Al Gore Addresses BioFuels in Argentina, with the need to be careful

Gore in Argentina: Biofuels could mean more expensive food
BY SHANE ROMIG
Associated Press

Natacha Pisarenko / AP
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore addresses experts and financiers wrangling over efficient and environmentally friendly ways of promoting biofuels development at the first biofuels congress of the Americas in Buenos Aires, Friday, May 11, 2007.

BUENOS AIRES -- (AP) -- Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned Friday that the drive to produce alternative fuels to combat global warming must not create new forms of environmental damage.

''Every potential solution much be handled carefully and the danger with biofuels is that extremely valuable forests will be destroyed unnecessarily,'' said Gore, whose global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth won an Academy Award this year. ``Another danger is that, if it is not pursued carefully, it will drive food prices up.''

President Bush wants to slash gasoline consumption by 20 percent by 2017, a move requiring 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels to replace fossil fuels.

But South American skeptics worry that diverting farmland for biofuels made from corn, sugarcane, palm oil and other agricultural products will harm the environment and worsen already troublesome inflation in the developing world.

As Gore spoke to a private gathering of biofuel industry players inside a Buenos Aires hotel, demonstrators on bicycles and wearing surgical masks chanted slogans against multinational agribusinesses, saying the biofuel boom will cause deforestation and turn arable land into deserts.

Gore acknowledged this divide in his speech, but insisted that renewable energy is the future.

''If it is produced in a careful way, the strategy of producing more biofuels can be part of the solution for the climate crisis without causing damage to the environment,'' he said.

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