Energy Warriors

Who might have imagined in this tipsy-turvy world that in the battle for the environment in the face of Global Warming and scientific uncertainty whether or not it's truly man-made in its extremities, that the band-aid solutions seen thus far to attempting to slow down spewing of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would impact in such an uneven manner as to raise the ire of anti-poverty groups? Well, yes, it could and should have been predicted.

In a sense, it was. The scientific community of environmental experts has warned that low-lying areas of the world will become increasingly susceptible to flooding and even permanent inundation. That already-poor nations will be beset by conditions they will be incapable of dealing with. That agriculture in extreme-weather-vulnerable countries will be direly impacted. That such vulnerable geographic areas will become uninhabitable.

That the already great hordes of migrants, both economic and political, fleeing unstable and dangerous situations, will increase exponentially, becoming a flooding humanitarian burden on the rest of the world. The developed world that will suffer far less, and because of their geographic placement and economies will appear a haven for desperate refugees. It will clearly become the obligation of those who can manage the strain, to welcome as many migrants as feasible.

So much for looking into the future of environmental degradation and its potential impacts. And then there's the present, the current situation where people are being encouraged to muster alternate resources, to carefully determine how they use those resources, and to refrain from unwise choices leading to further environmental degradation. People are travelling less, using less energy.

Governments have turned to the increasing use of biofuels, and wind-generated energy, and solar-generated energy sources. In the process, the higher cost of conventional fossil-fuel sources of energy have impacted dreadfully on production costs, on transport costs, resulting in higher food and other consumables' costs. So while the middle-class has seen a gradual rise in their expenditures for necessities and it is annoying, the poor, with their low, fixed income are in pain.

Amazingly, a coalition of anti-poverty groups in the United States, led by African-American civil rights and faith leaders are targeting the blame at their own legislators, complicit with oil interests, along with "extreme" environmental organizations who are leading the battle against conventional energy sources toward national sustainability. They're urging the abandonment of restriction of "dirty oil" sources, like tar sands.

The new campaign, "Stop The War On The Poor", has its spokespeople explaining "We favour any and every energy source. We do not believe in this artificial game that the radicals play of pitting the so-called bad energy versus good energy. All energy, when prices are as high as they are, which is such a critical resource and the life-blood of a nation's economy and the survival of people, is good energy as far as we're concerned."

And there you have it. Restrictions, they avow, through increasing climate-change legislation in the United States, has caused speculation with the predictable result that oil prices have spiked to levels sufficient to "strangle" the poor. The alliance claims to represent a large cross-section of Americans, the economically disadvantaged from all backgrounds, as well as farmers.

Pointing out that the poor are impacted more than any other segment of society. With far less disposable income, they're forced to make difficult choices between food, fuel, and medicine. All are necessities. Paring down to the barest minimum of what seems increasingly unaffordable in a faltering economy will have a dreadful final impact on the health and well-being of the poor.

America's reliance on "dirty, dwindling and dangerously expensive" oil, in the words of Senator Obama, is a predicament he hopes to be able to solve, should he be elected president. But these aren't the words of hope that this coalition of anti-poverty groups want to hear. The alliance plans to "out" environmental extremist groups as well as the politicians that support them, including Nancy Pelosi.

And that includes too, the country's Washington-based Natural resources Defence Council, whose favourite whipping target is oil-sands-derived "dirty" oil. The alliance points out that poor American families spend half of every income dollar on energy as opposed to the five cents of every income dollar spent by the country's middle class. Clearly, a lot of anxious heads have got to come together to iron this one out.

Some accountability required of big-oil interests would go a long way to persuading anti-poverty groups that they're on the wrong track. But one doubts they are. It is U.S. government policy that biofuels are part of the solution, yet figures released by the World Bank concluded that biofuel, low grain inventories related to biofuel production, speculative activity and food export bans have pushed food prices up by 70% to 75%.

Complicating things even further is the weaker American dollar and the whopping half-trillion U.S. treasury deficit wracked up so far this year.