Earth Day ‘08 raises hard questions for U.S. Latinos - Using corn as fuel forces hardship on low-wage group

In fact, the future of our environment is especially important to the Hispanic community because 50 percent of U.S. Latinos are under the age of 26 and 35 percent are younger than 18, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

One way to help achieve a halt in environmental deterioration is to stop the headlong, senseless embrace of biofuels as a linchpin of alternative energy policy. As we’re learning more each day, diverting our food crops into the development of ethanol is bad for the economy, bad for our health and bad for the environment.

Increased use of corn ethanol had seemed like a good idea when Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 as a way to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. That law immediately accelerated corn ethanol production by paying refiners a 51-cent tax rebate per gallon and mandating the production of 9 billion gallons of renewable food-based biofuel use in 2008 and 15 billion gallons by 2015. Additional federal mandates for biofuels raise the total mandate to 36 billion gallons in 2022.”*

*From: http://www.chron.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

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