02 Nov 2007 Guilty, Guilty, Guilty

Don’t look now, but the BBC reports that environmentalists are guilty of:

forcing poor farmers from their land
raising food prices
destroying livelihoods
clearing rainforests
supporting energy sources that pollute more than gasoline.

Here’s part of the BBC report:

The BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin said there were also fears over the environmental cost of making fuel from crops like maize.

Scientists have said it takes so much energy to produce some biofuels that it would be cleaner overall to burn petrol in our cars, he said.

To make it worse, he added, valuable rainforest is still being cleared to make way for fuel crops like palm oil.

Robert Bailey, a policy advisor at Oxfam, said: “In the scramble to supply the EU and the rest of the world with biofuels, poor people are getting trampled.

“The EU proposals will exacerbate the problem. It is unacceptable that poor people in developing countries should bear the cost of questionable attempts to cut emissions in Europe.

“Biofuels are not a panacea – even if the EU is able to reach the 10% target sustainably, and Oxfam doubts that it can, it will only shave a few per cent of emissions off a continually growing total,” he said.

Of course, it isn’t just Europe and the environmentalists who are guilty here. The U.S. Congress is as well.

Hat tip: Jeff Dircksen at Government Bytes.
_____

Labels: Congress, Environment