Unintended consequences of "feel good" environmental policy

This is what you get when "feel-good" environmental policy is foisted upon the world:

FOOD-PRICE inflation so severe that central banks are forced to raise interest rates to growth-stifling levels; corn prices so high that poor Mexicans can’t afford their tortillas; massive deforestation to make way for more corn and palm oil; poor farmers pushed off their land to make room for carbon-offsetting plantings paid for by rich jet-setters; and Al Gore for president.

These are some of the unintended consequences of hastily conceived environmental policies. In America, President George Bush has decided that we can plant our way out of dependence on foreign oil. He envisages a future in which America’s fuel will come from planting above ground rather than drilling below it. In Europe, Angela Merkel and Tony Blair have hit upon carbon trading as the solution to global warming, and the man whose mirror assures him that he is the greenest of them all, David Cameron, has a wind turbine on his roof to generate enough electricity to power his hairdryer.

With the possible exception of Gordon Brown, none of these hitch-hikers on the environmental band-wagon worries much about the cost of these policies, or has given the slightest consideration to the only consequences that are certain — the unintended consequences, some of which I have listed above. And Gore, the former vice-president turned Academy-Award-winning movie producer (and waiting in the wings to enter the race for the Democratic nomination for president), says our choices are action today, or desertification and flooding will be upon us very soon.

You really need to read the entire piece.

There's a simple solution to our dependence on foreign oil; simply stated, we just need to produce more domestic oil. There isn't an oil shortage. There have been massive oil and gas discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico as well as under the frozen tundra in Alaska. The oil is out there, but spineless politicians who slavishly side with leftist environmental groups, who deplore capitalism, continually stand in the way of our progress. Therein lies the problem.
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On a related topic: The ethanol craze is putting the squeeze on corn supplies and causing food prices to rise.