World Affairs

How the rich starved the world

Published 17 April 2008

World cereal stocks are at an all-time low, food-aid programmes have run out of money and millions face starvation. Yet wealthy countries persist with plans to use grain for petrol. Plus Iain Macwhirter on how food prices are rocketing

The irony is extraordinary. At a time when world leaders are expressing grave concern about diminishing food stocks and a coming global food crisis, our government brings into force measures to increase the use of biofuels - a policy that will further increase food prices, and further worsen the plight of the world's poor.

What biofuels do is undeniable: they take food out of the mouths of starving people and divert them to be burned as fuel in the car engines of the world's rich consumers. This is, in the words of the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, nothing less than a "crime against humanity". It is a crime the UK government seems determined to play its part in abetting. The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), introduced on 15 April, mandates petrol retailers to mix 2.5 per cent biofuels into fuel sold to motorists. This will rise to 5.75 per cent by 2010, in line with European Union policy.

The message could not have been clearer if the Prime Min ister, Gordon Brown, had personally put a torch to a pyre of corn and rice in Parliament Square: even as you take to the streets to protest your empty bellies and hungry children, we will burn your food in our cars. The UK is not uniquely implicated in this scandal: the EU, the United States, India, Brazil and China all have targets to increase biofuels use. But a look at the raw data confirms today's dire situation. According to the World Bank, global maize production increased by 51 million tonnes between 2004 and 2007. During that time, biofuels use in the US alone (mostly ethanol) rose by 50 million tonnes, soaking up almost the entire global increase.

Next year, the use of US corn for ethanol is forecast to rise to 114 million tonnes - nearly a third of the whole projected US crop. American cars now burn enough corn to cover all the import needs of the 82 nations classed by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as "low-income food-deficit countries". There could scarcely be a better way to starve the poor.

The threat posed by biofuels affects all of us. Global grain stockpiles - on which all of humanity depends - are now perilously depleted. Cereal stocks are at their lowest level for 25 years, according to the FAO. The world has consumed more grain than it has produced for seven of the past eight years, and supplies, at roughly only 54 days of consumption, are the lowest on record.

The president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, has already warned that 100 million people could be pushed deeper into poverty because of food price rises caused directly by this imbalance between supply and demand. Even consumers in rich countries are suffering. We now pay higher prices for our food in order to subsidise the biofuels industry, thanks to measures such as the renewable fuels directive.

This is not just a short-term price blip, but the beginnings of a major structural change in the world food market. Population pressure - still something of a taboo subject - is also certainly playing a part. With the world population growing by 78 million a year, and expected to reach nine billion by the middle of the century, there are simply many more mouths to feed.

In addition, rapid economic growth in India and China has created tens of millions of new middle-class consumers, all demanding western-style diets high in meat and dairy products, thereby vastly increasing the quantity of grain required for livestock production.

Weather plays a major role, too: the FAO's latest food situation brief reports that, in 2007, "unfavourable climatic conditions devastated crops in Australia and reduced harvests in many other countries, particularly in Europe", while Southern Africa and the western United States have been hit hard by severe drought. Rising oil prices also increase the cost of food, as fossil fuels are important throughout the agricultural process, from tractor diesel to fertiliser production.

Inconsistency

The most important structural change, however, is the increasing interlinking of world energy and food markets. Once, food was just for people. Now rising demand for transport fuel - particularly in rich countries - is sucking supply away from the world food market and increasing the upward pressure on prices. In the words of Josette Sheeran, executive director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP): "We are seeing food in many places in the world priced at fuel levels," with increasing quantities of food "being bought by energy markets" for biofuels.

Rising oil prices feed back into the process. With food and fuel markets intertwined, increases in the price of oil are shadowed by increases in the price of grain. The real-world result from this structural shift may be that hundreds of thousands of people starve in the next few years - unless policies promoting biofuels are urgently reversed.

This is not to suggest that government targets on biofuels are driven by some kind of malicious desire to starve the world's poor. Indeed, both Brown and his Chancellor, Alistair Darling, have expressed concern about the food supply crisis and the role of biofuels in causing it. But for these two political leaders to voice their concerns while allowing the increased use of biofuels in the UK to be pushed forward - all in the same week - is nothing short of bizarre.

As Oxfam's Robert Bailey puts it: "This inconsistency at the highest levels simply beggars belief." The aid agency calculates that the RTFO represents a £500m annual subsidy from motorists and taxpayers to the biofuels industry - more than double the amount the WFP is urgently seeking from donor countries to try to mitigate the impact of food price rises on the world's poor.

The EU, meanwhile, persists in the erroneous belief that biofuels can help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The main reason for its speedy introduction of the replacement fuel initiative was as a sop to motor manufacturers who were lobbying hard against proposed higher fuel economy standards. With biofuels, the EU hoped, it could cave in to the car industry while still getting reduction in emissions.

Yet recent research suggests otherwise: two major studies published in Science magazine in February showed clearly that once the agricultural displacement effects of the new fuels on rainforests, peatlands and grasslands are taken into account, emissions are many times worse than from conventional mineral petrol. In other words, it would be better for the climate if we just went back to fossil fuels. Biofuels are not a "necessary but painful" way of saving the climate; they are a calamitous mistake by almost every criterion, whether social, ethical or environmental.

Reversing the damage

The industry claims that "second-generation" biofuels, using by-products such as corn stalks and woodchip as a feedstock, will be able to redress the balance. But if this technological advance is achieved (and that is by no means certain) it could usher in an even worse scenario: the annihilation of the world's forests. If all plant life was seen as potentially convertible for transport fuel, there would be nothing to stop what was left of the planet's biosphere from being strip-mined to keep rich motorists on the road. There is no simple solution. Much of the increased biofuel demand comes from the US, where Democratic and Republican politicians alike have talked themselves into a dead-end search for "energy security" - with US-grown corn top of the list.

But the UK and the EU can reverse some of the damage by immediately ditching their own biofuels policies and providing vital aid funding, principally through the WFP, to help prevent widespread starvation in the short term. Politicians need to realise that there is no such thing as "sustainable biofuels", either now or in the future. As for investors, they need to realise that pouring money into biofuels is a bad bet: subsidies will be quickly withdrawn when policymakers face up to the reality of their ghastly error.

In the meantime, millions face starvation and death from increasing hunger and malnutrition. There is no time to lose.

2008: the year of food riots

Egypt Thousands of demonstrators in Mahalla el-Kobra loot shops and throw bricks at police during protests at rising food prices and low salaries, as part of nationwide strike

Haiti At least four people killed in the southern city of Les Cayes after food prices rise 50 per cent in the past year

Côte d’Ivoire Police injure more than ten protesters as several hundred demonstrators demand government action to curb food prices

Cameroon Riots last four days and result in at least 40 deaths. Unrest is due to high fuel and food prices. Worst riots in country for 15 years

Mozambique At least four people killed and 100 injured following fuel price rises

Senegal Violent demonstrations in Dakar as prices of rice, milk and oil soar. Senegal imports almost all its food

Yemen Five days of rioting and a hundred arrests after the price of wheat doubled over two months. Protesters set up roadblocks in Sana’a and Aden

...and in Mauritania, Bolivia, Indonesia, Mexico, India, Burkina Faso, and Uzbekistan

Research by Jax Jacobsen

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157 comments from readers

Carl Jones
17 April 2008 at 11:48

Mark; its about time you journalists started telling the truth.

I was posting about this food crisis over two years ago on the BBC Radio 4 Today messsage board, before is became a totally censored forum...I am now banned from all BBC forums.

This idea that you and others, including the World Bank flunky Robert Zoellick, can start pontificating that this is such an "unfortunate" situation which has just come about, because of some attempt to stem global warming and reduce the need for oil....all of you, are a bloody joke!!

There are one or two commenters who were on the BBC Today message board, while I was there. Unfortunately, they are unlikely to remember my posts.

