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Bio-debatable: Food vs. fuel
Lisa Stiffler, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The number of Northwest cars and trucks bumper stickered with “Biodiesel: Mother Nature Approved” or “I love the smell of biodiesel in the morning” and even “Ethanol: No war required” has blossomed in recent years.
But with growing fears over biofuels stealing from dinner plates to fill gas tanks, people are starting to wonder: How green are biofuels?
The concerns are not only about traditional food crops such as corn being diverted to ethanol. Critics say the use of foreign-grown palm oil and soybeans as a biofuel source leads to the destruction of precious rain forests. And the very act of producing certain biofuels generates greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change — although generally in lesser amounts than fossil fuels.
This week, the food concern reached such a frenzy that top international food scientists called for a halt to biofuel production in order to bring prices down, and Europeans are talking about scrapping, at least temporarily, goals for biofuel use. The competition between food and fuel now will likely intensify — hitting developing countries hardest. Global experts predict that to feed the world’s growing population, some 500 million new acres of cropland will be needed by 2030, a 20 percent increase.
(3 May 2008)
Article has a devastating chart comparing the various biofuels. Recommended at an ethanol post at The Oil Drum. -BA
Go Easy On Biofuels Until More Clarity – World Bank
Lesley Wroughton, Reuters via Planet Ark
A senior World Bank official said on Thursday that countries should not greatly increase biofuels production until there is more clarity about how much they have contributed to the global food price crisis.
Juergen Voegele, director for agriculture and rural development department at the World Bank, cautioned against shifting a lot of the blame to biofuels but also said massive subsidies for the biofuel industry was not helping the crisis.
“We don’t think it’s advisable to vilify biofuels and make it responsible for all evil at the moment, nor do we think we can continue to support biofuels the way it is supported at the moment in many countries,” Voegele told Reuters.
(9 May 2008)
Fueling Food Shortages
Ralph Nader, MR Zine (Monthly Review)
Where is Harry Chapin when you need him? The popular folk singer (Cat’s in the Cradle), who lost his life in an auto crash 27 years ago, was an indefatigable force of nature against hunger — in this country and around the world.
To hear Harry speak out against the scourge of hunger in a world of plenty was to hear informed passion that was relentless whether on Capitol Hill, at poverty conferences, or at his concerts.
Now the specter of world hunger is looming, with sharply rising basic food prices and unnecessary food shortages sparking food riots in places like Haiti and Egypt. Officials with the U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP) are alarmed. The WFP has put out an emergency appeal for more funds, saying another 100 million humans have been thrown into the desperate hunger pits.
Harry would have been all over the politicians in Congress and the White House who, with their bellies full, could not muster the empathy to do something.
Directly under Bush and the Congress is the authority to reduce the biggest single factor boosting food prices — reversing the tax-subsidized policy of growing ever more corn to turn into fuel at the expense of huge acreages that used to produce wheat, soy, rice, and other edibles.
Corn ethanol is a multifaceted monstrosity — radiating damage in all directions of the compass. Reducing acreage for edible crops has sparked a surge in the price of bread and other foodstuffs. Congress and Bush continue to mandate larger amounts of subsidized corn ethanol.
(3 May 2008)
