Fake green is a technology that promises environmental benefits while neglecting to mention excessive financial and environmental costs.
A great example is ethanol production in the U.S. and biofuel production worldwide. As related in a recent Newsweek article (http://www.newsweek.com/id/77501), the share of the U.S. corn crop devoted to ethanol production has increased from 6 to 25 percent. Farmers and ethanol investors reap benefits, but everyone else loses. Food prices are skyrocketing, but biofuel still accounts for less than 3 percent of worldwide transportation fuel.
Meanwhile, biofuels encourages deforestation in developing countries. The adverse effects of corn-based ethanol were widely known, but industry lobbyists still managed to garner government subsidies.
That is fake green, not real green. Just about every energy technology purported as green has substantial drawbacks to go with often ephemeral benefits. This includes wind, solar, and other renewables. If so many purported technologies are not green at all, then what is?
Cutting energy use is the greenest course of action. The problem is that there is no huge industry with paid lobbyists that benefits directly from reduced energy used; so cutting consumption instead falls to a motley collection of industry engineers, environmental groups, and utilities.
