Cellulosic Ethanol Experiment Goes Dangerously Wrong: Environmental and Cultural Catastrophe

Apocalyptic Newswire: Northern Ontario 29 January 2008
As far East as the Maritimes and as far west as Saskatoon, trees are beginning to drip ethanol. A recent bacterial plague has hit the lumber camps and maple syrup stands of Northern Ontario, and is spreading south, east, and west from the apparent source. As far south as Rochester, New York, drunken parties appear to be centered around groves of trees.

"All you gotta do is stick a tap in and hold a glass under it. You can drink it right out of the tree!" stated Jill Steinwick, pictured above.

Apocalyptic Newswire has finally traced the epidemic to its source. A foolhardy band of cellulosic ethanol researchers unleashed the catastrophic plague on the forests of the world.

"It was all an accident," explains GreenMe's chief researcher Gwyneth Malbow. "I recently visited ZeaChem's lab in California, and "borrowed" some of their new microbes. I wanted to see what would happen if I innoculated a few sugar maples with the bug. I never expected things to go so wrong!"

When questioned about the organism, ZeaChem's President was very tight-lipped.

"Our bug is very tough," said Jim Imbler, ZeaChem's president and chief executive officer......source

Imbler refused to comment further on the incident other than to say that Malbow's experiment was done without the knowledge of himself or anyone at his company. Ethanol scientists are speculating that there may be no way to stop the organism from spreading.

"So far, the trees themselves do not appear to be damaged. The problem is that world governments will be unable to collect taxes on alcohol when every tree is a brewery," explained Science Advisor Ronica Leary in Ottawa. "Besides, wherever the trees are dripping grog, no one is reporting to work. Productivity is way down."

The UN Security Council was called to emergency session to deal with the emergency. Already, rumours of the organism reaching Europe in a shipment of elm saplings is causing panic on world stock markets.

Reports that trees are being destroyed en masse within all Muslim countries appear to be false, although some accounts of suicide bombers yelling "allahu akbar!" and blowing themselves up inside groves of palm trees, have been substantiated.

Count on Apocalyptic Newswire to keep you advised on this developing catastrophe.




Original work of satire by Al Fin. Any unauthorised reproduction of this material must be attributed to the source.