This may shock a few of you, but we believe that some of the most selfish people on this planet are the the supporters of "green" causes. These people want to be seen to be doing the right think and their consciences will not allow them to appear inactive. They rush to find a solution. In some ways this is positive, but in others, particularly when policy is rushed and not all consequences realised, the result is disaster. Within recent memory we have seen this in China. Mao and his friends decided that birds were eating too much grain, so all the birds in China were killed. Unfortunately birds also eat insects, and without any predation, insects flourished. Millions starved. Mao then turned his attention on the insects - they and their habitats were largely eliminated. Unfortunately one of the habitats was deemed to be grass. All the grass was pulled up. China lost its top soil - millions more starved. During the great leap forward pretty any metal implements were melted in back yard furnaces. Nothing much of use was produced from this exercise, but more starved because they had nothing to cook in, and because the backyard furnaces used up all the fuel around, fuel that would otherwise have been used for cooking and heating. More people starved or froze, and China lost its forests. Big floods occurred and tens of thousands drowned or died of illness.
Nowadays everyone seems to be rushing towards the production of biofuels. Surely this must be good - reducing our dependence on evil hydrocarbons and producing an end product that burns more cleanly than petrol or diesel. Surely this must be a good thing! It certainly makes us feel better when we fill up at the pump!
But what is the impact on food production and prices?
There is an excellent article on this on page B1 of today's Dominion Post. We are trying to find an electronic version.
We just quote the first paragraph
"The rush towards biofuels is threatening world food production and the lives of billions of people, the British Government's chief scientific adviser says"
