Are Biofuels Causing Food Riots?
The New England Complex Systems Institute has become the latest organization to charge that by turning almost 50 percent of our corn crop into auto fuel, America is causing food shortages in the poorer nations of the world. The UN Food and Agriculture Association has been saying the same thing for ten years, calling biofuels “a crime against humanity.” But this time the authors are not simply making the accusation. They are providing correlations to back it up.
Related: “We need to design a new kind of democracy…” INdeed, we do. One in which our public policy makers share the same consequences as the victims of their planetary make-over schemes.
will greenies be happy to hear Redford’s Alberta is stopping the bio-fuel grants?
do we want cleaner air in Alberta (their argument)
or fewer “food riots” in Third World?
it’s all linked, dontcha know.
As I’ve said many a time, burning food is a sin. Food riots are probably the least of what the wages of that particular sin will be.
Burning grass clippings and fallen leaves, sawdust, sewage sludge, farm waste and etc. would be -useful-, but nobody does that because its A)inconvenient and B) not economically feasible. They burn corn instead, because it comes by rail and because huge SUBSIDIES make it profitable.
Take away the ethanol subsidies and the regulations requiring it to be in gasoline, nobody would touch the stuff.
But that would be RACIST.
Better to let the foreigners starve and kill each other in riots. Much more eco-friendly. Remember, every dead African child is a hundred tons of CO2 prevented!
Hunger has more to do with the ability to pay for food than its shortage. Aid groups sometimes find that its cheaper to buy food in the affected country than to ship it in from the first world.
What I mean is that there’s a need to look at a country’s politicians when their people can’t eat.
“Hunger has more to do with the ability to pay for food than its shortage.”
Yes. And when the price goes up because American legislators decide food should be turned into fuel instead of being sold on the open market, the price goes up. Steeply. Reducing the ability to pay for it.
“What I mean is that there’s a need to look at a country’s politicians when their people can’t eat.”
All else being equal, and given that the Third World is ruled mostly by dictators, the present circumstance in food prices can be traced directly to the USA, Canada and Europe. Where ethanol is saving the planet one tank of gas at a time.
The excruciating stupidity of burning corn ethanol in Canada, land of oil and gas, is without peer in modern times.
Less fossil fuels burned is good for the earth or let millions of people starve???
Oh, the condradictions of the left and green.
To the greenies the answer is easy, people can reproduce but we only have one earth which is already at death’s door.
Here’s a wacky solution eat what’s food and burn what’s fossil fuel.
Put the question to any of these concerned about environmental chaos people, their #1 concern is too many people on planet.
In this light their willingness to condone the deliberate starvation of the most rapidly growing populations, should be no surprise.
Neither should the evidence that their professed do-good solutions mask systemic evil.
We currently have no foreseeable shortage of low cost energy,human capital and innovation.
Our political or collective will is dead and rotting, if we do not throw the watermelons, grafters and one world nuts out, we are done and so are the poor.
The prediction that the world population will stabilize, is based on the theory our standard of living, medicine and health standards will spread to the “3rd” world.
The eco_nutz are making sure that does not happen.
“We need to design a new kind of democracy.”
Yes,we do. It’s called a “dictatorship”,and if we just put the right type of dictator into power,all will be well.
And,of course,we all agree on what type of person that would be,right?
And here I thought “Idiocracy” was just a bad movie.
Dr Megele Suzuki has long been and advocate of low yeild crops .
burning their food is just as good
Ability to pay is essential, of course; the biofuel market drives up to cost of food. But there are other aspects: as David Goldman (Spengler) comments, “Asian pigs will eat before Middle Eastern peasants”.
Washington pork is usually corrupt at every level.
Banning the US importation of third world ethanol
made from sugar cane when the rent seeking corn
program started was an obvious tip off as to what
was going on.
Corn is grown to feed animals and make junk food. There is no incentive to use it to feed the starving millions in the 3rd world instead. Besides, they will just continue to breed more overpopulation. Don’t meddle, let them find a sustainable balance with the food they can grow to feed themselves. Some will die; that’s how it works for all species on this planet.
Corn isn’t used to make ‘french fry grease’. The heading on this section is a stupid misconception. Is it supposed to be cute and funny?
By diverting acres that could be used to produce human food to the production of corn usable as fuel is indirectly making ‘french fry grease’.
Phantom and John Robertson, well said. Oh and John, the Greeks and Cypriots are considering throwing the grafters out. The rest, including us, have not come to that point yet, as they are dug into our society pretty deep. They have been working on this fraud for decades.
by turning almost 50 percent of our corn crop into auto fuel, America is causing food shortages
Not quite true. The spent mash from making ethanol is still fed to meat animals, just like they did with the corn before. The article tries to imply that corn used for ethanol is wasted food.
I don’t agree with using ethanol as a motor fuel; the gasoline I use has almost no ethanol.
By diverting acres that could be used to produce human food to the production of corn usable as fuel is indirectly making ‘french fry grease’. Posted by: Ken (Kulak)
“indirectly making ‘french fry grease'” that makes no sense.
Besides the spent mash from making ethanol is still fed to meat animals, just like they did with the corn before, so the acres of corn are still used to produce human food.
Despite the circumstance that distillers grains (spent mash) has a high moisture content it amounts to much less feed than the input grain. The fermentation process uses considerable energy (metabolic) from the grain and then the alcohol is removed the result on a dry matter basis is small.
The advantage of distillery grains as livestock feed is as a protein rich SUPPLEMENT. The carbohydrate/starch is removed and the protein remains. It is a replacement for soybean meal….also an industrial byproduct after the oil is extracted.
We know this sorta stuff here south of 50………
On several occasions, you have been apprised of the fact that “Stinking French Fry Grease” is used on this blog as a metaphor for any and all stupid, self-serving, and misbegotten attempts to make so-called “green” fuels from agricultural products and/or waste.
So it’s not just ignorance, it’s willful ignorance.
to all you losers that are so concerned about the starving people in the world, why dont you buy the grain from the farmers and then give it to those starving people.put your money where your mouth is and feed the starving people.we sell our product to the highest payer the same as you work for who pays you the most.put up or shut up.
Only 23% of the corn goes back to feed.