Biofuels

Biofuels

"A formula for environmental and humanitarian disaster"

George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian (UK) in March 2007, notes that:

"Already we know that biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum. The UN has just published a report suggesting that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia will be degraded or gone by 2022. Just five years ago, the same agencies predicted that this wouldn't happen until 2032. But they reckoned without the planting of palm oil to turn into biodiesel for the European market. This is now the main cause of deforestation there and it is likely soon to become responsible for the extinction of the orang-utan in the wild."

Critiques of Biofuel

• Ben Courtice, "Biofuels - the answer to the wrong question", Green Left Weekly, October 20, 2006.
• George Monbiot, "If we want to save the planet, we need a five-year freeze on biofuels", The Guardian (UK), March 29, 2007.
• Fidel Castro, "Foodstuff as Imperial Weapon: Biofuels and Global Hunger", CounterPunch, March 31, 2007.