Mayday Mayday: Invasion of the Climate Snatchers...
1st May 2008 - Day of Action Against False Solutions to Climate Change
Biofuels
"The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year." (Lester Brown, Director of the Earth Policy Institute).
Spanning the globe in search of new sources of profit and fuel, oil companies, banks, agribusiness, biotech companies and governments have joined in a 'green gold' rush. In the search for a techno-fix to our unsustainable eating habits, agrofuels are being aggressively developed, and promoted as a green way to transport goods.
However, this is having devastating effects across the globe. Already, thanks to George Bushes appetite for corn ethanol, corn prices in Mexico have gone up by about 70% in six months. This price rise has sparked mass protests because people can no longer afford their staple food.
In the UK farming is in decline and companies such as SAAB are capitalising this by encouraging farmers to move away from growing food crops into growing biomass for fuel. Corporations are promoting 'fuel security' and a reduction in emissions as reasons for this shift in crop production. Backed by the 'Road Transport Fuel Obligation' (RTFO) which calls for 5% of all road transport to run on biofuels by 2010, and 10% by 2020, corporations and the government are pushing through policy after policy promoting agrofuels as a way to develop 'sustainable' transport in the UK. The UK government's own figures state that only 2.5% of the agrofuel target can be met by domestic production. 'Sustainability' in this context has almost lost it's meaning and is open to interpretation by the highest bidder.
The interests promoting agrofuels across the world include oil companies (BP, Shell, Petrobras, Repsol), banks (Rabobank, Barclays), agribusiness behemoths (Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Bunge, ConAgra, and Primark's owners Associated British Foods or ABF), biotech corporations (Bayer Crop Science, Syngenta, Monsanto), supermarkets (Tesco), energy companies (Greenergy) and many new companies capitalising on a booming market and government subsidies.
There are no quick fix, miracle solutions to solve climate chaos...we need to engage with long term, sustainable transport solutions.
Useful websites
See www.biofuelwatch.org.uk for extensive information and resources on biofuels.
Ideas for action targets:
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/refinerymap.php
A background briefing on food and biofuels
Leaflet on biofuels and food - version 1
Leaflet on biofuels and food - version 2