Thorny Issues

Honey Locust Thorns
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

A story I found at commondreams.org, stating what should be obvious, if you think about it:

NEW YORK - The Bush administration’s plans to increase biofuel imports could add to the suffering of millions of impoverished peasants in Brazil and other developing countries, food rights and environmental groups say.”The benefits of biofuels cannot be achieved at the expense of food shortages and environmental degradation,” says Celso Marcatto, an activist associated with the U.S.-based anti-poverty organization, ActionAid, in Brazil.

ActionAid, like many other groups, fears that the growing U.S. demand for ethanol fuel could force agribusiness in Brazil to indulge in unhealthy competition for profits that might end up causing monopolies over farmlands and damage to the environment...

“The U.S. government should be thinking through a careful approach to biofuels based on diverse production of a mix of crops, including native grasses,” said ActionAid’s Karen Hansen-Kuhn in the United States.

Emphasizing that local ownership and sustainable agriculture must be considered as “crucial” elements of the United States’ biofuel policy, Hansen-Kuhn described Bush’s approach as a “headlong rush.”

Some researchers claim as well that investments in ethanol to fuel automobiles are driving price hikes in food products around the world...
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I'll repeat my common refrain, that others (like the Nearings in the post below) have been repeating for a while now: We must reduce our hyperconsumption or there will be painful consequences.