This weeks NS question has a comment form Cybertiger....he was on the Today message boards when I was there. His answer to this weeks question infers "genocide"!!

It might not be reported by the MSM, it might not appear in any publically available political agenda. But the fact is, population control/reduction is right at the top of the NWO agenda and anyone who thinks Bush`s biofuel policy isn`t about population control and 2/3rd world economic degradation in light of US economic decline, is a fool.

Even Bill Clinton refused to cut US oil consuption. To do so would lead to a drop in prices, thus giving 2/3rd world economies an economic advantage....this would literally boost population growth, never mind higher demand for oil.

The high price of oil is a NWO mechanism to introduce expensive technologies into the market place. In North Amerika there is NAFTA...in 15/20 years time, NAFTA will need to expand into South Amarica, just like the EU. But Amerika is bust. So Hugo Chavez (US puppet) has used revenues from oil to pay off all of South Americas debt...South America is being prepared to join NAFTA and its being financed by inflated oil prices.

Verious countries have banned the export of sensitive crops. India will only export Basmati rice. Reduced exports means less oil used for transport. with the US economy slowing, less oil consuption, but all this will come with less production, so prices will be maintained, or continue to rise.

The US is going into an almighty slump. Globalization will go on hold, it might even end.

There is every chance that Bush will attack Iran using a staged event. All of Amerikas client states in the Middle East will be sending their armies to fight Tehran. Some countries, like China will choke, its all by design.

Mr Lynas, to me, this subject is old hat and I`ve given you and other readers an indication of what is to come. I wonder how you can live with yourself plying your trade in support of the NWO global warming construct?

Cybertiger
17 April 2008 at 12:29

"This weeks NS question has a comment form Cybertiger....he was on the Today message boards when I was there."

I eventually got through more than nine lives on the BBC message boards .. . but left when Jonesy was finally banned. There was talk of genocide.

Cybertiger
17 April 2008 at 12:39

Anyway, I'll bet that within a decade we'll all be riding Chinese bicycles - the ones that survive the great genocide that is ...

Gideon Polya
17 April 2008 at 13:57

Excellent article, Mark Lynas.

In January 2008 I was part of a BBC broadcast together with Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen (Harvard University, formerly Cambridge University) and other scholars that exposed the "forgotten", man-made, World War 2 Bengali Holocaust, the 1943-1945 Bengal famine in which 6-7 million people perished in Bengal and neighboring provinces when the price of rice doubled and thence finally quadrupled.

A merciless British administration and "market forces" killed more people in WW2 India than died in the contemporaneous Jewish Holocaust. (6 million victims, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation). Indeed the term "holocaust" was first applied to a WW2 atrocity by Jog (1944) in relation to the Bengal Famine (see: Jog, N.G. (1944), Churchill’s Blind-Spot: India (New Book Company, Bombay); see "The Forgotten Holocaust": http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/ ; and "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History" 1998: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ; 2008 2nd edition forthcoming).

Now in 2008 we are seeing the beginnings of a re-run of the "forgotten" Bengali Holocaust but on a potentially 100-fold greater scale with global food prices doubling in one year driven by US-, EU- and UK-MANDATED (and net CO2 polluting) biofuels, oil price hikes, global warming (with drought in Australia and the CIS) and demand in the globalized market (notably from China and for grain-fed meat) . The UK Chief Scientist Professor John Beddington FRS says that "billions" are under threat (see "Global food crisis": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/21277/42/ ) .

4 billion people are malnourished and ALREADY 16 million die avoidably each year from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease (see "Body Count": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).

Millions starve while the Bush-ite regimes of the US, UK and EU MANDATE feeding food to cars i.e. mandate genocide.

The racist, lying, holocaust-ignoring Mainstream media have a lot to answer for. History ignored yields history repeated. General Wavell (India Viceroy) recounts in his diaries being told by Bengal Governor R. Casey during WW2 that the Argentinians had used 2 million tons of wheat to run their railways, there being a wartime shortage of coal - while millions of Bengalis and Biharis starved and the British Government remorselessly rejected Wavell's pleas for help (see: Moon, P. (1973) (editor), Wavell. The Viceroy’s Journal (Oxford University Press, London).

Silence kills and silence is complicity. Tell everyone you can - and especially your political representatives.

bobbyfontaine
17 April 2008 at 15:36

I have seen consistent complaints from consumers for mileage loss between a 10 to 15% loss. I go through a tank of gas much faster. If I was losing what the government claims because ethanol has a lower energy value of 30 percent which with ethanol added to gasoline at 10% would be a 3 percent mileage loss, I would never notice it. What I’m wondering is if anyone is reaching the conclusion I am which is that if we're adding 10 percent ethanol to gasoline and losing between 10 and 15 percent mileage, well do the math. If this country has been throwing away 10 and 15% mileage while also paying for the ethanol industry to pretend it's producing fuel, well it is no wonder the economy is falling apart.

IrritatedofTonbridge
17 April 2008 at 16:41

Carl Jones, 'infer' means to deduce. It doesn't mean to imply.

Carl Jones
17 April 2008 at 17:00

IRRITATEDofTonbridge...so sorry.

IrritatedofTonbridge
17 April 2008 at 17:24

I am preparing myself to forgive you.

Norman Chap
17 April 2008 at 19:08

You´re missing the influence of increasing oil/petrol prices (now at more than $100 the barrel) on food production. A lot of oil is needed to raise crops (machinery, fertilizers and transportation) and these costs boost the price of every kind of food, not only grains. The problem is specifically burning corn and maybe soy bean oil, but there are plenty of other biodiesel sources that won´t affect food prices so much, like palm oil and even biodiesel from algae.

antileft
18 April 2008 at 10:39

Wooow. No kidding- a new statesman writer who blames the world's problems on the rich! Never heard that one before. Yes, it was a bad idea to plug biofuels like this. But it isnt some kind of big hidden agenda- just a bad idea. You should blame the policies- not "the rich"! Such an easy, populist target.

Actually, poor countries do well out of the situation in some cases. Brazil comes to mind. As poor countries tend to be more agricultural, surely theyd do best overall out of a rise in food prices? Their slice of the pie gets larger, which is a good thing.

Next time, be more intellectal and dont simply throw crap at the rich in the hope that itll make it sound more like an injustice, and so make it more sensational. It's tacky.

antileft
18 April 2008 at 10:43

haha classic carl jones here:

"But the fact is, population control/reduction is right at the top of the NWO agenda and anyone who thinks Bush`s biofuel policy isn`t about population control and 2/3rd world economic degradation in light of US economic decline, is a fool."

Well, call me a fool then! In fact for that matter, you should probably call 99 percent of the world fools too! Honestly, all that NWO crap is such a joke! Carl Jones is like one of those seemingly normal people who has reasonable conversations, and then adds that he was abducted by aliens. Hahaha.

Cybertiger
18 April 2008 at 11:12

@Harryantileft

"Well, call me a fool then!"

Would we call you anything else?

antileft
18 April 2008 at 11:14

Cybertiger, why do you keep coming back? Look, Ive told you time and again- youre not intelligent enough to contribute here. Go do something else. Go on- yahoo chat is just a click away.

Carl Jones
18 April 2008 at 12:59

antileft; yes, I was abducted, but after 39 years of NWO captivity, I managed to escape on 9/12, due to a virus which was uploaded into the alien base called the Whitehouse.

I love people like you, nothing to debate, but throw around insults....wasn`t there some recent research which said conservatives, were conservative, because they lacked the mental capacity (in certain areas) to understand cioncepts beyond their shallow world....

....of course, this isn`t my personal view. Was it Willets Two Brians who was on Newsnight trying to defend the rightwing? A pointless exercise.lol

antileft
18 April 2008 at 15:26

Lol indeed Carl! And Im pleased that that isnt your personal view as it would be a bit moronic, although if it isnt your view I wonder why you bother to bring it up.

