food leads to competition between growing fuel for
cars and growing food for people. With so many people
suffering from lack of food, we cannot afford to turn food into fuel.
• One reason to reduce dependence on fossil fuels is to decrease global
warming. But to produce the amounts of crops needed to make
biofuel requires the use of petroleum fertilizer, farm machinery, and
transportation of the fuel crop from where it is grown to where it is
processed and distributed, and finally to where it is used. In the end,
producing biofuels uses more energy than it produces, and causes more
global warming than petroleum!
• W hen forested land is cleared to grow biofuel crops, the trees that
absorb global warming gases are destroyed. For example, biofuel made
from palm oil causes 10 times as much global warming as diesel oil.
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012