The European Union is the world’s most dysfunctional policy-making body, and environmentalists are the world’s most dysfunctional policy lobby. Put the two together, and watch the fun begin. Like a string of firecrackers, Europe has been watching one green fiasco explode after another. The latest: a “solution” to the biofuel scandal which began in 2008, when the EU mandated that members derive a minimum of 10 percent of transport fuel from bio sources. This caused massive taxpayer-supported investment in a hugely wasteful industry, had the effect of pushing up food-prices world-wide, and made ranchers in Southeast Asia cut down rain-forests to grow palm oil, actually raising CO2 output in the process.

(Dr. Benny Peiser)