However, in saying that I have nothing to debate youre wrong. I want to debate this NWO you keep talking about.

Here's a good place to start. First question: Who are the NWO and how do you join? I wonder if you have the same beliefs as David Icke- that the world is secretly run by a class of shapeshifting lizard men. Hmm interesting. Second question- population reduction is a goal? Well, then please explain to me- why didnt they reduce the population during the time of the USSR? It wouldve been very easy, wouldnt it? Third question- what makes you so sure these people exist?

There you go- something to debate. Give it a shot.

Cybertiger
18 April 2008 at 15:55

@Harryantileft

"There you go- something to debate. Give it a shot."

The US is a rank plutocracy. The USA is run by a small group of weathy families. The agenda is genocide, the widespread extinction of human populations.

http://www.doublestandards.org/moore3.html

"All of this will be occurring in a context where we are facing a global food crisis generally. We haven't seen many headlines on this topic, but the world is sitting on the brink of a major food crisis ... It's a very nasty picture even without biofuels. In this context, the net consequence of a major biofuel agenda comes down to intentional genocide. In order to provide marginally more fuel to the over-consuming industrialized nations, untold millions will starve in the third world, in addition to those untold millions that are already starving. The marginal energy gain is so small by comparison, that we must accept that the biofuels agenda is primarily about genocide."

PS. Don't you live in the land of the rising sun? Isn't it past your bedtime?

PPS. Dolts go first - or do they?? Do you think you will survive the great genocide to come? Bush may be going (277 days left), but do you feel safe? Do the debate, punk!

antileft
18 April 2008 at 16:05

Oh shut up Cybertiger! Quit wasting valuable electricity- youre far too moronic to take part here. Honestly, as always- pinching other people's ideas and passing them off as your own. It's pathetic the way you always do that. Debating has to involve listening to what the other person says and countering it, not just randomly blabbering on about some other nonsense, and someone else's nonsense at that. Go do something else- youre not smart enough to contribute here.

Carl Jones
18 April 2008 at 18:11

antileft...."who is the NWO"? Why ask me? Why not ask Bush senior? Maybe you could ask the Pope...two Christmasses ago, he asked for a "NWO of religions...of course, he wouldn`t want to specify a political NWO, now would he.lol

Gordon Brown used the term in a speech in New Dehli. I could go on, but in simple terms, New World Order is usually used when the "dominant order", the Western elite, are about to, or have made a significant advancement in their agenda of world domination.

President Bush used the term after the sham Desert Storm...of course, Desert Storm was just the start. You can see the real use of this term in the illegal invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan...the staggering US military build up throughout the ME. While the NS and the rest of the MSM are peddling the constructed chaos in Iraq, this is just a mechanism to justify occupation.

As Cybertiger has already pointed out, this world is run by the elite families. It has been this way for the last few hundred years. Democracy is a construct which protects the Illuminati...they fund the political system and they own and control the MSM....look at who owns the NS and look at what happens to editors who question the NWO agenda.

By far, the most dominant elite family are the Rothchilds. The British arm of the vast family are at the top of the global hill. Lord Jacob Rothschild is the most powerful man on Earth. An example of this power; before Putin arrested Mikhail Khodorkovsky of Yokos fame, Khodorkovsky signed over all the voting rights to his Yokos shares to Lord Jacob Rothschild....this is a statement of power....why do you think all the oligarchs are in London living under the protection of MI6. Why can Boris Berezovsky speak of acts of terror against Russia and still be free to walk London`s streets? This is the British double standard between Muslims and elite Jews....sham NWO constructed war on terror! lol

Riaz Ahmad
18 April 2008 at 18:34

Civilian organisations aside, Is it not proof enough that promotion of democracy and human rights by the west is a farce, wolf in sheeps clothes, neo-imperialism disguised and dressed in the cloak of decency and concern. Ask the poor of the world what comes first, food or democracy?

Douglas Chalmers
18 April 2008 at 19:21

http://video2.channelnewsasia.com/cnavideos/multiplevideos_n...

Douglas Chalmers
18 April 2008 at 19:28

Uhh, I don't know what happened there..... and ChannelNewsAsia have overwritten the link with another story.

Carl Jones
18 April 2008 at 19:52

Mr Chalmers; your link must have been "hot", this is quite common when there is a breach in the NWO mantra. I`ve expirenced this hundreds of times and its getting worse, they have teams of web-cleaners.lol

There was a very interesting programme on BBC Radio 4, now I don`t remember much about it and it wasn`t that long ago. They were interviewing a retired civil servant and his wife over British operations in Nigeria, He was telling on a long UK concerted effort to undermine demoracy by actively promoting corruption. He had no hard evidence, but his account, at his age, was compelling. Africa and I`m sure, other nations have and are continuing to experience these sick NWO tactics.

BTW, I was on one of my "alternative news site", when I came across this question, "where is this"? There followed a long series of cleverly taken pictures, no people, no signs, no shop/corporate names and no car number plates...this was a beautiful modern city, clean, good street furniture....where was this? Nairobi, now look at the state of the country. I also happen to believe that Zimbabwe is also a construct....I also hear there are senior Chinese military in Zimbabwe right now, supporting Mugabe....is this being reported by our NWO controlled MSM?? I doubt it.

John Gower
18 April 2008 at 21:32

I thought the article was pretty convincing. One thing which COULD provide a ray of hope is (paradoxically) the amount of food which is wasted . If we could reduce this, there would be more to share.

outsider
19 April 2008 at 07:23

@Carl Jones - you're way off beam on Hugo Chavez - no way is he an American stooge. I hope you check this out, he's a major US headache; their lust for all that lovely oil oozes out of every pore of the NWO. Ceck out 'Hands Off Venezuela' site.

As for 'antileft', check out 'Top Scientist Advocates Mass Culling of 90% of Human Population' Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:29 pm Post subject: The last confession of E. Howard Hunt: US government/CIA

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

US government/CIA team murdered JFK

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1918.shtml

[/b]

and 'Georgia Guidestones'; also 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' by Project for a New American Century' (PNAC), page 60, 'Targetted bioweapons a 'politically iseful tool''; I'm sure their is plenty more on this theme on the web; you've probably got more time (though I suspect not the inclination) to check it out.

How to join the NWO? Well, start at your local Masonic Lodge ( you won't qualify for 'Skull and Bones'), and after becoming a Master Mason you can start climbing the 'Scottish Rite'. All will be revealed when you get up around the 29*. Or ask Pope Benedict XVI. and reas David Yallop's 'In God's Name' re Masonry in the Vatican. Happy hunting, Folks!

outsider
19 April 2008 at 07:26

Whoops!! Sorry, wrong link above, I put in JFK by mistake. 'Culling' info here: http://wachadoo.com/forum/mass-culling-90-of-human-populatio...

antileft
19 April 2008 at 07:48

Complete gibberish. Paranoid nonsense and half baked fantasies. You guys need to grow up. I can tell youre all just a bunch of paranoid idiots with too much time on your hands by the way you talk about it. First, youre absolutely certain about something without any proof. This is more a religion than a scientific conclusion based on facts. Second, everything fits into your fantasy- including chavez and mugabe. Bush uses the term "new world order" which could mean anything, and that fits in too. Now, why would he tell us all so openly? Just to be convenient for your fantasy? No, he just used a term which has different meanings. Third, youve added grand-sounding terms which dont have any meaning but make it all sound very exciting and revolutionary- illuminatae for example. What the hell is that??

Im curious- you missed out one of my questions. Do you believe what david icke says- about the shape shifting lizard men? Id love to hear about this. Because that really is laughable.

You also missed another, and important question:

"Second question- population reduction is a goal? Well, then please explain to me- why didnt they reduce the population during the time of the USSR? It wouldve been very easy, wouldnt it?"

