"Biofuels' Unbalanced Equations:

In line with the 5th CAS Congress "Boden und Landwirtschaft - Ökonomie, Ökologie und soziale Ansprüche", taking place on Friday, 20.11.2015 at EH05 of BOKU's Exnerhaus, we are pleased to welcome Dr. Kate Showers from the University of Sussex and Five Colleges, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA, who will give a speech on „Biofuels' Unbalanced Equations: Theoretical Demand, Misleading Statistics, and Measured Soil Capabilities“. Based on two major documents on the 'global potential' of biofuels, namely the recently published SCOPE Bioenergy and Sustainability document, and Alexandratos and Bruinsma's "World Agriculture towards 2030/2050: the 2012 Revision", Dr. Showers interrogation will be directed at the conception of unused marginal land. Where is it supposed to be? How are the numbers arrived at? What is actually there? What are the soil and vegetation realities, land use, and land users?

This discourse will of course lead to a discussion of the collection, manufacture
and meaning of data, the abuse of numbers, and the seemingly important
basic ideas of statistics. The international scope of the presentation will be derived from the
analysis of the fantasies about the extent marginal land available for
biofuels production, where two general arguments are discussed: 1) tracts of
land in West African savanna and Latin America; 2) a list of 13 countries
with the world's reserve of empty marginal land. The congress and Dr. Kate Showers' speech adresses everyone interested, the entrance is free, registration is required under: http://www.boku.ac.at/cas-herbsttagung.html or cas_anmeldungen(at)boku.ac.at