FOOD-PRICE INFLATION so severe that central banks are forced to raise interest rates to growth-stifling levels; corn prices so high that poor Mexicans can't afford their tortillas; massive deforestation to make way for more corn and palm oil; poor farmers pushed off their land to make room for carbon-offsetting plantings paid for by rich jet-setters; forests that trap more heat than they help to get rid of; and Al Gore for president.

These are some of the unpleasant, unintended consequences of hastily conceived environmental policies. In America, President Bush has decided that we can plant our way out of dependence on foreign oil. He envisages a future in which America's fuel will come from planting above ground rather then drilling below it. In Europe, Angela Merkel and Tony Blair have hit upon carbon trading as the solution to global warming, and the man whose mirror assures him that he is the greenest of them all, David Cameron, is putting a windmill on his roof to generate enough electricity to power his hair dryer.

None of these riders on the environmental bandwagon--which is powered no doubt by biofuels--worries very much about the cost of these policies, or has given the slightest consideration to the only consequences that are certain--the unintended consequences, some of which I have listed above. And Al Gore, the former vice president turned Academy-Award winning movie producer (and waiting in the wings to enter the race for the Democratic nomination for president), says our choices are either action this day, or

Speaking of the Academy Awards, the stars, starlets, and wannabes participating in this exercise in self-adulation poured into the hall from their limousines and private jets, but assured us that the entire flood-lit affair was carbon neutral. It seems that they had purchased what are known as "carbon offsets," a system by which they pay others to curtail carbon emissions, or fund renewable energy sources. These deals, which are running at an annual rate of about $100 million per year, and rising, according to BusinessWeek, "have become one of the most widely promoted products marketed to checkbook environmentalists."

Small problem: The offsets purchased by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences were purchased from TerraPass Inc., a firm with a portfolio of offset projects that include a garbage dump in Arkansas, managed by Waste Management Inc. TerraPass has purchased thousands of tons of gas reductions resulting from Waste Management's decision to burn off the methane produced by the decomposing trash. But the company's managers and state regulators told BusinessWeek that the decision to burn off the methane had "nothing to do with TerraPass' efforts." Or with the offsets purchased by the Hollywood greens.

There are more such stories, but you get the idea. The reductions in greenhouse gas emissions claimed by those intent on being green without changing their lifestyles are very often bogus--they would have happened without the purchase of offsets.

That is the least of the problems created by the new environmental panic. The rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia are being decimated in the rush to increase the production of palm oil, which is used as a biofuel. And in many countries poor farmers are having their land confiscated so that rich consumers can plant trees to lighten their carbon footprints.