Go ahead- try answering it. It was only 20 years ago that shooting one nuclear warhead would have killed off half the world. Why didnt they take the opportunity when it arose?

antileft
19 April 2008 at 07:51

Oh and by the way:

"As for 'antileft', check out 'Top Scientist Advocates Mass Culling of 90% of Human Population' Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:29 pm Post subject: The last confession of E. Howard Hunt: US government/CIA"

If they were part of a shady conspiracy, do you think theyd kindly tell us about it? Its like bush using the term "new world order". Ahem, isnt it a secret? Nope, it fits into our fantasy too easily.

Stever
19 April 2008 at 13:08

I think there is general agreement except at the very fringes of debate that global warming is happening and that we're causing it. There really isn't time for a shouting match folks. If you read Stephen Socolow and Robert Pacala's work on how we're going to get out of this mess (http://www.stabilisation2005.com/day3/Socolow.pdf), its pretty clear we will have to use every available resource known to man and we'll have to pursue all of them aggressively. Biofuels are a complicated issue. If you look at the Billion ton study done by the US Dept of Energy, 2/3 of the biomass available are agricultural waste products that A. don't threaten the food supply and B. reduce green house gases dramatically.

So when someone with a major podium says, "biofuels bad" it so grossly oversimplifies the discussion that I would declare it dangerous journalism simply to sell papers. We can't afford simplistic thinking. We should pursue biofuels responsibly and sustainably and we should be pursuing every other possible way to save the planet as fast and as hard as we can. There will be a holocaust, it is guaranteed, if we don't start pulling together.

Carl Jones
19 April 2008 at 14:17

antileft, I believe you wanted a brief outline by what is ment by the term "New World Order". I could spend a lot of time covering your points, but I doubt it would be worth it, except to say, culling the human population is a complex decision. There were major population concerns in the 60`s and 70`s and apart from the deployment of HIV, not much was done....while the population expands, with enough food and energy, the capitalist model will work. This long period of relative peace has also led to much greater technical advancement.

But we are now reaching the tipping point. Can the Earth sustain another 3 billion people? Can we bring the 2 billion poor in India and China into the first world? Is there enough water? Oil is depleting and I`ve talked with people in the industry. I used to think depletion was running at 3% per year compound, but I`ve been told its now 6% per year compound and will soon break the critical 10%. No matter how positive your outlook, the numbers don`t stack up....there is no known fuel which can replace oil and our whole society is based on oil. In a none oil based world, the human population will shrink to a fraction of the current 6.5 billion.

If the human population were culled to below 2 billion and the majority of that number were based in the West where birth rates are stable, then remaining oil stocks could last around 100 years. This would give human life a chance.

There are factors which will motivate population reduction. Of course, I must state that I`m not a believer in the current global warming scam which blames human activity. However, slashing the population is the fastest way to stop global warming.

The white (generalisation) Western elite has dominated world affairs for the last few hundred years, in fact more than a few hundred years. The question I`m about to ask has a simple "yes", or "no" answer. "Will the white Western elite give up their power to China and Asia over the next 30 years"? Now think carefully. I can tell you that out of the hundreds of well educated people that I`ve asked this question, not one has answered "yes". So big stuff will happen in most of our life times.

The nature of events is such, that loose ends are left so that conspiracies are formed. This does not mean the conspiracy is incorrect. The establishment is well aware that 80% of the public switch off the moment "conspiracy" is mentioned on the news. During the Falklands war, we had John Knott twice a day and thats was all you needed, to keep up with events. When Diana was murdered, Blair failed to appoint someone like Knott. So the public heard a different story every hour of evey day for over 6 weeks....this led to public confussion and for many, this stopped the opinion forming process. Its like todays news...its fractured, so their is little commonality in opinion forming, its the same with regular TV programming.

antileft....I suppose it was a fluke that on the day Blair announced his date of departure from No10, he had 6 days, 6 weeks and left before he left in the 6th month of June?

The Freedom Tower in New York will be 1,665 ft tall, move the one on to the five and you get "666"! No doubt another fluke.

I suppose these dates are also flukes....tsunami 26th December 2004, Earthquake under the Iranian city of Bam 26th Demember 2003 and cyclone Zoe in the Pacific on 26th December 2002....these Freemasons do love their numbers!lol

Next you`ll be asking me to explain how the NWO carried out the above events....lets get you walking first!lol

Carl Jones
19 April 2008 at 14:29

stever, really sorry, but you are being simplistic. :) Do all the biofuels you like, but source it from new none food producing land. Alledgedly, sea levels are set to rise....Britain is planning to build a bunch of new nuclear power stations....I assume they will be constructed, so they can safely perform underwater, or will locations be preselected to allow for rising sea levels? I could suggest Tonbridge, due to its elevation.lol

antileft
19 April 2008 at 14:31

Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. So, just to clarify, you think that satan himself is in on it too? You know, with the numbers and all? Oh and what about the lizard men- Im beginning to suspect that you believe in them too. Am I right?

One thing that strikes me as a bit odd... Why would they bother giving you a hint by making everything with the numbers 666? Isnt that a bit, erm, silly? It's like, yaknow, pointlessly giving the game away. Or is it important to them that they fit conveniently into your theory? Maybe they want you, just you, to know the truth, do you think?

You know, Carl... Maybe it's time you got yourself a girlfriend?

antileft
19 April 2008 at 14:33

I just noticed that stever has 6 letters. What dyou think, carl? Are they trying to tell you something?

Carl Jones
19 April 2008 at 15:47

antileft, I`m married with two children...do you have someone in mind?

I don`t think "they" are giving the game away. Most sheeple haven`t the ability to recognise these NWO bits of fun and if they did, they`d soon develope a strategy which would send the nasty thought back to the deepest recess of their mind. An example of their fun, was the incident where Bush was talking to Blair in private. Bush suggested bombing Al Jazeera....of course, Bush was having a laff at the poor sheeples expense, Al Jazeera is a MI6 asset.lol,lol

Tell me antileft; have you heard about Bohemian Grove? Maybe you should do some googling and whle you are at it, do Operation Northwoods and Secret Armies/Gladio...keep you quiet for a while.

Lets see "stever"...6 letters, sorry, but YOU saw something. As to the GREAT David Icke, I don`t know about lizzards, but Icke predicted 9/11 and he`s very good on the NWO construct...in fact, Icke is impresive.

If you want a link between home and lizzards, google "Gary McKinnon" and you could look up the NS article on NASA the other week and read my comment.

antileft
19 April 2008 at 16:06

I see... You dont know about lizards ay? So, "they" MIGHT be shapeshifting lizard men, as david icke says?? Yaknow, some kind of magical reptiles?

But Im still not clear, carl, about this. They use the numbers 666 in everything. Why do they do it? Is it somehow the work of satan himself? Maybe they want to tell only the wise people like yourself (LOL!) to scare them into submission? Or maybe they just, ahem, find it funny for some reason... Now, why would they do that? Please enlighten me.

Have you ever thought, carl, that maybe theyre watching you now? Maybe theyre worried that the unemployable fatman has noticed the flaw in their strategy- the fact that they gave the game away by putting the numbers 666 on everything (whoops!)- and now theyre going to kill you by, yaknow, cutting off your NHS? Its possible, isnt it carl? Do you think that maybe we're watching you now?

Cybertiger
19 April 2008 at 17:25

"There will be a holocaust, it is guaranteed, if we don't start pulling together."

I think Jonesy and Harry (aka antileft) should be aware that Stever666 is a ‘badscience’ cultist ...

http://www.badscience.net/

... and big disciple of the Yoga Ben Dr Maharishi Goldacre. The Yoga Ben is an evilscientist who works for The NWOGuardian, bigPharma branch – and has also been known to write for the NwoStatesman on matters of national wellness. Understandably, she’s not a holocaust denier – Stever that is.

antileft
19 April 2008 at 17:26

Go away cybertiger- youre not bright enough.

