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the'southern Amazon, fohn Carter looks down on the destruction of the world's greatest ecological jewel. He watches men converting rain fotest into cattle pastures and soybeanfields rvith bulldozers and chains. He seesfires wiping out such gigantic swaths of jungle that scientists now debatethe "savannization"of the Amazon. Brazil just announced that deforestation is on track to double this year; Carter, a Texascowboy with all the subtlety of a chainsaw, saysit's going to get worse fast. "It gives me goosebumps,'] says Carter, who founded a nonprofit to prohote sustainable ranching on the Amazon frentier. "It's like witnessing arape." The Amazon was the chic eco-cause ofthe r99os,reveredas an incomparable storehouseofbiodiversity. Itt been overshadowed lately by global warming, but the Amazon rain forest happens also to be an incomparable storehouseof carbon,the very carbonthat heatsup the planetwhen it's releasedinto the atmosphere.Brazil now ranks fourth in the world in carbon emissions,and most of its emissionscome from deforestation.Carter is not a man who getseasily spooked-he led a reconnaissance unit in Desert Storm, and I watchedhim grab a small anacondawith his barehandsin Brazil-but he can sound downright panicky about the future of the forest. "You can't protect it. There'stoo much money to be made tearing it down," he says."Out here on the frontier, you really seethe rnarket atwork." This land rush is being acceleratedby an unlikely source:biofuels. An explosion in demandfor farm-grown fuels has raised global crop prices to recordhighs, which is spurringadramatic expansionofBrazilian agriculture, which is invading the Amazon at an increasingly alarming rate. Propelled by mounting anxieties over soaring oil costs and climate change,biofuels have become the vanguard of the green-techrevolution, the trendy way for politicians and corporationsto show they're seriousabout finding alternative sourcesof energy and in the processslowing global warming. The U.S.quintupled its production of ethanol-ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter-in the pastdecade, and Washington hasjust mandatedanother fivefold increasein renewablefuels overthe next decade.Europehassimilarly aggressive biofuel mandatesand subsidies,and Brazil's fillingstationsno longerevenofferplain gasoline.Worldwide investmentinbiofuels rose from g5billionin 1995to g38billionin zoo5 and is expectedto top groobillion by zoro, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and GeorgeSoros,GEand BP,Fordand Shell,

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BY MICHAELG RUNW ALD

Photo$aphs for TIME by JohnLee-Aurora $elect

Deforested.4 tiny sliceof preserved. tranitional rainforest is surrounded.by acresofsoybean cropsinBrazil'sMatoGrwso state.Used tomakebiofuels,the saybeansareboostingtheIocal emnomyattheAm6zon'sexpense

365 Daygone person could be fed on the com neededto ffll ah ethanol-fueledSUV

75O,(XX) Estimatedsize of 2010 biofuelmarket

Acresof Brazllianrain fofest lost in the last slx months of 2OO7 (equalto the area of Rhodelsland)

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ffiffffitffiffi Cargill and the Carlyle Group. Renewable firlshas becomeone of tlose motherhoodand-apple-piecatchphrases,asunobjectionableasthetroopsu tlv middleclass. I But severalnew studiesshowthebiofuel boomis doing exactlythe oppositeof what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass,which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investorsas well as by PresidentBtsh asthe fuel ofthe future, looks lessgreenthan oil-derived gasoline. Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grainittakes tofill an suv tankwith ethanol could feeda person for a year.Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.'s World Food Program saysit needs g5oomillion in additional funding and supplies,calling the rising costsfor food nothing lebsthan a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparkedtortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn't exactly tranquil when flour was affordable. Biofuels do slightlyreduce dependence on imported oil, and the ethanol boom has createdrural jobs while enriching some farmers and agribusinesses.But the basic problem with most biofuels is amazingly simple, given that researchershave ignored it until now: using land to grow fuelleads to the destruction offorests,wetlands and grasslandsthat store enormous amounts of carbon. Backedbv billions in investment capital, this alarming phenomenonis replicating itself around the world. Indonesia has bulldozed and burned so much wilderness to growpalm oil trees forbiodiesel that its ranking amongthe world'stop carbonemitters has surged from zrst to third according to a report by Wetlands International. Malaysia is converting forests into palm oil farms so rapidlythatit'srunning out of uncultivated land. But most of the damage createdby biofuels will be lessdirect and lessobvious. In Brazil for instance, only a tiny portion of the Amazon is being torn down to growthe sugarcanethatfuels most Brazilian cars. More deforestation results from a chain reaction sovast it's subtlq U.S. farmers areselling one-fifth of their corn to ethanolproduction,soU.S.soybeanfarmers are switchingto corn, so Braziliansoybean farmers areexpanding into cattle pastures, so Brazilian cattlemen are displacedto the Amazon. It's the remorselesseconomicsof

