WARNING: The following is a political rant. Proceed with caution.
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The environmental effort has me continually perplexed. On some levels I agree that we should take care of this planet we have been given. What I can’t stand is the eco-hypocrisy of the environmental extremists. Take Al Gore for example. He fly’s all around the world telling people that the debate is over and that global warming is for real. While burning extraordinary amounts of fuel that puts carbon in the atmosphere and burns through enough electricity to power 232 Tennessean homes, he tells us to stop driving so much and “reduce our carbon footprint”. When confronted with this hypocrisy, he tells critics he maintains a “carbon neutral” lifestyle by buying “carbon offsets”. The only problem is that he buys them from himself. Huh? He buys them from a company called Generation Investment Management which he part owns and is the chairman.

HUH?!

He has essentially setup a green money making machine capable of generating millions if not billions of dollars of revenue. How inconvenient is that truth?

I digress. The reason for this rant is I follow a company called Archer Daniels Midland on the stock market. They produce bio-fuel that they sell to Europe. Because of subsidization, the company can sell it for way cheaper than European companies can produce it, thus causing a perceived economic imbalance or unfair trade practices. The EU has decided to place a tariff on bio-fuel imports thus affecting this company. The reason I bring this up is because at the end of the news release I read the following:

Biodiesel is usually mixed with mineral fuel to power diesel cars, trucks, buses and trains. It can also be used as a heating fuel.

The EU plans to use far more biofuels in the coming years, setting a target to replace 10 percent of transport oil with biofuel by 2020 — or 33 million metric tons of oil.

EU biofuel output in 2006 was 6 million metric tons and it will likely have to increase output rapidly and import far more to meet its goals, part of a strategy to cut back on the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

Great right? The environmentalists have said we need to reduce our oil consumption and use greener methods and have effectively impacted how governments think about energy consumption. Right? That’s the goal … let’s go green! Woohoo! Party! Think again…
I then read the following sentence in this article.

This biofuel target has come under fire from environmentalists and others who claim that it will see land taken away from food production and put pressure on natural reserves — especially in developing countries.

WHAT!?!

How short sighted are these people? Anyone with a modicum of common sense knew that if you take the corn you used to plant for food and turn it into bio-fuel, that you wouldn’t have any food to eat. I mean really.

How do you spell hypocrisy?

< end of political rant … now back to our regularly scheduled programming. >