The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 460
Additional rebuttal studies against Pimentel and Patzek continued for years
right up to today. I document all this on TheAutoChannel.com at Truth About
Ethanol, part 5.
Pimentel and Patzek's chief disciple - by way of being the person who has continued to stick to the Pimentel-Patzek lies the longest - is Robert Bryce. Nearly
10 years after he used the Pimentel-Patzek information in his book "GUSHER
OF LIES," Mr. Bryce continues to spew the same bad information without regard
for any of the rebuttal studies or findings, or more accurate calculations related
to water use, crop yields, and the like.
Less than two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to contact Kenneth P. Green;
holder of Ph.D, B.S., and M.S. degrees; author of three books on the environment, and Senior Director of the Center for Natural Resource Studies at the
Fraser Institute. A visitor to The Auto Channel website referred Mr. Green to me
as his source for information that opposes ethanol. I read the paper that Mr.
Green wrote in 2008 for American Enterprise Institute titled "Ethanol and the
Environment," and then re-watched a video that Mr. Green did after the publication of his paper (coincidentally, I had watched it some months ago in the
normal course of my continuing study of the issue).
I wrote to Mr. Green asking if he had done any further work on this subject, after
2008, and if he knew that everything he stated against ethanol was either out
of date, irrelevant, or never true to begin with. He wrote back and replied "I'm
quite sure that, by now, many of those citations are out of date, however, at the
time, they were the most recent and best data available. You're also welcome
to point out the 'never true to begin with' elements of the paper." He suggested
that I go back and review the reference list located at the end of his 2008 article.
I did go back and review the reference list and found a highlighted note of appreciation to Robert Bryce. It reads, "Mr. Green would like to thank Robert
Bryce, whose excellent book GUSHER OF LIES was an immense source of
insight and who pointed the author to articles and reports cited here." The reference list then also cited multiple specific attributions to Robert Bryce's book.
I responded to Mr. Green and congratulated him on recognizing that information
is subject to correction and re-evaluation over time, and I directed him to the
lengthy rebuttal I had written to GUSHER OF LIES in 2013 that details many of
the incorrect things that Mr. Bryce wrote about ethanol. My rebuttal to GUSHER
OF LIES also demonstrates that a fair portion of the information Bryce relied
upon at the time of its writing was already known to be wrong, out-of-date,
and/or irrelevant.