Farrnsvs. fofeste AmericantrarcplantI ohn Carler,above,at his r anchin the BrazikanstateofMato Grosso. group As directoroftheadvocacy Aliancada Terra,Carterurges Brazil'sleailerstoconsiderthe conseqtrcnces ofrazingtfu Amazon u plantsoybean crops,aboveright" promote il asa gasolinealternative

commodities markets. "The price of soybeansgoesup," laments SandroMenezes,a biologist with Conservation International in Brazil, "and the forest comesdown." Deforestation accounts for zooloof all current carbon emissions.So unless the world can eliminate emissions from all other sources*cars, power plants, factories, even flatulent cows-it needs to reduce deforestation or risk an environmental catastrophe.That means limiting the expansion of agriculture, a daunting task as the world's population keeps expanding. And saving forestsis probablyan impossibility so long as vast expansesof cropland areusedto growmodest amounts of fuel. The biofuels boom, in short, is one

Horr U.S. FarmersContribute To Deforestation in Brazil FooDTo FUELOne' fifth of the U.S.corn crop is divertedto more than 1OO ethanolrefineries.The increaseddemand booststhe prlceof corn to recordlevels.

FIELDCHANGE Eagerto cash in, many U.S.soybean growersswitchto plantingcorn,which ls pricler.Soybean pricesrise as suppliesshrink,

*#*##* x&x* that couldhaunt the planetfor generations-and it's only gettingstarted. tYhythe Amazon ls on Fire TH IS D E S TR U C TIV EB IOFU E L D Y N A MIC IS

on vivid display in Brazil, where a Rhode Island-size chunk of the Amazon was deforestedin the secondhalf of zooTand even more was degradedby fire. Some scientists believe fires are now altering the local microclimate and could eventually reduce the Amazon to a savanna or even a desert. "It's approaching a tipping point," saysecologist Daniel Nepstad of the Woods Hole ResearchCenter. I spenta dayin the Amazon with the Kamayura tribe, which has been forced by

He'smore concernedabout his tribe's re- convertedCerradoto seea 96-acre$9 hectcent tendenry to waste its precious diesel- are)sliver of intact Cerrado,where a former poweredgeneratorwatchinglate-nightsoapshopkeeper named Lauro Barbosa had bperas.lit he'sright. Deforestationcanbe a spent his life savingsfor a nature preserve. complexprocess;iorexample,landreforms "The land prices are going up,'.up'gpi Bar; bosatold me."My friends sayI'm a fool, and enactedby nrazilian PresidentLuiz Inicio my wife almost divorced me. But I wanted slash-and-burn Lula daSiiva haveattracted to savesomething beforeit's all-gorre." squattemto the forest,and "use it or loseit" The environmental cost of this cropincentives have spurred somelandowners land creep is now becoming appalent. todeforesttoavoidredistribution. The basic problem is that the Amazon One groundbreaking new study in Scince is worth mori deforestedthan it is intact. concluded that when this deforestation Carter,whofellinlovewiththeregionafter effect is taken into account,corn ethanol *"t.yittg a Brazilian and taking over her and soy biodiesel produce about twice the fatheitrinch,saystherateofdeforestation emissionsofgasoline. Sugarcaneethanol closely tracks commodity prices on the is much cleaner,and biofuels createdfrom Chicalo Board ofTrade. "Ii's just exponen- waste products that don t gobble up land tialrigitnowbecausetheeconomiciareso have real potential, but even cellulosic good,'"'hesays.'Xverythingtillableorgraze-ethanol increasesoverall emissionswhen

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TO RIPPLEEFFEET$ meet global demand for soybeans, farmers in Brazilare expandinginto fields previouslyusedas cattle pasturelands. DisplacedraneheF,

in tum, clearnew grazinglandsin the Amazonrainforestor the Cerradosavanna, releasingcarbon.

