Vermonters are starting to use Waste Vegetable Oil to make maple syrup rather than heating oil. It saves the environment as well as saving money.
But a bigger threat lurks. Canada now dominates the international maple syrup market. Could this be a looming national security issue for those of us who put maple syrup on everything? They’ll pry my maple syrup from my cold, sticky fingers.
(Ok, the real problem is that Vermont is more vulnerable to climate change than Canada, something which is already cutting down on maple syrup production in Vermont.)
Oh, everyone knows the real stuff comes across the border. Not THAT border, the one to the east: across the Connecticut River in NH!
But seriously, the New England maple syrup industry has been under environmental assault for decades, between climate change that began a decade or so ago (drier winters) and acid rain for several decades originating in Michigan that has changed the ph of the soil.
I applaud VT for using the non-petroleum approach of burning waste vegetable oil in their sugar operations. It is certainly forward-thinking, practical, national-security-conscious, and moving to kick the oil habit– in short, everything one might expect in a conservative New England approach (these days often considered liberal).
But is it really carbon neutral? Does the production of oil crops consume more greenhouse gases than those produced from fertilizing as well as combustion?