Lessons in Land-Use Change: Using System Dynamics To Understand Biofuels' Effect

The politics of biofuels policy have a long and tortuous history, from its early days of gasohol to the rancorous debates over special interest subsidies. The latest chapter in the biofuels debate is “indirect land use change.” Biofuels, according to its opponents, are taking food out of the mouths of people while contributing to greenhouse gas emissions via clearing of the tropical rain forests. Biofuels advocates decry the unfairness of burdening biofuels with the world’s land management problems, and declare the science of indirect land use modeling too uncertain to be useful.  In my talk I present a very simple system dynamics model that has been used to try to clarify the issues and the powerful levers that exist in global land management. The model has dispelled dubious arguments over who gets “credit” for future agricultural yield improvements, and points the spotlight on large land use clearing drivers such as land degradation and abandonment.