drought to replant its crops frve times this year.The tribesmen I met all complained about hacking coughs and stinging eyes from the constant fires and the disappearanceofthe native plants they use for food medicine and rituals. The Kamayura had virtually no contactwith whites ur$il the r96os;now their forestis collapsingaround them. Their chief,Kotok,amiddle-agedman with an easysmileandThreeStoogeshairdo that belie his fierceauthority, believesthatb no coincidence.'"Wearepeopleof the forest, and the whites are destroying our home," saysKotok" who wore a ceremonialbeaded belt, a digital watch, a pair of flip-flops and nothing else."It's allbecauseof money'' Kotok knows nothing about biofuels. rrlan April 7, zooS

itsplantsourceisgrownongood don'twantto "People cropland. u-.ii"*r.rr"*"ir.fuelscouldbe bad,"saystheleadauthor,Tim

Searchinger,aPrincetonscholar emplar of the allure of biofuels. red$Cg and former Environmental DeSogatgro*ersherehaveagreen- glOhal fenseattorney."Butwhenyorr eritorltotellthandoanyother *arming? realize we're tearing-down rain biofuei producers.They provide Onlysugarlaneis foreststhatstoreloadsofcarbon based ethanol (ill in cars 45oloof^Brazil'sfuel to grow crops that store much tf,a .ootttty are able to run on efficientenough lesscarbon,itbecomesobvious." ethanol) ononly roloof its arable to cut emissions The g1or1i1g backlash fertilizer land. They'vereduced iL-T:::i:1.:^ against bigfuef is a product of usewhileincreasingyields, and |f,:e,]j| il""t,:T the law of unintended consethey converr lefto;er biomass ffi;;;;'*' quences.It- ma-y.seem obvious th. Marcos electricity. into ]ank, ;;;; ;;; nowthatwhenbiofuelsincrease head of theirirade goup, urges cad'onemitters demandforcrops,priceswillrise me not to lump biofueb togeiher:"Grainis go6dforbread,notforcars.But andfarmswillexpandinto nature.Butbiosugaris diffeient." fank expectsproduction fuel technologybeganon asmall scale,and to iouble by zot5 with little eifect on the grain surpluseswere common.Any ripples Amazon."Yort'llieetheexpansiononcattle were inconsequential.When the scalebecomes global, the outcome-is entirely {ifpasturesand the Cerrado,"he says. ferent, which is causing cheerleadersfor Sofar,hetright.Thereisntmuchsugar in the AmazonlBut my n.*t stop was the biofuels to recalibrate."We're all looking at Cerrado,south of the Amazon, an ecologi- the numbers in an entirely new way," says the Natural ResourcesDefenseCouncil's caljewelinitsownright.TheAmazongets theink, but the Cerraio is the world's most NathanaelGreene,whoseoptimistic "Growbiodiverse savanna,with ro,ooo species ingEnergy"reportinzoo4helpedgalvanize of plants, nearly half of which are found support for biofuels among gleen gfoups' Several of the most widely cited exttoi"h.t. else on earth, and more mammals than the African bush. In the natu- perts on the environmental benefits of ral Cerrado,I saw toucans and macaws, biofuels are warning about the environpuma tracks and a carnivorous flower mental costsnow that they'v,erecognized ihat lures flies by smelling like manure. the deforestation effect' "The situation The Cerrado'streesaren't aslal or denseas is a lot more challenging than a lot of us the Amazon's,sothey don't storeasmuch thought," saysUniversity of California' carbon,but the region is three times the Berkeley, professor Alexander Farrell, atticle calculating the whose zoo6Science sizeofTexas,soit sioresits shale. Atleastitdid,beforeitwastransformed emissionsreductionsof various ethanols by the march of progress-first into pas- usedto be consideredthe definitive analytures, then intoiugircane and soybean sis.Theexpertshaven'tgivenupontiofu fields. In one fieid I iaw an array of ovens els; they're calling for better biofuels that cooking trees into charcoal, spewing Cer- won't trigger massive_carbonreleasesby rado's iarbon into the atmosphere;lhose displacing wildland. Robert Watson, the ovensusedtobeubiquitous,butmostofthe top scientist at the U.K.'sDepartment-for treesaregone.Ihadtbtravelhoursthrough the Environment, recently warned that

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$Wffirc mandatingmorebiofuelusage-as the European Union is proposing-would be "insane"ifit increasesgreenhousegases.But the forcesthat biofuels haveunleashedpolitical, economic,social*may now be too powerful to constrain.