Carl Jones
19 April 2008 at 18:18

antileft; I didn`t say they use 666 in everything. The Freemasons are number freaks...all the way upto a 33 degree Mason. No Harry, they aren`t aren`t focusing on me, if you think I`m the only "one", you are very mistaken. You see, they know the world is full of people like you...busy trying to mock those who have not become brainwashed by the MSM.

I don`t give a monkey`s if they are watching me or not. While I was being censored and pre-moderated on the BBC Today message board, by the "Dark Forces". A poster, who was really a host/moderator asked me why I didn`t start my own blogg? I replied, or word to this effect, "why on Earth would I want to start my own blogg....here I am posting on the BBC....I`m moderated....so I have no legal comeback and I`m hitting both audiences (BBC Today), the uninformed and the establishment....oh, and I nearly forgot, all the other idiots working for GCHQ, verious political parties, the 100,000 strong global pro-Israeli internet group (not their real name), who constantly complain about anything critial of Israel, or the two dominant Jewish lobbies in New York and London. Of course, I could add the "Tin Hat promoters and people like you who suggest I get a girl friend....yet here I am in Central London with my wife 4 ft away and my daughter 6 ft away and my son upstairs. Why is that anyone who questions the MSM lies and openly challenges the establishment, has someone pop up making some bizzare attempt at turning the NWO threat into a loaner with poor social skills, like the setup Barry George...

...sorry antileft. I don`t know if you are new to this, but I`ve had seven and a half years of tollerating internent abuse...so I`m not scared. Must go now, got to cook the evening meal.

antileft
19 April 2008 at 18:43

haha yeah you go get yourself a nice fatty microwave meal for one you tubby loaner. LOL yaknow what's great? This bit:

"The Freemasons are number freaks...all the way upto a 33 degree Mason."

What the hell is a number freak?! And how did they get so obsessed by numbers?! And how on earth do you know about an organisation which is apparently top secret?! Oh let me guess- they left little clues around for you to follow. Surely, itd be more intelligent not to handily put little signs up around the place for people who arent "brainwashed" to read? Wouldnt it be a bit silly, carl? Doesnt that seem a bit silly to you? A bit illogical? And yet, it's very convenient for you because it acts as a kindof proof of your fantasy, without actually prooving anything, doesnt it? It feels all fun and scientific, in a very un-boring, un-scientific way.

You know carl, I still think that a girlfriend would do you some good. But if you dont want a girlfriend- get yourself a job, for gods sake. Itd give you something to do all day that doesnt involve fantasizing that youre out saving the world from people who dont exist. Afterall, it's been 7 and a half years now carl. I assume youve been unemployed for that long? You really should try doing something with your life that isnt just a joke to everyone who hears about it.

Cybertiger
19 April 2008 at 19:13

"You know carl, I still think that a girlfriend would do you some good. "

What time is it in Japan? Isn't it way past your bed time? Harry, isn't it time you got a girlfriend?

Hugging your keyboard so close is not healthy exercise.

taghioff.info
20 April 2008 at 04:01

Hi Mark

I have also been interested in this topic for a while, also partly due to George.

I put together a proposal about how to address this, which is basically a combined food and carbon currency.

http://taghioff.info/dant/?p=66

I would really welcome feedback on the proposal.

The issue is of course much broader than this, it is about rural employment guarantees and all the other infrastructure of what will need to be something approaching an international welfare state.

I am trying to get economists to look at it, and give me feedback. I am not sure this is the best place to put out such a call, but what the hell.

You might also want to include in your discussion the role of futures and options speculators in driving up commodity prices, as real estate turns into a duff investment option.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/20/globaleconomy...

And you might want to follow Raj Patel's discussion in Stuffed and Starved about how corporate power, with oligopolistic control of parts of the supply chain, also drive up food prices, whilst simultaneously squeezing producers.

http://www.stuffedandstarved.org/

Finally, "Shining India" the capitalistic dream of third world progress has some of the worst huger problems in the world.

Utsa Patnaik has been a voice on this issue for 15 years at JNU in Delhi:

http://www.networkideas.org/featart/apr2004/Republic_Hunger....

I have a feeling that this is going to be one of the definitive issues of the next 50 years. This crisis will fore us to ask how seriously we take the idea of a global social contract.

A footnote is that the main limiting factor in expanding food supply is water, especially in the tropics. But water supplies are being used so unsustainably that the food crisis sits atop another crisis, that of fresh water.

And the World Bank is currently encouraging the privatisation of water supplies and the export of cash crops like sugar, which are very water intensive.

So at the base of this food debate is the issue of the public provision of basic natural goods like water (and food), which in turn raises difficult questions about how seriously we take the right to life.

The basic problem is this: In the short run, it is cheaper to let them starve.

BritishAirman
20 April 2008 at 09:02

Excellent article, by Mark Lynas.

I think it is important, though, to differentiate between the type of biomass being grown in Brazil (from sugar cane), for example, rather than broad brushing every country with the same accusation.

Biofuels, however, being extracted from certain plants in South East Asia, is a very grave issue as the world watches on in anticipation of a manmade humanitarian catastrophe - starvation, the increased likelihood of disease and drought coupled with the extortionate and rapidly rising prices in cereals which, at some time, is bound to affect western economies as there is only so much price pressure from production that corporate profitability can withstand. A situation that has evolved from western greed without consideration to the millions that would have suffered by taking land out of circulation or to the misunderstandings relating to the environmental benefits that biomass was presumed to have had over fossil fuels. Scientific studies released in February, and first made known within the New York Times, suggests that biomass secretes more carbon pollution into the atmosphere than would otherwise have been the case.

With the Chancellor, Alastair Darling, and EU ministers now seriously alarmed with the implications of biofuels, both have decreed an immediate assessment with the likelihood that targets from biomass be radically reviewed. Just this week, Britain now has a compulsory element of ethanol to be added to forecourt petrol, currently mixed at 2.5%. With this to increase, under current guidelines, to 5%, the British government must act quickly in reviewing this position, an issue that is now gaining momentum for all governments around the world to act in the name of humanity.

Many thanks,

http://www.markatscotland.blogspot.com

DRB
20 April 2008 at 10:56

The real solution to reducing global warming is less people on the planet.

In fact starving 2bn people to death is probably the best solution to the problem, but nobody seems to be able to market it as an acceptable policy. Spin has found its limits.

antileft
20 April 2008 at 11:05

^^ Carl, hes one of "them"!!! In league with mugabe, castro, bush, satan himself, the jews, the shape shifting lizard men, and no doubt the aliens too.

Oh and shut up, cybertiger.

Cybertiger
20 April 2008 at 12:43

"In fact starving 2bn people to death is probably the best solution to the problem, but nobody seems to be able to market it as an acceptable policy. "

But the lack of a UN resolution on the matter ... won't matter .... a jot.

"The real solution to reducing global warming is less people on the planet. "

I vote Harry-antileft to be first plank on the plank ... walking into the fiery fires of ... holocaust ... hell.

antileft
20 April 2008 at 12:57

Do something else, Cybertiger. Youre clearly not intelligent enough to post here. I cant even tell if youre trying to be clever with your posts or trying to be funny- that's how moronic you are.

Happy Indian
20 April 2008 at 13:48

Let each nation become self sufficient in food. No begging or borrowing. You do not grow food you die.

This will lead to less wars as everybody will look to growing food on their lands and stop looking at oxfam for handouts.

India is doing fine thank you.

antileft
20 April 2008 at 14:24

Britain is doing more fine, and we havent been self sufficient in food for hundreds of years.

Cybertiger
20 April 2008 at 14:43

"Britain is doing more fine, and we havent been self sufficient in food for hundreds of years."

I thought you lived in Japan. So, you're dishonest as well as unintelligent!

PS. Britons will have to revert to eating cauliflowers and cabbage instead of avocado.

