Biofuels, ethanol, biodiesel and rainforests.

Just as one environmental disaster seems to get proper attention another rears its ugly head. Climate change is at last being taken seriously, and the impact of burning fossil fuels recognised. So what happens? George Bush and other world leaders start encouraging us to use 'biofuels'. Unfortunately among the most efficient (i.e. profitable) ways of producing biofuels are from sugar cane and palm oil. And the easiest way of producing large quantities of these is to cut down tropical rainforests (thereby releasing even more CO2 into the atmosphere, as well as wiping out even more biodiversity).

Which makes the WLTs attempts to save rainforests all the more urgent.