Like the scientistsandenvironmentalists, many politicians genuinely believe biofuels can help decreaseglobal warming. It makesintuitive sense:carsemit carbon no matter what fuel they burn, but the proce$sof growing plants for fuel sucks someof that carbon out of the atmosphere. America the Bio-Foolish For years,the big question was whether THEBDsrpLAcETo sEETHlsrs eunntcCs those reductions from carbon sequestrabiofuel mecca:Iowa. Last year fewer than tion outweighedthe "life cycle"ofcarbon zoloof U.S.gasstationsofferedethanol, and emissions frorn farming, converting the the country produced7 billion gal. (26.5bil- crops to fuel and transporting the fuel to lionL) of biofuel, which cost taxpayersat market. Researcherseventually concluded least $8billion in subsidies.But on Nov. 6, that yes,biofuels were greener than gasoat abiodieselplant in Newton, Iowa,Hillary line. The improvements were only about Rodham Clinton unveiled an eye-popping zoolofor corn ethanol becausetractors, plan that would require all stationsto offer petroleum-based fertilizers and distillethanolby zorTwhile mandating 6obillion eriesemitted lots of carbon.But the gains gal. (zzTbillionL)by zo3o."This is the fuel approached9oo/ofor more efficient fuels, for a much brighter future!" she and advocateswere confident declared.BarackObamaimmedithat technology would progresately criticized her-not for prosively increasebenefits. posing such an expansive plan 6ould the There was just one flaw in the calculation: the studies all but for failing to support ethanol U.9,runon before she started trolling for biofue!? creditedfuel cropsfor sequestering carbon, but no one checked votesin lowa'scaucuses. 'The u.s. leads If biofuels are the new dot- the world In corn whether the crops would ulticoms, Iowa is Silicon Valley, and soybean mately replace vegetation and with 53,ooojobs and $r.8bil- production,but soils that sucked up even more lion in income dependent on even if 10O%of carbon. It was as if the science cropswere the industry. The state has so both world assumedbiofuels would turnedlnto fuel. it many ethanol distilleries under wouldbe enough be grown in parking lots. The construction that it's poisedto to offset just 20% deforestation of Indonesia has shown that'snot the case,It turns become a net importer of corn. of on-roadfuel That's why biofuel-pandering consumption out that the carbon lost when has becomevirtuallv mandatowilderness is razedoverwhelms ry for presidentialcontenders.|ohn McCain the gains from cleaner-burning fuels. A was the rare candidatewho vehement\ op- study by University of Minnesota ecoloposed ethanol as an outrageous agribusi- gist David Tilman concludedthat it will nessboondoggle,which is why he skipped take more than 4ooyearsof biodieseluse Iowa in zooo.But McCain learned his les- to "pay back" the carbon emitted by disonin time for this year'scaucuses.By zoo6 rectly clearing peatlands to grow palm oil; he was calling ethanol a "vital alternative clearing grasslandsto grow corn for ethanol has a payback period of 93 years.The energy source." Membersof Congresslovebiofuelstoo, result is that biofuelsincreasedemandfor not only becauseso many dream about fu- crops,which boosts prices,which drives ture lowa caucusesbut alsobecausesofew agricultural expansion,which eatsforests. want to offend the farm lobby, the most Searchinger'sstudy concludedthat overpowerful force behind biofuels on Capitol all, corn ethanol has a paybackperiod of Hill. Ethanol isn t about iust Iowa or even about 167yearsbecauseofthe deforestathe Midwest anymore. Plants are under tion it triggers. construction in New York, Georgia,OreNot everykernel of corn diverted to fuel gon and Texas,and the ethanol boom's ef- will bereplaced.Diversionsraisefoodprices, fect on priceshashelpedlift farm incomes so the poor will eatless.That's the reasona to record levels nationwide. U.N.food expert recentlycalled agrofuelsa Someoneis paying to support these "crime againsthumanity." LesterBrown of environmentally questionableindustries: the Earth PolicyInstitute saysthat biofuels you.InDecember,PresidentBushsigneda pit the 8oomillionpeoplewithcars against bipartisan energybill that will dramatical- the Soomillion peoplewith hunger probly increasesupport to the industry while lems. Four years ago, two University of mandating 36billion gal.(136billion L) of Minnesota researcherspredictedthe ranks biofuel by zozz.This will provide a huge of the hungry would drop to 625million by boostto grain markets. zoz5;lastyear,after adjustingfor the inflaWhy is so much money still being tionary effectsof biofuels,they increased poured into such a misguidedenterprise? their predictionto r.z billion.

