The concern for the destroying tropical rain forests is no new. We all are familiar with several reasons behind it, if not all. But, do you know that the responsible gestures towards limiting and combating fossil-fuels and using green energy are perverse ways of encouraging exploiting the forests? Big businesses are trying to make huge money out of this new venture of replacing fossil-fuel with bio-fuels. To grow palm oil and soybeans to fuel cars and power stations in Europe and North America, virgin forest is being razed from the Brazilian Amazon to the orangutan reserves of Borneo. And the surging prices will likely add on to the lashing devastations.
European Union laws and subsidies equivalent to 20 pence a liter is driving the blooming businesses to make energy from vegetable oils. British government announced a target for bio-fuels to make up 5 per cent of transport fuels by 2010. Rising demand for green energy has led to a surge in the international price of palm oil, with potentially damaging consequences. But since the main alternative to palm oil is soybean oil, soya is the largest single cause of rainforest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon. So, is the target to meet the Kyoto Protocol is actually destructive to the overall ecology….?
Via: New Scientist