THE title suggests a hatchet job; the text is a bit more nuanced. Sometimes, and in some places, Agrofuels argues, we may be able to grow crops to use as biofuels without them becoming tyrannical neighbours.
Fran莽ois Houtart, a Belgian sociologist and Catholic priest, is less interested in the crops than the political landscape in which they grow. A couple of chapters on the biofuels such as palm oil that are farmed in developing countries are squashed by seven more on topics such as 鈥渢he neoliberal discourse on climate change鈥� and 鈥減ost-capitalist logic鈥�. There is a brief and interesting interlude when he visits Colombian palm-oil growers. But for Houtart, turning nature into fuel represents capitalism鈥檚 last stand against its own contradictions. Since capitalism destroys all it touches, he says, the outcome is inevitable. Houtart has little time to coax you to his viewpoint, though, so if you don鈥檛 agree with him at the start you are unlikely to at the end.
Agrofuels: Big profits, ruined lives and ecological destruction
Pluto Press