PPS. So, Harry must be a British potatoe after all! Who'd have guessed it?

mauriceh
20 April 2008 at 15:05

Let me start by saying that the following statement shall definitely be controversial.

It will undoubtedly cause many to state that I am a terrible person for stating this.

Some time this year the world population shall exceed 6.7 BILLION PEOPLE.

There is no way we can manage to feed this many people, and as the ever-increasing demand for food is destroying fish stocks, and our environment in general, this is going to lead to a mass die-off some time relatively soon.

Face the facts: Billions are going to starve.

That is the ONLY way we can see some move toward population reduction.

And significant population reduction is the only factor that will achieve diminished global warming, alleviation of wars, the stripping of our planets resources, and the reduction of disease and suffering.

So, here comes the controversial part:

The sooner the massive starvation and die off starts, the sooner the world has a chance to become closer to sanity.

antileft
20 April 2008 at 15:22

Oh shut up cybertiger! Honestly, what a moron you are! You just spew a load of irrelevant crap out every time you type. Yes, Im british. Yes, I live in japan. Whats the problem?! Quit being so thick- and who cares where I live anyway?!

khbostic
20 April 2008 at 19:38

Hi,I posted comment last week on the Star,out of Toronto,that all around the world ,nations need to sell Govt. bonds,using the money for desalinization/water trtmt. plants,piped 100s of miles to fields.They then grow sugarcane,sorghum,sugarbeets,turning it into ethanol,running everything off that.This is sold to repay bonds,and buy grain ,makes jobs ,feeds the hungry,puts infrastructure of water in place for upcoming projection of 50% water shortage within 30 yrs,next to projected demand.It also grows same where it wouldn t have grown,increasing production.I feel the TaTa Motors.com /nano car shouls be quadrupled in production from India,at $250 per car retail,getting 60 miles to the gallon,then,conversion kit fitted to run flex fuel style.It cuts consumption by 1/2.America last yr wanted to boost fuel efficiency by 10 mi. per gal,Detroit told congress it ll cost them 1000 to $1500 per car,while the nano gets twice as much milage and the whole car costs 2500.,go figure.Safely the rich/car co,oil industries got laws in place to keep thm off the market,ie,doesn t meet safety standards,or emissions ,so they can keep raising the price of their poducts ,enslaving the masses,economically.My advice,strike down such laws,they have 4 wheels,making them automatically twice as safe as any motorcycle on the road;they have about the same engine size633cc in the nano car ,accounting for the fuel efficiency,placed in rear like the volkswago,which came out in 1938,designed by porsche;got38 to 40 miles per gallon,1800 to2000cc engine in it,same engine on micro bus.So,production should be quadrupled and promulgated thru the world,at $2500 per vehicle,60 mpg/

donramses
20 April 2008 at 20:27

Food supplies world wide are currently sufficient to feed the entire population... the problem is with the distribution system, and that distribution would be prohibitively costly.

I suspect that the payoffs will outpace the costs of using fuels that do not require non-productive investment in military expenditures to 'secure' scarce resources.

Plentiful energy will make food DISTRIBUTION more efficient.

Pilot22a
20 April 2008 at 20:40

The problem isn't not enough food, or that grains are being used to make gasoline (petrol.) The problem, as it always has been, and forever will be, is too many human beings. The most pathetic scene is African children, wasted and ill, being fed from the stockpiles of First World countries. We feed them, and they breed more people to feed. The cycle is endless. The answer is to repudiate the religionists idea that every soul needs a body, and give these poor people access to modern contraceptive methods.

donramses
20 April 2008 at 20:47

Pilot22A: That is a very traditional Malthusian argument that repeatedly fails to bring about the end of days because of technological advances have always brought increases in production.

davidhill
20 April 2008 at 21:44

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, in 1952 there were 2.636 billion people living on planet earth, an increase in that year of 45.32 million.

The same Bureau projects that by 2050 there will be 9.309 billion, a projected increase on the year of 43 million, very similar to that of 1952 when we had only 2.636 billion people.

It is inconceivable in my mind that with over 3.5 times as many humans living on our planet in 2050 that we shall only increase our population by the same numbers that we did in 1952. Taking into account also that the USA is projected to increase its population by then to around 438 million according to the Bureau, putting to rest the old adage that developed countries have a decreasing population. I say this taking into account also that people will be living longer through medical science and where the elderly will be a far more prominent proportion of the numbers.

It just does not add up, for as a growing physical entity, humans should, mirror the growth of the general mechanism for other living organisms. Therefore there is far greater chance in my mind that as we increase in numbers, so will our year-on-year numbers increase, as there will be more people to proliferate and multiply.

Indeed, it is common sense as we are no different to any other living organism, which grows at natural rates based upon base-line numbers. But added to this, as threats come to the human existence, as again with all other living entities, there is a consequential increase in numbers so that survival can be assured. There is no doubt in this respect that humans will face immense threats in this present century.

Therefore can anyone put me right to why all increased population assessments are in my mind low and where even the United Nations every 3-5 years revises their projected numbers upwards.

It appears to me that we are not being told the truth by either governments or the UN, as if the figures were even larger than assessed according to natural growth patterns, there would be global panic. Indeed, if we doubled again like we did in a mere 38 years up to 1999, we will have 13 billion people by 2050 and not 9.4 billion as the UN tells us today.

I raise these questions in the light that if we are putting our head in the sand and not confronting the grave problem correctly (if our estimates are low), we shall have no chance of solving the problems beset through the population explosion.

Dr David Hill

World Innovation Foundation Charity

Bern, Switzerland

Raskal
20 April 2008 at 22:07

Please! I work for a UK medical charity and I am seriously concerned that this type of "debate" will only cause heart attack or stroke. Antileft in particular, have a glass of wine and stop being so rude! Make it a Fairtrade one, though, hey?

obo
21 April 2008 at 02:16

The largest staple food price increases have been with rice. This is not used as a biofuel. Land is not (yet) being taken out of production for food rice & replaced with biofuel crops. Polemics like the above simply replace one myth (biofuels always good) with another (darstedly westeners and their biofuels!).

Population increases, widescale better diets in asia (this is a good thing BTW), and taking fields out of production for housing and industrial use (not palm/soy/corn) are largely responsible. Add in the increased costs of inputs, primarily traced back directly or indirectly to oil, and it gives a better picture than simply blaming bad 'ol westeners.

I agree wholeheartedly that policies on fuel usage and subsidies to certain biofuels are incredibly stupid. But it isn't the full story and risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater with this kind of backlash. Fuel can be made now from waste/by products of many industries eg dairy. Within a few years there is a very good chance cellulosic and algal production will be largescale.

bagori
21 April 2008 at 04:00

You will be writing about the world water crisis next.

It takes 8 gallons of fresh water to make 1 gallon of ethanol.

antileft
21 April 2008 at 04:02

"That is a very traditional Malthusian argument that repeatedly fails to bring about the end of days because of technological advances have always brought increases in production."

This is a good point (at last!) The reason the world now has so many more people in it is because we re like a virus which grows as much as it can. There will probably be starvation for many more decades simply because undeveloped people always breed to fill a space. There can never be "enough" food until enough countries become developed. Which is happening now, thanks to the wonderful system we have. The population will peak and start going down, which is a good thing.

johnytiger
21 April 2008 at 04:58

Go vegetarian!! Grain should plant for human and not animals. You know that 70% farm in the world is plant for to produce food for animal(poultry) and not human.Think deeply !! You wont die or starve just because eating vege, THE WORLD CAN SATISFY YOU NEED BUT NOT YOUR GREED.

antileft
21 April 2008 at 05:59

You know johny, there is a better way of making people cut down on meat than telling them to. Itd also increase the amount of investment in farming, while making it economically viable to farm land which wasnt viable before. It'd also have the added bonus of transfering money from industrial nations to agricultural ones.

