Home and Family

The events at Copenhagen were definitely a setback for the future, but a lot of attention is going to be given nevertheless to our needs to become sustainable. When the nations leaders met in Denmark, everyone hoped that a successor would be found to the landmark Kyoto Protocol. As politics and domestic commercial interests slowed the tempo of the meeting, individual countries nevertheless promised to take significant steps of action.

As we go forward, more and more evidence accumulates pointing to how greenhouse gas emissions are causing damage to our environment. We can now see how over 300 years we have disregarded the consequences of excess energy production and how we relied on old fossil fuels. It seems likely that unless we reduce this reliance, considerable harm will ensue.

The lead is being taken in Europe, where the UK is implementing a trading scheme to force the largest polluters to buy licenses from the government allowing them to emit additional carbon. Should these companies improve efficiency and reduce their use, they will receive rebates and bonuses. Should they not, they will incur penalties. This is just an example of what governments may do as they force our attention toward sustainability.

A large part of the pollution in question can be attributed to transportation methods and our reliance on petroleum and petro diesel to transport our vehicles. As such, biodiesel fuel is an excellent option and in many cases is much more palatable and can even reduce carbon dioxide related emissions as compared to those conventional gases.

In the United States, the EPA has ruled greenhouse gases to be hazardous, under the auspices of the Clean Air Act. This may well give rise to further legislation or the application of existing powers to cut back on emissions, including those from our vehicles.

If biodiesel can be shown to be a workable alternative and a solution that has benefits above and beyond carbon emissions, then we could see a concerted increase in the number of facilities making biodiesel, more distribution stations and more people converting to the use of biodiesel for their diesel engine vehicles. This alternative may be used within regular petro diesel engines without any modifications or alterations and can be used within a variety of different strengths or solutions.

Biodiesel is not a new invention, far from it, but has been in the shadows due to what used to be relatively inexpensive costs associated with petroleum or petro diesel and a lack of education and awareness surrounding related carbon emissions. Things have definitely changed though and our society is looking for many alternative options and as such biofuel advocates must bring the discussion levels to the fore. People now need to move from the process of making homemade biodiesel to demanding that commercially made options are widely available all around them.

We now know that if we all make a concerted effort individually toward real change, whether in small things or on a large scale, anything is possible when it comes to global environmental sustainability, for us, and for our future generations.