If you’re following global warming studies, you already know that the peat bogs contain stupendous amongs of carbon, which burned, dwarfs the fossil-fuel carbon output of the entire world. However, this article about peat bog burning from Climate Ark states, among other things, that the global demand for biofuels is, uh, fueling the draining and burning of peat bogs in Indonesia.

In other words, the demand for biofuels, based in part on our belief that biofuels are a partial solution to global warming, is leading to the burning of peat bogs, which itself is one of the worst contributors of global warming.

Ethanol, to remind everyone, depends on large fossil fuel inputs: fertilizer for corn takes the most, and there are other fossil fuels which need to be burned for the farming, corn transportation, processing, and fuel transportation of the ethanol.
Let’s be on the lookout for these sort of unintended consequences, shall we? We’re engulfed in a web of relationships which enmesh us in carbon burning of all different varieties and variations, and trying to wiggle out — with biofuels — may simply make us more stuck.