You raise the price. This is why this "journalist" is wrong here- hes simply sensationalising the situation, as usual for NS. It isnt "the rich" stealing from "the poor". Its much, much more complicated than that. A poor rice farmer in india does well out of this, while a rich seller of jewelry in New York does badly. This article is just typical leftie silliness.

BritishAirman
21 April 2008 at 16:28

Some good responses to Mr. Lynas's article.

Whilst all countries cannot follow Brazil, Brazil itself has an excellent model of growing sugar-cane plantations for the extraction of biofuels. This is not the same as is being pursued in South East Asia, which like the article highlights, is using vast acres of land that would otherwise have been used for the growing of grain, such as wheat.

Economics suggests that two outcomes are likely. The first, to which the world is witnessing, is soaring prices because the supply cannot meet the demand. For market equilibrium to be reached and for price to be determined, price is the only mechanism by which the market will automatically correct itself. For the millions of poor people, in countries such as Indonesia, this is no consolation as they will be driven to hunger and starvation.

Secondly, and, saliently, what could happen is a process of rationing taking effect. Rationing seems the only logical approach in being able to help those that would naturally die from starvation. The process would, as a result, likely cap prices allowing everyone access to basic food commodities. Whilst rationing might sound drastic, it is the only way, economically, the world will stave off a humanitarian catastrophe. Such a process might well feed into western countries the longer the anguish goes on, because, as mentioned, there is only so much cost pressure big companies in the west can absorb from their own profits before having to pass it onto the consumer.

Historically, the process of rationing and capping of prices, has not been seen in the shores since the days of the Second World War when, rents were capped – the so called ‘price ceilings’.

There is an interesting article on my web log, by the Economist, archived and entitled: ‘food and the poor, global food shortages’ which you might like to read.

Many thanks,

http://www.markatscotland.blogspot.com

Carl Jones
21 April 2008 at 19:37

antileft; the poor rice farmer does not do well out of this. His energy costs are rising and this is being passed onto the Indian consumer...most of these consumers will reduce the amount of food (rice) they buy....if local consuption falls, farmers will produce less. India has stopped all rice exports, apart from Basmati. Both of these factors will reduce food production.

Rationing will come to us all, but only when things become really chaotic. Western governments like to give the impression that they are chasing events, when in actual fact, the Western elite are creating them.

taghioff.info
22 April 2008 at 05:06

@Anti-left

"You raise the price. This is why this "journalist" is wrong here- hes simply sensationalising the situation, as usual for NS. It isnt "the rich" stealing from "the poor". Its much, much more complicated than that. A poor rice farmer in india does well out of this, while a rich seller of jewelry in New York does badly. This article is just typical leftie silliness."

You are clearly not an economist.

The structure of world food markets is such that global food supply chains face choke points, where a few huge companies run an effective oligopoly at that point in the field to plate process. It is at these choke points that market power is exercised, and it is these huge oligopolies that tend to capture extra value, they are the ones with the market power to benefit from increased food prices. Raj Patel writes about his in stuffed and starved.

Increased food prices therefore do not necessarily get through to benefitting the producers, though that can happen, but not very often.

One of the factors driving up prices is input costs, with oil prices increasing and this leading to increases in input costs. In this scenario, the producer is often put under more pressure. It is the cost of inputs that has put farmers into debt in India, and this has lead to 150,000 officially recorded farmer suicides in the last 8 years, often by drinking the pesticides that had already cost them so much.

Not all poor people are producers of food, so they do not necessarily benefit from the price rises. This type of poor people lose out heavily because for them food is often their largest expenditure.

To put it in context, 70% of people in India are on incomes of less than around 28 Rupees a day, which corresponds to a 2400 calories a day in purchasing power, that is if they spend 100% of their incomes on food. 2400 calories a day is the official starvation threshold globally, thought India now uses 1800 calories a day as a way of massaging its poverty statistics downwards.

Many of these people are small farmers, with little market power. It is easy for large companies to capture any surplus they have from increased food prices by increasing input costs. Hence market power tends to trump absolute prices.

The situation of the poor has worsened since the 1990s in India, precisely because the World Trade Organisation has called for the gradual dismantling of the Public Distribution Schemes of cheap food that keep them afloat (through a misleading process of "targetting").

So, if speculators drive up the price of food, as they flee the wreckage of the housing markets they have just inflated and popped, then they are not just stealing from the poor, they are killing them.

The question is whether this is manslaughter or murder. Now the stretched-out linkages in our globalised world make it easy for speculators not to see this, especially if they don't want to. But as humans, when we expand our powers, so that speculation in New York impacts hunger in India, so we also need to expand our moral awareness.

This is not left-wing silliness, it is about having a basic awareness of the consequences of your actions. Complexity is a bit of a fig leaf in this context: Economic power is so massively unequally distributed, that its signal far outweighs the noise of economic complexity.

antileft
22 April 2008 at 07:39

"antileft; the poor rice farmer does not do well out of this. His energy costs are rising and this is being passed onto the Indian consumer...most of these consumers will reduce the amount of food (rice) they buy....if local consuption falls, farmers will produce less. India has stopped all rice exports, apart from Basmati. Both of these factors will reduce food production."

Right, youve got it carl- I used a bad example. The government used a dumb socialist export ban which prevents the farmers from making proper money out of it. However, the point is that producers of rice will do better. Carl, you havent answered my previous questions. Here they are:

"The Freemasons are number freaks...all the way upto a 33 degree Mason."

"You are clearly not an economist."

No youre right, Im not- but my view is shared by "the economist" magazine.

"Not all poor people are producers of food, so they do not necessarily benefit from the price rises. This type of poor people lose out heavily because for them food is often their largest expenditure."

My point is, that both rich and poor gain, as well as lose. This is why this article is sensationalising tripe. It isnt rich vs poor at all.

"The situation of the poor has worsened since the 1990s in India, precisely because the World Trade Organisation has called for the gradual dismantling of the Public Distribution Schemes of cheap food that keep them afloat (through a misleading process of "targetting")."

Oh come on now! India is taking people out of poverty at a similar rate to china- and its precisely because theyre moving from a statist economy to a capitalist one. If you artificially keep the price of food low, then obviously taxes will be higher which will effect the rest of the economy. It's you who doesnt know the first thing about economics. Are you not aware of indias incredible reduction in poverty over the last decade or so?

antileft
22 April 2008 at 08:07

By the way taghioff,

"You are clearly not an economist."

Here is from "the economist" magazine:

"In general, governments ought to liberalise markets, not intervene in them further. Food is riddled with state intervention at every turn, from subsidies to millers for cheap bread to bribes for farmers to leave land fallow. The upshot of such quotas, subsidies and controls is to dump all the imbalances that in another business might be smoothed out through small adjustments onto the one unregulated part of the food chain: the international market.

For decades, this produced low world prices and disincentives to poor farmers. Now, the opposite is happening. As a result of yet another government distortion—this time subsidies to biofuels in the rich world—prices have gone through the roof. Governments have further exaggerated the problem by imposing export quotas and trade restrictions, raising prices again. In the past, the main argument for liberalising farming was that it would raise food prices and boost returns to farmers. Now that prices have massively overshot, the argument stands for the opposite reason: liberalisation would reduce prices, while leaving farmers with a decent living."

See what I mean? The solution: stop the socialist crap, the tinkering the markets, the subsidies for food/biofuel, and liberalise farming. It's the socialism that's the problem. The market should be left alone as much as possible. According to the economist, Im right about this.

Read that last part again:

"In the past, the main argument for liberalising farming was that it would raise food prices and boost returns to farmers. Now that prices have massively overshot, the argument stands for the opposite reason: liberalisation would reduce prices, while leaving farmers with a decent living."

What did you say about me not understanding economics?

Cybertiger
22 April 2008 at 09:16

@taghioff.info

"The question is whether this is manslaughter or murder."

George Bush, Tony Blair and their respective disciples: are they mass murderers or simply mindless killers? Tricky one, huh!

