Lester Brown says the diversion is already happening:
If you think you are spending more each week at the supermarket, you may be right. The escalating share of the U.S. grain harvest going to ethanol distilleries is driving up food prices worldwide.
Corn prices have doubled over the last year, wheat futures are trading at their highest level in 10 years, and rice prices are rising too. In addition, soybean futures have risen by half. A Bloomberg analysis notes that the soaring use of corn as the feedstock for fuel ethanol "is creating unintended consequences throughout the global food chain."
The countries initially hit by rising food prices are those where corn is the staple food. In Mexico, one of more than 20 countries with a corn-based diet, the price of tortillas is up by 60 percent. Angry Mexicans in crowds of up to 75,000 have taken to the streets in protest, forcing the government to institute price controls on tortillas.
Food prices are also rising in China, India, and the United States, countries that contain 40 percent of the world's people. While relatively little corn is eaten directly in these countries, vast quantities are consumed indirectly in meat, milk, and eggs in both China and the United States.
I don't know if biofuels can be controlled in a way that ensures that they are grown sustainably. I am more optimistic about electricity generation on an upward green trajectory. Plug it in, I say, plug it in.
Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change
Inferno on Earth: Wildfires spreading as temperatures rise
Global boiling declares war on Thanksgiving
Comments
View as Flat
pcarbo Posted 6:22 am
28 Mar 2007
biofuels consumer = environmentalist
There's been a lot of talk about biofuels in these pages. Convincing arguments have been made time and time again against putting corn in our cars. But George Monbiot's latest blog entry wraps these arguments together in a way that would surely make the Grist beat writers proud.
And for an example of the hearty government enthusiasm towards biofuels, view these priceless ads that have aired up here on Canadian television. I particularly enjoy this segment:
"I can tell from your SUV that you're really concerned about the environment." (in sarcastic tone)
"Actually. It runs on ethanol."
Permalink
Delay And Deny Posted 6:24 am
28 Mar 2007
This would be an Earth First! dream come true. Convert to biofuels and starve all the humans to death. Hey, then only the polar bears will be left -- of course, since Global Warming has nothing to do with humans, their 'environment' will still be destroyed. However, if we automate our ice skating rinks before mankind perishes from hunger, they can live out their days in Rockefeller Center.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 6:45 am
28 Mar 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 7:40 am
28 Mar 2007
But I've been getting some mixed messages on forrest crops (i.e. Poplar forrests)
One guy commented that an acre of forrest can get 500watts of solar.
Even though it's only 1% effecient
Meanwhile, 35% effecient solar concentrators only get about half that.
Kinda making me scratch my head hows thats possible.
Permalink
Ron Steenblik Posted 8:50 pm
28 Mar 2007
Ethanol euphoria is not an acceptable substitute for a carefully thought through policy. For Washington, it is time to decide whether to continue with the current policy of subsidizing more and more grain-based fuel distilleries or to encourage a shift to more fuel-efficient cars and a new automotive fuel economy centered on plug-in hybrid cars and wind energy. The choice is between a future of rising world food prices, spreading hunger, and growing political instability, or one of stable food prices, sharply reduced dependence on oil, and much lower carbon emissions.
A small step for a man; a giant leap for critics of the current biofuel policy.
Permalink
lorayoh Posted 11:24 pm
28 Mar 2007
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 11:40 pm
28 Mar 2007
Bush appointee Bernanke says inflation is back!?! How shocking, I'm susrprised he noticed. Food, fuel, and energy prices rising? Precipitously? Grain prices doubling in one year?
Yer doin' a hekuva job berni!
Where was inflation when he lowered rates before the last election?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
Ron Steenblik Posted 12:51 am
29 Mar 2007
"[M]ore than 3 billion people in the world were condemned to die prematurely of hunger or thirst from plans by ... the United States, to convert foodstuffs like corn into fuel for cars.
"This is not an exaggerated figure, it's more likely cautious. I've been meditating quite a bit since President Bush's meeting with North American automobile makers."
The author? Fidel Castro.
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 1:18 am
29 Mar 2007
I would also like to point out that when I started criticizing biofuels the proponents mocked the idea that food would be an issue. Yet another argument has fallen by the wayside.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
Ron Steenblik Posted 1:33 am
29 Mar 2007
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 1:44 am
29 Mar 2007
Not at all. I was speculating as to why he has avoided the topic of corn subsidies until now.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
Julia Olmstead Posted 1:53 am
29 Mar 2007
In our country, land that could by dedicated to ethanol production is better used to grow food to feed our population and for environmental protection.
