Biofuelwatch calls week of action against agrofuels
Biofuelwatch is calling for a national week of action against the agrofuel industry from 26 January to 2 February.
Instead of organising a central protest, Biofuelwatch is encouraging local groups and activists to organise local protests and actions. These actions could include banner protests outside a Tesco or BP petrol station, or an biofuel refinery (the Biofuelwatch website provides a map of such refineries here). Other actions could include leafleting, street theatre in the city centre, press releases and letters to local media, or the screening of films regarding the issue.
On Wednesday 30 January there will be a peaceful banner protest outside the London offices of Greenenergy from 12.30pm -2.30pm. Greenenergy are one of the largest agrofuel companies in the UK and use sugar cane ethanol from Brazil, alongside palm oil, rapeseed and soya.
The planting of crops for fuel results in the destruction of vast areas of biological-diverse ecosystems such as rainforests. In there place are planted ecologically barren monocultures. Already in Indonesia the expansion of the agrofuel industry has had devastating effects on the Sumatran orang-utan, a species which the WWF lists as critically endangered.
Biofuels are no magic bullet when it comes to global warming, whatever the PR departments of the agrofuel industry may claim. About one third of all greenhouse gas emissions come from the destruction of rainforests, other ecosystems, and from agriculture. On top of this, peat drainage accounts for even more carbon emissions than deforestation worldwide. Monoculture expansion, as seen in agrofuel plantations, is a leading cause for deforestation and peat destruction worldwide. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the intensive way in which biofuels are farmed results in large quantities of nitrous oxide being released into the atmosphere. Nitrous oxide is about 300 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide!
Aside from the environmental damage caused by agrofuel the industry is also resulting in people in the developing world going hungry. George Bush’s cheerleading for ethanol has already resulted in Mexican corn prices going up by about 70 percent in six months. And it's not just in the developing world that biofuel will be a disaster for the poorer members of society. Three planed ethanol refineries in the UK will alone use up one-fifth of all our wheat!
The Biofuelwatch website features more ideas for action, along with a variety of resources: www.biofuelwatch.org.uk