“It is the duty of every citizen according to his
best capacities to give validity to his
convictions in political affairs.”

- Albert Einstein

Don't like the opportunistic, economically-flawed, even counter-productive rush to biofuels? You're not alone, though you might be surprised who shares your concerns.

Oxfam International, a social justice, anti-poverty organization has released a report condemning the EU's biofuel mandates as not only being unproductive, but downright nasty:

EU proposals will make it mandatory by 2020 for ten per cent of all member states’ transport fuels to come from biofuels. In order to meet the substantial increase in demand, the EU will have to import biofuels made from crops like sugar cane and palm oil from developing countries. But the rush by big companies and governments in countries such as Indonesia, Colombia, Brazil, Tanzania and Malaysia to win a slice of the ‘EU biofuel pie’ threatens to force poor people from their land, destroy their livelihoods, lead to the exploitation of workers and hurt the availability and affordability of food.

“In the scramble to supply the EU and the rest of the world with biofuels, poor people are getting trampled. The EU proposals as they stand will exacerbate the problem. It is unacceptable that poor people in developing countries should bear the cost of questionable attempts to cut emissions in Europe,” said Robert Bailey from Oxfam.

Biofuels may offer the potential to reduce poverty by increasing jobs and markets for small farmers, and by providing cheap renewable energy for local use, but the huge plantations emerging to supply the EU pose more threats than opportunities for poor people. The problem will only get worse as the scramble to supply intensifies unless the EU introduces safeguards to protect land rights, livelihoods, workers rights and food security.

EU member states agreed that the ten per cent target must be reached sustainably, but Oxfam warns that the current proposals contain no standards on the social or human impact.

“The EU set its biofuel target without checking the impact on people and the environment. The EU must include safeguards to ensure that the rights and livelihoods of people in producing countries are protected. Without these, the ten per cent target should be scrapped and the EU should go back to the drawing board,” said Bailey.

“Let’s be clear, biofuels are not a panacea – even if the EU is able to reach the ten per cent target sustainably, and Oxfam doubts that it can, it will only shave a few per cent of emissions off a continually growing total.”

Published reports show that as much as 5.6 million square kilometres of land – an area more than ten times the size of France – could be in production of biofuels within 20 years in India, Brazil, Southern Africa and Indonesia alone. The UN estimates that 60 million people worldwide face clearance from their land to make way for biofuel plantations. Many end up in slums in search of work, others on the very plantations that have displaced them with poor pay, squalid conditions and no worker rights. Women workers are routinely discriminated against and often paid less then men.

You can read the entire report on Oxfam's site. While there's a certain amount of "World to end; women and minorities hardest hit" perspective, it's an interesting take on an issue that many people, despite differing political views, still sense is profoundly wrong-headed.

HT: Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog.

Don't look at me like that. In this case FAGS stands for Fight Against Government Suppression (it's also Brit slang for cigarettes), and is the name of an English political party established by pub-owner Hamish Howitt, the first pub-owner in England to be prosecuted for violating the country's new smoking ban for pubs and restaurants. Howitt, a non-smoker himself, pleaded guilty but vows to continue to allow smoking in his pub and to not pay the fines.

From Scotsman.com:

I'll still ignore smoking ban, vows publican fined £500
KIM PILLING

A SCOTTISH pub landlord vowed yesterday to continue to allow his customers to flout the smoking ban in England after being fined for offences at his bar in Blackpool.

Hamish Howitt, 55, who was born in Glasgow, was fined £500 and ordered to pay £2,000 prosecution costs after he admitted flouting the ban, which was introduced in England in July.

The owner of the Happy Scots Bar is the first publican south of the Border to be convicted of breaching the law. Howitt, a non-smoker, has been a staunch critic of the ban and set up a political party called Fight Against Government Suppression, or FAGS.

However, District Judge Peter Ward, sentencing Howitt at Blackpool Magistrates' Court, said his campaign had been "silly, misguided and pointless".

Granted, it's not exactly William Wallace mooning the Brits, but Howitt has definitely set out to pick a fight as the signage on the outside walls of his pub demonstrate in these Flickr photos here and here. (Normally I would download the images and post them here rather than poaching bandwidth by linking to the site but the images are copyrighted and I don't want to stretch the "fair-use" doctrine, especially when I don't know who to credit for the originals).

Howitt doesn't risk losing his head (merely his pub license) for his violations, though judging by the comments from readers at the end of the article, there are some who wouldn't mind seeing him drawn and quartered.

As a dedicated non-smoker myself (never smoked, in fact) and someone who has deliberately avoided public places that are too smokey, I nevertheless side with the rights of private property owners to manage their legal businesses (and customers using legal products) as they see fit, free from government encroachment, especially when dubious science is involved. (I'm sure it won't be long before some study links the number of smokers being forced outside to man-made global warming.)