Censat Agua Viva

Summary:
Demythologizing agrofuels.
Agrofuelds are no solution to the problem of climate change, with them no CO2 emissions are saved, on the contrary, due to the call for more production and consumption they will increment global warming.

Extended content:

If the energetic costs of agrofuels is quantified, which requires the inversion of large amounts of energy in the initial stages of development, production and consumption, the energy balance of agrofuels is negative. 

• The cost of energy used to produce agro toxic and fertilizers.
• The energy wasted on incorporating farm- and cattle land; the impact on water, air, soil and biodiversity due to insertion of foreign species in protected and non-protected ecosystems; mitigation and prevention costs of impacts due to displacement of fauna and flora; all show the energetic deficit of agrofuels.
• The installment and production of agrofuelds, have enormous social costs. Displacement of communities, malnutrition of people due to loss of territories left to produce fuel for cars instead of food. 
• The cost of losing cultural and natural diversity of the planet, which implies the loss of ecological, as well as socio-economical y cultural functions of territories, fundamental conditions for the survival of our indigenous communities, afro-descendents and farmers.

On the other side, the demand for energy of northern societies, wasters of energy, would imply growing agrofuels on the whole surface of our planet for the production of energy; in such a way that the costs of consumption of agrofuelds would contribute enourmously to global warming.

On an energy balance that would include the externalities of the life of agrofuels and not only the industrial production cost as in a clasical economy; the energetic costs of installation, production and consumption of agrofuels would far outweigh the reduction in carbon dioxides.

Colombia is an example of the costs that imply the production of agrofuels: millions of displaced people in the cities with fisical hunger, thousands of hectars that represent the ecological patrimonium of the planet; burned down and later sown with african palm; the worsening of war which affects the poorest sectors first; strengthening and consolidation of a neocolonisatory model that supports a strategy of usurption of land and natural resources, to posteriorly reassign them through a narco-paramilitar aparatus, that in large amounts has been created by big national and international capital.

Objectives of the Campaign:

• Spreading the news about environmental, social and cultural conflicts, generated by agroindustrial megaprojectos and their impacts on territories and cultures of black, indigenous and farming communities
• Demystifying agrofuels as a clean, sustainable alternative that contribute to the reduction of global warmingEvidenciar las políticas, los actores, los intereses de quienes promueven los megaproyectos de la agroindustria para combustibles.
• Visualizing the positions and proposals of communities to stop expansion of agrofuels.
• Interchanging tools for resistance and protection of Territories, Biodiversity and Cultures.