Expanding ethanol use will not reduce global warming, bring down gas prices, relieve our dependence on foreign oil, starve terrorists of funding, restore the family farm, or create jobs. In fact, using more ethanol increases greenhouse gas production and local air pollution and is water-intensive as well as land-intensive.

Ethanol--the chemical that gives your booze its kick--has been used by mankind for a very long time, 8,000 years or so. Even Stone Age people recognized the value of a good tipple. Of late, ethanol has been touted as the super-fuel that will reduce global warming, bring down gas prices, relieve our dependence on foreign oil, starve terrorists of funding, restore the family farm, create jobs and basically Save The Planet!

Contrary to popular belief, vastly expanding our use of ethanol fuel would do few, if any, of these things. But it almost certainly would increase food prices, greenhouse gas emissions and local air and water pollution while decreasing our supply of fresh water, consuming more of our land and destroying more of our ecosystems.

Acid rain caused by industrial pollution could actually help reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of agriculture, say scientists.

Research led by the Open University's Dr Vincent Gauci suggests that sulphur-based acid rain from atmospheric pollution could cut the methane emissions associated with cultivating rice by almost a quarter.

Tonne for tonne, methane is more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of global warming.

Dr Gauci's findings suggest that, ironically, the high levels of pollution associated with China's rapid industrialisation may actually be going some small way towards mitigating its soaring CO2 output.

National Science Foundation-funded scientists working in an ice-free region of Antarctica have discovered the last traces of tundra--in the form of fossilized plants and insects--on the interior of the southernmost continent before temperatures began a relentless drop millions of years ago.

An abrupt and dramatic climate cooling of 8 degrees Celsius, over a relatively brief period of geological time roughly 14 million years ago, forced the extinction of tundra plants and insects and transformed the interior of Antarctica into a perpetual deep-freeze from which it has never emerged.

The international team of scientists headed by David Marchant, an earth scientist at Boston University and Allan Ashworth and Adam Lewis, geoscientists at North Dakota State University, combined evidence from glacial geology, paleoecology, dating of volcanic ashes and computer modeling, to report a major climate change centered on 14 million years ago. The collaboration resulted in a major advance in the understanding of Antarctica's climatic history.

We are happy to report that over 100,000 websites come up for a search of “Global Warming and Kilimanjaro” and to be sure you will find plenty of sites proclaiming “Mount Kilimanjaro Photo: Wake-Up Call for Action Against Global Warming” or “Kimimanjaro’s Ice Gone Completely within Two Decades” or “Saving the Snows of Kilimanjaro” or “Mount Kilimanjaro’s Glacier Is Crumbling” or our favorite bland classic “Mt. Kilimanjaro Showing Signs of Global Warming.” Obviously, Al Gore’s documentary raised interest in Kilimanjaro given his claims that the mountain’s glaciers and ice fields were falling victim to global warming. As we have written about in the past there are many who would like to make Mt. Kilimanjaro the poster child of everything that has gone wrong with the global climate. At World Climate Report, Kilimanjaro is a symbol of global warming nonsense!

So why are we so happy about the 100,000 websites on global warming and Kilimanjaro? The reason is that nearly half of the sites debunk Al Gore’s suggestion (insistence) that the snows are retreating because of global warming. Articles with titles such as “The Snow Jobs of Kilimanjaro” and even “Global Warming May Save the Snows of Kilimanjaro” are remarkably common. There are even major stories from normally pro-global warming news services suggesting that Gore may have gone a bit too far overcooking his claims that global warming is the root cause of retreating snows of Kilimanjaro.

So how is this global food and water crisis to be met and overcome?

In their many pages of discussion of the subject, the four UK researchers examine the underlying relationships that connect crop carbon uptake, growth and water loss, noting that "much effort is being made to reduce water use by crops and produce 'more crop per drop'." Some of the topics they examine in the course of this discussion are designed to alter various crop characteristics that might possibly increase their water use efficiency, such as by genetic engineering, while others deal with crop management strategies, such as how and when to apply irrigation water.