Biofools

Yesterday saw the inception of the new rules about petrol in the UK. They now have to contain 2.5% biofuels. But the problem is that biofuels are already causing massive environmental and people damage across the world. Diverse and wonderful rain forests are being cut down at a prodigious rate and replaced with monoculture oil-bearing crops, while there are currently 37 countries on the brink of social unrest due to rising food prices.

Meanwhile the Telegraph leader yesterday advised that the problem was with fixing markets. If only they would be left to themselves all would be well, it said. Far from that, I am afraid. It is demonstrably true that the present bias toward biofuels is a disaster, but unregulation is also likely to be a disaster. If the markets were left to themselves then it is very likely that in the coming days of oil scarcity, climate change and economic recession that the rich countries would protect their interests to drive cars etc while people all across the planet starved. Our economic system cannot factor in the finite nature of resources on the earth.

There are so many schemes around today to help you ‘go carbon neutral’ but many of them are actually just a sop to the conscience. Why does it help to buy ‘green’ electricity for example if it is only meaning that ‘your bit’ comes from their renewables, when actually the challenge is to increase the real proportion of renewables supplied. Why does it help to put in a woodchip boiler if that option is only open to a few?

Surely the real challenge is to try to live in a way that everyone on the earth can live and that includes cars and everything else. You could summarise the principle there with ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself’. I am miles away from achieving that.