The media get the bit between their teeth on some bugaboo or other, and they’re off to the races, with the politicians in hot pursuit. Benjamin Disraeli, reputed to be Queen Victoria’s favourite prime minister, once said, “I must follow the people, for am I not their leader?” Today, it’s the media that must be followed by our so-called leaders, and the pet project of the media these days is biofuel. Let’s all recycle our cooking oil, or turn surplus corn crops into diesel, and there’ll be no more fuel crisis. Right, and while we’re doing that, let the other half of humanity starve.
“Need more land? Clear cut some forest. Is there a word beyond irony to describe a plan to mitigate climate change that relies on cutting down the very trees that naturally remove carbon from the atmosphere? Stupidity, perhaps? The logic is like harvesting a sick patient’s lungs to save her heart. Huge tracks of Amazon rainforest are being raised to the biofuels alter like a sacrificial lamb, and the UN suggests that 98 percent of Indonesia’s rainforest will disappear by 2022, where heavy biofuel production is underway.”
Hey, so long as it keeps the SUV on the road, who cares?