Every country in the world, rich or poor, with no exceptions, could save itself fuel and billions of investment dollars exchanging all its incandescent lightbulbs for fluorescent bulbs, something Cuba has acheived in every home in this country. This would be a meaningful action against global warming that would not starve to death millions of people around the world.
Permalink
JMG Posted 4:34 am
29 Mar 2007
Although I would like to see an ad-free site, at least you should get a cut if people are going to post their own ads.
Permalink
Karen Orr Posted 5:00 am
29 Mar 2007
Here's a transcript of a Hugo Chavez-Fidel Castro ethanol discussion
posted to The Fueling Station on March 1st by David Adams, the
St. Pete Times principle biofuels cheerleader.
The Fueling Station:
http://blogs.tampabay.com/energy/ethanol/index.html
---------------------------------------------------
Chavez: Do you know how many hectares of corn are needed to
produce one million barrels of ethanol?
Castro: To do what?
Chavez: To produce one million barrels of ethanol?
Castro: Ethanol. I believe you told me about that the other
day. Somewhere around 20 million hectares.
Chavez: [Laughing] Just like that.
Castro: Go ahead, remind me.
Chavez: Indeed, 20 million. You are the one with an except-
ional mind, not me.
Castro: Twenty million. Well, of course. The idea of using
food to produce fuel is tragic, dramatic. No one is sure
how high the price of food will rise when soy is being
used for fuel, with the need there is in the world to
produce eggs, milk, to produce meat. It is one more tragedy,
one of many at this time.
I am happy to know that you have taken up the flag to save
the species because ... there are new problems, very
difficult problems and therefore to see someone become
a great preacher of the cause, a champion of the cause,
an advocate of the life of the species. For that, I
congratulate you. Continue fighting [words inaudible]
to educate the people so they can understand.
-----------------------------------------------------
Adam's comments can be read here:
http://blogs.tampabay.com/energy/2007/03/castro_and_chav. ...
But the governments of Cuba and Venezuela are planning
to move forward together on biofuels production. Cuba
is interested in producing ethanol largely for export
according to this IPS report:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36823
Permalink
caniscandida Posted 11:11 pm
29 Mar 2007
But Fidel, meanwhile, is doing great, especially for somebody who is himself supposed to be all but dead. Here is a bit that precedes what Julia translated. I translated "alcohol" as "alcohol," but presumably El Jefe means what we would call "ethanol." The organic chemists can explain it all to us:
<<
Other countries, of the Rich World, have already carefully planned to use not only corn, but also wheat, sunflower seed, rapeseed and other foods, all to produce fuel. The Europeans, for example, would make a lot of money by importing all the world's soybeans, in order to reduce the fuel expense of their automobiles, and to give the rest to their animals as feed, since soybeans are a legume especially rich in all kinds of essential amino-acids.
In Cuba, several kinds of alcohol used to be produced as a by-product of the sugar industry, after drawing off the sugar from the cane juice three times. [?] Climate change is already affecting our sugar production. Long dry spells keep alternating with record rainfalls, which barely allows for the production of sugar over a hundred days, with adequate yields, in the months of our very mild Winter, so that the sugar, per ton of cane, falls short, or the cane, per hectare, falls short: all owing to the prolonged dry spells in the months of planting and growing.
In Venezuela, I have heard that they would not export their alcohol, but they would use it to improve the environmental quality of their own fuel. For that purpose, independently from the excellent technology used in Brazil to produce alcohol, the use of such technology in Cuba for producing alcohol directly from cane juice amounts to no more than a fantasy, or a raving, of those who are fooling themselves with that idea. In our country, those places that have been given over to the direct production of alcohol can be much more useful in the production of food for the people, and in the protection of the environment.
>>
How old is Elian Gonzalez at this point? Sera' un guapito jovencito a estas alturas, pienso yo, si sale a su hermoso padre, ?que no?
He must be miserable, imagining how much fun he might be having with that looney cousin back in Miami. He might have been adopted by Katharine Harris, and then, in just a few years, he might have run for office. ("Gevalt!," as another important South Florida constituency might put it.)
As it is, it would be nice to think that Janet Reno kept in touch with him. She was always a kind of cuddly "granma" figure, so to speak.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
Permalink
Mr Best Posted 12:30 am
30 Mar 2007
I'm a new biodiesel user... the company that provides my biodiesel uses domestic crops. I've been reading a bit about the deforestation, etc that is happening in other parts of the world to produce ethanol for the U.S. and biodiesel for Europe.
Other than taking up space and water that would otherwise be used for domestic food production, what drawbacks are there to DOMESTIC BIODIESEL production here in the U.S.?
Thanks...
Permalink