Oxfam: Biofuels Could Harm the World's Poorest People

Shiller, there are a number of ways for the first world to "rape" the third world's resources.

I will list some that are exacerbated by Government intervention, usually as a result of pressure from advocacy groups - eg conservation or business.

We have a couple of neat ones in Australia. They involve sequestering our own resources and using someone else's.

We are progressively locking up our coastline into marine parks. Then in the name of sustainability, severely limiting the catch from the areas still left open for fishing. We now import more than half the fish we consume. From countries with both much less coastline than ours, and much more heavily populated coastlines than ours. I won't go into product quality controls - or lack of. Another subject.

Similar with our timber industries. Our timber industry in serious decline as it's resource base - the national estate - is progressively being locked up in conservation reserves. We now import a lot of timber - much of it from, to put it politely, poorly controlled logging operations to our north.

Want to increase the use of biofuels? Just mandate say a 20% domestic use by year dot. What local producers cannot supply has to be imported. Third world operators are getting into this supply chain with disastrous environmental, social, (and food cost) results. But the money is good.

I haven't touched on agricultural subsidies, which, unlike the EU and the USA, Australian farmers do not have. but they send impossible-to-ignore price signals too.

And wjp - an interesting link. Thank you.

Luke,

Please tell me how to "rape the 3rd world's resources."

Should I do it by raising prices for commodities, or by lowering them?

Someone, such as yourself, who is willing to call me a "neo-con scumoid", obviously will have the final answer.

Or at least, an answer credible enough to justify your use of pre-teen trash words.

Doubtless, your education is so comprehensive that you can render a reasoned opinion, but your verbiage suggests that you dropped out of kindergarten and were recently released from the penitentiary.