Serge S. Gilbert’s Recent Comments

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  My thought in response to Midwestbug is that if biofuel is all that he or she cracks it up to be, then why is it in need of subventions from the Obama administration or any other government in the form of subsidies or regulation.  If the oil industry is conspiring to cast a dark shadow upon biofuel and good, clean ethanol, at least it is doing it with its own money (if you view the oil industry as unsubsidized, which I don't).  Why should farmers be subsidized to ask for subsidies to do what they are already making good money doing anyways?  Item, even if the percentage of biofuel requirement couldn't be traced directly to rainforest depredations, why would that be an argument in favor of biofuel, if in fact biofuel can survive on its own legs.  Furthermore, someone is converting the carbon sinks into cash crops or slashing and burning them for a one-time gain; if one insists that this is not being done in the name of agriculture, then some other culprit must be found, and none of the usual suspects are more likely than biofuel.  I doubt it could be suburban sprawl, for example, although I haven't researched it thoroughly.  Furthermore, even if, as I suspect, the amount of lands converted from carbon sink to agricultural use far exceeds the amount converted from agricultural to some urban or suburban use, the growth of the urbs or suburb is thoroughly codependent upon the growth of agriculture, adn the growth of both flourishes only at the expense of the pristine carbon sink (which benefits the urbs or suburb in other ways such as biodiversity, civic identity, aesthetic, etc.).   In short, I see no reason why this line of critique against government subvention of biofuel should not be aggressively be pursued and even used to dismantle said subvention if no compelling argument is raised to the contrary. 

  On A bad idea, plus lots of cash posted 6 months, 2 weeks ago 7 Responses

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  Turanga:

  You seem extremely well informed, and I find much to agree with in your analysis.  I too would prefer income support over price supports, ceteris paribus. 

  But other things are not equal.  There is much that is unsettling and indeed untenable about income support, the theory and the practice both, is there not?  Why should a struggling farmer be income-supported more than a struggling aluminum siding salesman, would be the first question, I think.  It is and should be impossible to distinguish normatively between the two occupations.  What the state does for one equally placed citizen, it must do for all, on grounds of equal protection of the laws.

  
  Secondly, income supports for farmers would, ultimately, amount to a tariff on foods from other places and ensure that U.S. foods are more expensive for those who can least afford the price hikes.

  If the dichotomy between greedy agribusiness and 19th century pastoralist is indeed the fiction which you suggest, it is hard for me to see how farm subsidies of any kind can be justified, much less those which tend to result in depredations on carbon sinks.

   

  On The EPA holds corn ethanol accountable ... sort of posted 6 months, 4 weeks ago 18 Responses

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  Well, as I understand it, the farm subsidy policies in the U.S. are a debacle and a shame.  Too many big farmers have been profiteering at the expense of small farmers, both home and abroad.  It is almost impossible to contrive a regime of farm subsidy policies which do not quickly become co opted by the monster farmers who have no need of them.  And in fact, this latest set of regulations favoring first generation bio-fuels acts as essentially yet another sop thrown to a key Democratic constituency and swing vote.   So it doesn't seem to me that farmers, big or small, need subsidies, for bio-fuel or anything else.  To essentialize the farmer as "small and struggling" or whatever ignores the realities of agribusiness and the strength of its political arm in D.C.  Paying farmers to make higher cost essential goods, the purchase of which we then subsidize for people who can't afford them at those higher costs, seems, frankly, absurd.  Paying people for use of their land as carbon sinks, essentially landfills or dump yards for carbon, seems far more defensible.  That's where the energy and debate should be focused, it seems to me, while the complex regulatory and subsidies regime for the farm lobby should be eschewed.   

  On The EPA holds corn ethanol accountable ... sort of posted 6 months, 4 weeks ago 18 Responses

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  Whether or not the conversion of corn and soy into ethanol is encouraged and/or mandated by the present administration, will it not be the case that increasing demand for agricultural products stemming from rising populations and increasing affluence of those populations will speed and force the conversion of the precious carbon sinks into agriculturally productive lands, at the cost of a tremendous release of unrecapturable C02?   I am wondering whether any regime designed to protect the sinks, undoubtedly consisting of environmental regulation animated by well-intended subsidies, can withstand what may ultimately be an unsurfeitable appetite (and market) for agriculture products.  The only thing that may be able to stop this appetite (and market), it seems to me, may be the consecration of all possible agricultural lands to agricultural purposes (carbon considerations be damned).  At any rate, one should not all that blithely assume that the sinks would remain intact but for the ethanol promotions of the present administration (which I deplore), which promised better.                                                                                                                                                                                   

   

   

   

  On The EPA holds corn ethanol accountable ... sort of posted 6 months, 4 weeks ago 18 Responses