Chavez is going green

Hugo Chavez

Common Dreams has picked up an article from the Toronto Star entitled "Chavez Sets 'Green' Agenda" . Here's how it gets started:

His ambitious social programs are built on Venezuela's petroleum wealth, but President Hugo Chavez is increasingly talking up environmental causes and urging the world to cut back on oil use to fight global warming.

He wants to use some oil revenues in a venture to manufacture solar panels and has begun doling out millions of energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs to homes nationwide.

Some critics say Chavez's campaign is mostly rhetoric, noting this is a country where government subsidies have gasoline prices at 12 cents (U.S.) a gallon, car sales are booming and vehicle exhaust chokes litter-strewn streets.

But Chavez says Venezuela can be an example, and he has begun exhorting his followers to drive less and take public transport. His government plans a windmill farm to generate electricity on the Caribbean coast and is exploring more uses for cleaner-burning natural gas.

"Venezuela is one of the countries that least contaminates the environment, but nevertheless we want to give an example and be at the vanguard," Chavez said at a news conference Thursday.

He called U.S. oil consumption – which handsomely funds his government – a leading cause of the world's environmental troubles.

"They're destroying the world," Chavez said, citing melting glaciers in the Andes and predictions of rising sea levels. "The human race will be finished if we don't change the world capitalist system.''

Later the article reports that he will soon raise gas prices to discourage driving.

He is right that we are destroying the world. And it is unregulated capitalism that's doing it.