On the shores of Bio Bio

A future sailor, for simplicity's sake let's call him Christopher C, has finally reached his destination, a new found continent. He is on a mission to explore this land and to see if it is the solution to the crisis of the old world. Back home people are starving. Much to his surprise, he is greeted enthusiastically on its lush shore by a neat man dressed in khaki.
- A warm welcome to Bio Bio, the new continent of Planet Earth Corp.,the man cries out, rubbing Christopher's hand.
- Let me show you around this magnificent island!
Christopher, exhausted after the long trip nods in disbelief.
- Good! I will start the tour with a brief history of this place. But first; what do you think of it? Can you sense the difference to other continents?
Christopher shakes his head. Something about the smell is perhaps different, but before he gets a chance to comment on that, the man continues:
- As you will be aware, in other parts of the world cars are the dominant means of transport. Here you don't see them. We would not want cars to pollute our fresh Atlantic air, would we?
Christopher is amazed. No cars?! This is clearly a paradisiac place. His fellow countrymen will be delighted by the news!
- But to the west and the east of this island we have the US and the EU respectively, and there they love cars, the man resumes. In fact, they love them so much that they built this continent just in order to keep their four-wheelers going. You look surprised. Well, let me tell you, young man, what's the purpose of this fine continent. We produce liquids. The initial idea of extending the world was born around 2007, that was the year when Gore got the Prize. You know what happened next: Climate Change. And all the efforts to stop it. The greening of politics. The greening of people's habits. Some people called for a great cut in car use, for the sake of the climate. Some others said, “we won't have any more oil soon“ and therefore wanted people to renounce their cars. But - thank God - that was not necessary. And the Americans and the Europeans would never have gone that far anyway. They came up with another solution; they started to produce green fuels, or biofuels. Carbon neutral and all that. Fuels from crops - I must say, a splendid idea!
The man smiles at Christopher. His eyes are wet. He is clearly moved to tears by the ingenuity of modern technology.
- And that's not all! he carries on. Producing all that fuel, they also managed to get rid of a lot of useless forests in the world and transformed the land into oil palm plantations, sugar cane, soya beans, wheat fields, you name it. Marvellous! Finally the Earth was properly managed, no dead zones any more, no unused land...
The man sighs of joy.
- You are a young man and were probably not born at that time, but I can tell you that there was a great enthusiasm all over the world because of this new development. No wonder, considering the added bonuses of this turn of the events: Finally we had managed to free mankind from the strange, uncivilized people living in the forests! We also got rid of a lot of poor people in Africa and other places simply because the food got too expensive. Just by keeping the cars going, mind you.
Christopher nodds. And shudders. This isn't news to him. The khaki man senses the young man's unease and glances at him, but continues his story.
-Well, as you probably actually do know, approaching the middle of the century, the situation got complicated. Land scarcity. Food scarcity. Rising sea levels. Droughts. Flooding. Refugees all over the place. We had to do something in order to secure our fuel supplies. So we decided to proceed with the idea that had lain dormant for so many years in the minds of the big movers of the world. You know who I'm talking about, the oil companies of course. Shell, BP, all the good guys taking mankind forwards. "Is it do-able?" They wondered. "Everything is do-able if you only have the money", they concluded. They had the money, they built The Continent and they named it Bio Bio. The only remaining truly green place in the world.
Finally Christopher manages to clear his throat and to ask the khaki man a question. - If we have a lot of workers? the man replies angrily. As few as possible! And not many people live here. Just the owners of Bio Bio and me. People should not know about this place. No-one. He gives Christopher a stare. - Am I making myself clear? Not a word to anyone. We don't want the same thing to happen here as has been the case in Europe and the US over the past decade - arable land being reconfiscated and used for food production. That is not going to happen here, not on Bio Bio!

For more information, see http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

 © Jenny Elster