Progress? Biofuelcropsharm theecosystemthatsupryrtsthese Xingu tribesmen.Butfarmer anil governorBlairoMaggi,aboue right, sayseconomic incentives are needeilto savetheAmazan

Industry advocatessay that as farms increase crop yields, as has happened throughout history, they won't need as much land. They'll use less energy,and they'll usefarm waste to generateelectricity. Towhich Searchingersays:Wonderful! But growingfuelis still aninefficientuseof good cropland. Strangeas it sounds,we're better off growing food and drilling for oil. Sure,we should conservefuel and buy efficient cars,but we should keepfilling them with gasif the alternatives are dirtier. The lesson behind the math is that on a warming planet, land is an incredibly preciouscommodity, and every acreused to generatefuel is an acre that cant be used to generatethe food neededto feed

GomparingtheBiofuel Powerhouses

BRAZTL Hailedas the global biofuelsuccess story,the country produces5 billion gal. of sugarcane ethanol,enoughto supply459oof its transportation-fuel demands

IOWAMorethan 50,0O0jobs and $2 billlon in lncome dependon turning corn into fuel. lowa producednearly 2 billiongal. of ethanollast year, 30% of the U.S.total

us or the carbonstorageneededto saveus. Searchingeracknowledgesthat biofuels can be a godsendif they dont use arable land. Possiblefeedstocksinclude municipal trash, agricultural waste, algae and even carbon dioxide, although none of the technologiesare yet economicalon a large scale.Tilman even holds out hope for fuel crops-he's been experimenting with Midwestern prairie grasses-as long astheyte grown on "degradedlands" that canno longer support food cropsor cattle. Changing the Incentives T HAT ' s c E R T A I N L Y N o t

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on in Brazil. There's a frontier feel to the southern Amazon right now. Gunmen go rtum April 7, zooS

by names like Lizard and Messiah, and Carter tells harrowing stories about decapitationsand castrationsand hostages. Brazil has remarkably strict environmental laws-in the Amazon, landholders are oermitted to deforest onlv zooloof their property-but there's nof much law enforcement. I left Kotok to seeBlairo Maggi, who is not only the soybeanking of the world, with nearly half a million acres (zoo,ooohectares)in the province of Mato Grosso,but also the region's governor."It's like your Wild West right now," Maggi says."There's no money for enforcement, sopeopledo what they want." Maggi has been a leading pioneet on the Brazilian frontier, and it irks him that

critics in the U.S.-which clearedits forestsand settled its frontier r25 years ago but still provides generous subsidies to its farmers-attack him for doing the samething except without subsidies and with severerestrictions on deforestation. Imagine Iowa farmers agreeing to keep 8oo/o-or even zoolo-of their land in native prairie grass."You make us sound like bandits,"Maggi tells me. "But we want to achievewhatyou achievedinAmerica'We havethe samedreamsfor our families. Are you afraid of the competition?" Maggi got in trouble recently for saying he'dratherfeeda child than savea tree,but he'scome to recognizethe importance of the forest."Now I want to feeda child and savea tree," he sayswith a grin. But can he do all that and grow fuel for the world as well?'Ah, now you've hit the nail on the head." Maggi saysthe biofuel boom is making him richer, but it's also making it harder to feed children and save trees. "There are many mouths to feed, and nobody's invented a chip to create protein without growing crops," sayshis pal Homero Pereira,a congressmanwho is also the head of Mato Grosso'sfarm bureau."Ifyou don'twant us to teardown the forest,you better pay us to leaveit up!" EveryoneI interviewed in Brazil agreed: the market drives behavior, sowithout incentivesto prevent deforestation,the Amazon is doomed.It's unfair to askdeveloping countries notto developnatural areaswithout compensation.Anyway, laws aren't enough. Carter tried confronting ranchers who didn't obey deforestation laws and nearly got killed; now his nonprofit is developingcertification programsto reward eco-sensitiveranchers. "Peoplesee the forest asjunk," he says."If you want to saveit, you better open your pocketbook' Plus,you might not get shot." The trouble is that even if there were enough financial incentives,to keep the Amazon intact, high commodity prices would encouragedeforestation elsewhere. And government mandates to increase biofuel production are going to boost commodity prices,which will only attract more investment. Until someoneinvents that protein chip, it's going to mean the worst of everything: higher food prices, more deforestation and more emissions. Advocates are always careful to point out that biofuels are only part of the solution to global warming, that the world also needs more energy-efficient lightbulbs and homes and factories and lifestyles' And the world doesneedall those things. But the world is still going to be fighting an uphill battle until it realizes that dght now, biofuels aren't part of the solution at I all. They're part of the problem. 45