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Alternative Energy: Bush Acts Yet Again While Al Gore Only Talks

SAO PAULO, Brazil -

At a mega fuel depot for tanker trucks, President Bush heralded a new
ethanol agreement with Brazil Friday as way to boost alternative fuels
production across the Americas.

But Bush and Silva said increasing alternative fuel use will lead to
more jobs, a cleaner environment and greater independence from the
whims of the oil market.

"It makes sense for us to collaborate for the good of mankind," Bush
said at Silva's side, after touring the depot, a maze of tanks and
pipelines on the outskirts of the city. "We see the bright and real
potential for our citizens being able to use alternative sources of
energy that will promote the common good."

The agreement itself was signed Friday morning by Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and her Brazilian counterpart, White House spokesman
Gordon Johndroe announced.

Bush's focus on energy during the first stop on his eighth trip to
Latin America comes as the president's nemesis in the region,
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is using his vast oil wealth to
court allies. Bush's trip also includes visits to Uruguay, Colombia,
Guatemala and Mexico.

At the fuel depot, Bush, sporting a white hard hat, fingered sunflower
seeds and stalks of sugar cane and sniffed beakers of clear ethanol
and yellowish biodiesel. For decades, Brazil has been making ethanol
with sugar cane grown and nearly eight in 10 new cars already run on
the fuel.

Biodieseal is a newer endeavor, and Silva said that by 2010, 5 percent
of Brazilian biodiesel will come from abundant plants, such as African
palm, cottonseed, sunflower and castor beans, grown by smaller
farmers.

"It will help create jobs and income in the poorest regions of our
country, especially in the northeastern semi-arid region, where many
of these crops are actually native," Silva said at the facility, which
his operated by a subsidiary of the state-owned Petrobras.

Bush said he wants to work with Brazil, a pioneer in ethanol
production, to push the development of alternative fuels in Central
America and the Caribbean. He and Silva also want to see standards set
in the growing industry to help turn ethanol into an internationally
traded commodity.

In January, Bush called on Congress to require the annual use of 35
billion gallons of ethanol and other alternative fuels such as
biodiesel by 2017, a fivefold increase over current requirements. To
help meet the goal, the president also is pushing research into making
ethanol from material such as wood chips and switchgrass.

Meanwhile back in the United States, PETA sent a letter to former vice
president Al Gore explaining to him that the best way to fight global
warming is to go vegetarian and offering to cook him faux "fried
chicken" as an introduction to meat-free meals. In its letter, PETA
points out that Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth-which starkly
outlines the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming and
just won the Academy Award for "Best Documentary"-has failed to
address the fact that the meat industry is the largest contributor to
greenhouse-gas emissions.

In the letter, PETA points out the following:

· The effect that our meat addiction is having on the climate is truly
staggering. In fact, in its recent report "Livestock's Long Shadow-
Environmental Issues and Options," the United Nations determined that
raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the
cars and trucks in the world combined.

· Researchers at the University of Chicago have determined that
switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global
warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius.

PETA also reminds Gore that his critics love to question whether he
practices what he preaches and suggests that by going vegetarian, he
could cut down on his contribution to global warming and silence his
critics at the same time.

"The single best thing that any of us can do to for our health, for
animals, and for the environment is to go vegetarian," says PETA
President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "The best and easiest way for Mr. Gore to
show his critics that he's truly committed to fighting global warming
is to kick his meat habit immediately."

Recently Al Gore's environmental hypocrisy was exposed when his
utility bills for the last two years had been released to the public.
Ironically the gas and electric bills for the former vice president's
20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in
2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.