Fidel Castro, almost
uniquely among world
leaders, shows a real
understanding of just
how serious a threat
climate change poses
to human society. This
is an edited version of
an article he published
on May 9. It vividly
demonstrates just how
seriously Castro is
studying the subject
and engaging with
intellectuals and
activists who are
developing a socialist
explanation of how
capitalism is changing the planet. In particular he demolishes the myths about biofuels. Atilio Borón, a prestigious leftist intellectual who until recently headed the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), wrote an article for the 6th Hemispheric Meeting of Struggle against the FTAs and for the Integration of Peoples which just wrapped up in Havana. He was kind enough to send it to me along with a letter.
I have summarized the gist of what he wrote using exact quotes of paragraphs and phrases in his article; it reads as follows: "Energy is conceived of as just merchandise. Like Marx warned us, this is not due to the perversity or callousness of some individual capitalist or another, but rather the consequence of the logic of the accumulation process, which is prone to the ceaseless "mercantilism" that touches on all components of social life, both material and symbolic. Capitalism turns everything that crosses its path into merchandise. Foodstuffs are transformed into fuels to make
viable the irrationality of a
civilization that, to sustain
the wealth and privilege of a
few, is brutally assaulting
the environment and the
ecologic conditions which
made it possible for life to appear on Earth.
Transforming food into fuels is a monstrosity.
Capitalism is preparing to perpetrate massive euthanasia on the poor, and particularly on the poor of the South, since it is there that the greatest reserves of the earth's biomass required to produce biofuels are found.
The total agricultural land of the European Union is barely sufficient to cover 30 percent of their current needs for fuel but not their future needs that will probably be greater. In the United States, the satisfaction of their current demand for fossil fuels would require the use of 121 percent of all their agricultural land for agrifuels.
Consequently, the supply of agrifuels will have to come from the South, from capitalism's poor and neocolonial periphery. Mathematics does not lie: neither the United States nor the European Union have available land to support an increase in food production and an expansion of the production of agrifuels at the same time. Deforestation of the planet would increase the land surface suitable for agriculture (but only for a while). Therefore this would be only for a few decades, at the most.
These lands would then suffer desertification and the situation would be worse than ever, aggravating even further the dilemma pitting the production of food against that of ethanol or biodiesel.
The struggle against hunger - and there are some two billion who suffer from hunger in the world- will be seriously impaired by the expansion of land taken over by agrifuel crops.
Countries where hunger is a universal scourge will bear witness to the rapid transformation of agriculture that would feed the insatiable demand for fuels
needed by a civilization
based on their irrational use.
Moreover, the world population grows million
people every year who will
obviously demand food
that will be steadily
more expensive and
farther out of their
reach.
The devastating
impact of
increased food prices, which
will inexorably happen as
the land is used either for
food or for fuel, was demonstrated in the work of C.
Ford Runge and Benjamin
Senauer, two distinguished
professors from the
University of Minnesota, in
an article published in the
English language edition of
the Foreign Affairs magazine whose title says it all:
"How Biofuels Could Starve
the Poor".
The authors claim that in
the United States the The struggle against hunger - and there are some two billion people who suffer from hunger in the world- will be seriously growth of the agrifuel industry has given rise to increases not only in the price of corn, oleaginous seeds and other grains, but also in the prices of apparently unrelated crops and products. The use of land to grow corn which will feed the faucets of ethanol is reducing the area for other crops.
The food processors using crops such as peas and young corn have been forced to pay higher prices in order to ensure their supplies. This is a cost that will eventually be passed on to the consumer.
The increase in food prices is also hitting the livestock and poultry industries. The higher costs have produced an abrupt decrease in income, especially in the poultry and pork sectors. If income continues to decrease, so will production, and the prices of chicken, turkey, pork, milk and eggs
will increase.
They warn that the most
devastating effects of
Increasing food prices will
be felt especially in Third
World countries.
With regards to the argument claming that the agrifuels are harmless, Victor
Bronstein, a professor at the
University of Buenos Aires,
has demonstrated that:
It is not true that biofuels
are a renewable and constant energy source, given
that the crucial factor in plant growth is not sunlight but the availability of water and suitable soil conditions.
If this were not the case, we would be able to grow corn or sugarcane in the Sahara desert. The effects of large-scale production of biofuels will be devastating.
It is not true that they do not pollute. Even if ethanol produces less carbon emissions, the process to obtain it pollutes the surface and the water with nitrates, herbicides, pesticides and waste, and the air is polluted with aldehydes and alcohols that are carcinogens.
The presumption of a "green and clean" fuel is a fallacy. The proposal of agrifuels is unviable, and it is ethically and politically unacceptable. But it is not enough just to reject it. It is necessary to implement a new energy revolution, but one that is at the service of the people and not at the service of the monopolies and imperialism. This
is, perhaps, the most important challenge of our time",
concludes Atilio Borón.
As you can see, this summary took up some space.
We need space and time;
practically a book. It has
been said that the masterpiece which made author
Gabriel García Márquez
famous, One Hundred Years
of Solitude, required him to
write fifty pages for each
page that was printed.
How much time would my poor pen need to refute those who for a material interest, ignorance, indifference or even for all three at the same time defend the evil idea and to spread the solid and honest arguments of those who struggle for the life of the species?
Some very important opinions and points of view were discussed at the Hemispheric Meeting in Havana.
We should talk about those that brought us real-life images of cutting sugarcane by hand in a documentary film that seemed a reflection of Dante's Inferno.
A growing number of opinions are carried by the media every day and everywhere in the world, from Institutions like the United Nations right up to national scientific associations. I simply perceive that the debate is heating up. The fact that the subject is being discussed IS already an important step forward.