“How come petroleum gets a free pass and people just tear apart biofuels?”

“How come petroleum gets a free pass and people just tear apart biofuels?” asks Nikola Davidson, surveying the efforts of protester Duff Badgley and members of One Earth to allegedly approach and harass customers of the Propel Biofuels biodiesel station in Seattle.

The group is said to target women, with handouts that describe biofuels as a “scourge on humankind”, a banner reading “Crime Against Humanity” and, according to Propel CEO Rob Elam, taking photos of customers and their license plates. Their efforts appear to be working; according to the Seattle Weekly, traffic is down to one customer per hour in off-peak periods. However, according to a Propel Biofuels spokesperson, “OneEarth has not had an effect on sales, in fact sales are increasing each month. The majority of customers are companies, whose fleet vehicles tend to fill up early in the morning or at the end of the work day.” 

Dan Freeman, the owner of Dr. Dan’s Biodiesel in Seattle, told the Weekly that protesters have targeted his customers as well. “They see a biodiesel sticker on someone’s VW and scream at them that they’re killing Mexicans,” he told the Weekly. http://www.seattleweekly.com/2008-09-03/news/harassing-gas/2

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