Yes, you read that right. The political left, and especially the British Left, seems to be grasping an inconvenient truth: that a lot of "green" policies are hurting the poor around the world. Consider this by Simon Jenkins in The Guardian:
The consequences of [the government's Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO)] have been much trumpeted on these pages. It says enough that one car tank of bio petrol needs as much grain as it takes to feed an African for a year, or that a reported one-third of American grain production is now subsidised for conversion into biofuel. Jeremy Paxman pleaded the cause of this latest green wheeze on Monday's Newsnight, while the United Nations food expert, Jean Ziegler, screamed for it to stop: "Children are dying ... It is a crime."
The transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, said this week: "The government has consistently stressed that biofuels are only worth supporting if they deliver genuine environmental benefits." Yet she must know that, at present, the opposite is the case. Kelly pleaded that rescinding her policy might impede investment and "weaken our influence over the direction of EU policy". She did not mention biofuels' threat to rainforests, food self-sufficiency and global warming generally, through needing costly fertiliser and road transport. Nor did she mention the role in her decision of such lobbies as the British Association for Biofuels and Oils, and the National Farmers' Union.
Just in case you missed this part, let me repeat it: One car tank of bio petrol needs as much grain as it takes to feed an African for a year. It is very likely that biofuel production is already resulting in starvation in parts of the world. And on top of that, it's bad for the environment. Here's a helpful chart:
And then there is this piece from Guernica:
In the spring of 2003 about 8,000 tribal people and low-caste farmers living in the Kuno area of Madhya Pradesh, India, were summarily uprooted from the rich farmlands they had cultivated for generations and moved to 24 villages on scrub land outside the borders of a sanctuary created for a pride of six imported Asiatic lions. “I’ll never forget when we left,” recalled village headman Babulal Gaur. “Even the men cried that day. Is it fair to do this to 1,600 families for a few lions?”
By then almost 500 villages occupied by a total of 300,000 families around India had experienced similar forced relocation to protect the habitat of tigers, rhinos and Asiatic lions residing in the 580 national parks and sanctuaries that have been created in India since the colonial period.
Now I like lions as much as the next guy. But this kind of policy turns on capricious and manifestly false principle: that human beings are not part of the natural environment. When a people has lived for centuries on a piece of land, they are as much a part of the biosystem as any of its flora and fauna, and have as much right to respect. That doesn't mean that all habitats should be open to human dwellings, hunting, etc. But moving 8,000 is a high cost for the fanciful idea of a pristine environment.
Moreover, as with biofuels, there are powerful interests behind some of the policies that have nothing to do with tigers.
While the alleged purpose of the evictions was wildlife conservation, teak and eucalyptus plantations eventually replaced more than 40 of the evacuated hamlets. As it has in Botswana, Kenya and elsewhere, conservation in India has become a convenient and respectable cover for less savory motives when the very same national government that removes native people from their land in the name of conservation has no compunctions about giving up ecologically sensitive areas to large-scale development projects.
The fig leaf of conservation was eventually spread to cover a World Bank-funded eco-tourism lodge proposed by the Taj Hotel Group. In December of 1996 Adivasis filed for an injunction with the Indian High Court and called for a general strike in the Nagar Hole to stop the Taj project. A month later the High Court found the Taj Group in violation of conservation laws, a ruling that was upheld on appeal. The half-finished, abandoned structures of the Taj in the Nagar Hole represent one of the very few Adivasi victories anywhere in India.
In The Outlaw Josey Wales, Chief Dan George's character, Lone Waite, describes the fate of his people this way: "They called us the civilized tribe. That means that we were easy to sneak up on." Apparently, "indigenous people" means much the same thing.
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