Forests paying the price for biofuels

The following excerpts are from an article in the New Scientist, so the next time your "Enviro-Greenie" neighbor, driving his bio-diesel powered Yugo gives you a bad time about your Ford F350 4WD crew cab pickup, now you have the ammo to counter-attack for his contributing to the destruction of the world's forests!

From the New Scientist:

The drive for "green energy" in the developed world is having the perverse effect of encouraging the destruction of tropical rainforests. ......virgin forest (are) being razed to grow palm oil and soybeans to fuel cars and power stations in Europe and North America.

"The expansion of palm oil production is one of the leading causes of rainforest destruction in south-east Asia. It is one of the most environmentally damaging commodities on the planet," says Simon Counsell, director of the UK-based Rainforest Foundation.

The main alternative to palm oil is soybean oil. But soya is the largest single cause of rainforest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon.

...........verrrry Interrrresting.........

Hat tip to the Drudge report