Cybertiger
22 April 2008 at 10:58

"are they mass murderers or simply mindless killers?"

Perhaps that should have read, "are they mass murderers or simple-minded killers?" Tricky too, huh?

Carl Jones
22 April 2008 at 13:41

antileft, I used to read the Economist and as a rule, I`ll read most MSM publications. Today, its the FT, Mail and Telegraph...you need to understand where different groups are coming from. But I got sick and tired of the Economist with its "everything we do in the world of finance has nothing to do with the world`s ills. So now I just bad-mouth it and its narrow manded editor.

antileft
22 April 2008 at 15:58

ahem, one sec- how does what I posted above mean that finance has nothing to do with the world's ills? Let me post the main part:

Is it not soppy enough for you, carl? Too technical? They talk about "GDP per head" rather than "number of starving children"? Or does it just bother you that it doesnt mention shape shifting lizard men from mars? Now again- tell my why these lizard men are so obsessed with numbers? Because it all sounds like a fruity fantasy to me. Thats what it is, isnt is carl?

taghioff.info
22 April 2008 at 16:51

@Antileft

If you draw your world-view from the Economist, then you clearly don' understand economics. Just like people who read Playboy don't really understand sex.

"Are you not aware of India's incredible reduction in poverty over the last decade or so?"

Living here, doing a phd on its development situation, yes I have noticed both the damn lies and the statistics. Utsa Patanaik, who is an economist by the way, though I doubt she reads the Economist, has thoroughly debunked India's massaging of its poverty figures. I posted the link on this thread already, but here it is again

http://www.networkideas.org/featart/apr2004/Republic_Hunger....

Please do take the trouble to read it anti-left, and please do critique it, I'd love to hear some original ideas from your side.

The poverty threshold was shifted from enough Rupees to buy 2400 calories per day, to another methodology which gave a figure that would buy 1800 calories per day. By this sleight of hand 0.5 Billion Indians were magicked out of poverty. You can decide for yourself whether this is damned lies or statistics.

The argument that free trade is the cure for all ills is so tired and worn out that even the World Bank has second thoughts about it now. You can read about it in Jo Stiglitz's Globalisation and its Discontents. He got a Nobel Prize in Economics by the way.

"For decades, this produced low world prices and disincentives to poor farmers. Now, the opposite is happening. As a result of yet another government distortion—this time subsidies to biofuels in the rich world—prices have gone through the roof. Governments have further exaggerated the problem by imposing export quotas and trade restrictions, raising prices again. In the past, the main argument for liberalising farming was that it would raise food prices and boost returns to farmers. Now that prices have massively overshot, the argument stands for the opposite reason: liberalisation would reduce prices, while leaving farmers with a decent living"

The telling part of this argument is that it makes no mention of why governments would want food prices to stay not too high and not too low: To prevent people from starving to death.

The de-regulation of food markets in India have lead to a massive increases in farmer suicides and large increases in malnutrition. I am not sure the language of "market imbalances" really adequately captures the human cost of such tomfoolery. The previous regulated regime fared much better in preventing misery, and it is not clear that the economic gains of liberalisation will ever reach the poor of India.

You see "trickle down" and "return on investment" are actually mutually exclusive concepts, unless you believe in infinite growth that is. The first means money from the rich to the rest, and the second means money from the rest to the rich.

Now with a finite natural resource base starting to exert itself, this means that very high rates of return on investment start to translate inevitably into misery for the poor.

Any thoughts about that anti-left?

Carl Jones
22 April 2008 at 17:43

antileft; food prices are up because of energy cost and biofuel is contributing. Farmers get screwed all the up the line....food costs more and supermarkets will know exactly what a farmer can get by on....a lot of people in the West are thinking very hard about what goes in the shopping trolley. This hurts the supermarket as sales in high margin lines slow down and the only way to make this loss up, is by screwing the farmer on staples.

Its a NWO construct designed to limit/cut population growth and to limit rising economies while the US is suffering its worst financial economic crisis since the 1930`s.

willy m
22 April 2008 at 20:02

Good piece Mark, but please let's have it straight about the oil situation.

You mention "rising oil prices" a couple of times as a contributory factor to the global food crisis. You're right, but why don't you go on to say why oil prices are rising at a rate of noughts.

The main reason is we are running out of the stuff and demand is going through the roof. In our life time we will see the end of oil on this planet. But in the meantime we will see massive hikes in the prices of all sorts of commodities related to oil, rationing at the pumps & empty food shelves in the supermarkets as the trucks fail to deliver because they can't get the fuel. We have been discovering less and less oil consistently every year since 1964. Globally we are now discovering on average a paltry 20 million barrels a day. 'Paltry' when you consider that we are consuming 80 million barrels a day & this daily consumption is forecast to increase to 135 million barrels by 2030.

This is not rocket science, but it is one of the best kept secrets. When are you going to talk about the imminent end of oil, Mark, and its horrendous impact on our oil addicted global society?

Cybertiger
22 April 2008 at 20:15

"In our life time we will see the end of oil on this planet."

willy m is right - buy a bike; it'll be the best investment you'll ever make.

taghioff.info
23 April 2008 at 04:18

Mark might be avoiding the oil question because it is a double-edged sword.

The more you stress dwindling stocks, the more there is a clamor to exploit the existing ones. The irony of this is bitterest in the arctic, where the melting ice, most likely thawing due to humans burning fossil fuels, is uncovering huge unexploited reserves.

Now do you see the problem? Rather than politicians saying "Hey, there is no future in oil, lets throw as much money as we can into alternative energy. Actually, come to think of it, we should spend half our military budget on that as well, since it is much more likely to lead to security"

Sadly the response seems more like "hey, let's use our military and diplomatic muscle to make claims on the last remaining oil reserves as quickly as we can, there is money to be made in this, and we are not willing to seriously change our ways."

So the whole peak Oil debate is actually embedded in a larger debate about why politicians are unable to think long-term and unable to stand up to vested interests. This ultimately leads you into thinking about governance, election funding and how to produce international frameworks strong enough to bring about such changes.

Disturbingly, one of the only polities that has managed to resist the corporate influence of Murdoch is China (see Monbiot's latest) so this train of thought is a bit of a challenge to democracies: Is democracy a form of government well suited to long-term planning and resisting the irrationality of vested interests?

I personally hope it can be so, but the question is what can we do to make it so?

antileft
23 April 2008 at 05:01

"If you draw your world-view from the Economist, then you clearly don' understand economics. Just like people who read Playboy don't really understand sex."

Oh come on taghioff! That says more about your choice of reading material than it does about mine! You know, parliament in england has copies of the economist's intelligence reports behind the scenes (I know because a friend works there). You cant just say "No, the economist doesnt count because they dont know economics as well as I do!" Come on taghioff, I expect better than that.

However:

"Living here, doing a phd on its development situation, yes I have noticed both the damn lies and the statistics. Utsa Patanaik, who is an economist by the way, though I doubt she reads the Economist, has thoroughly debunked India's massaging of its poverty figures."

I appreciate that you have your knowledge about india so you could be right that the government has massaged statistics. Of course, Im not going to read this novel you posted here as I do have other things to do today. Itd be best if you included statistics with a source, rather than a link to a novel for me to look through...

"The telling part of this argument is that it makes no mention of why governments would want food prices to stay not too high and not too low: To prevent people from starving to death."

The solution to poverty is to create an economy which works and creates jobs. Deregulation is a good start.

"You see "trickle down" and "return on investment" are actually mutually exclusive concepts, unless you believe in infinite growth that is. The first means money from the rich to the rest, and the second means money from the rest to the rich."

This I disagree with. "trickle down" comes from things like employing people. "return on investment" comes from things like the money gained from employing people. They are not mutually exclusive.

I like your country by the way taghioff. Very interesting place. I studied website design in bombay for a while. Nice people, food, and culture.

antileft
23 April 2008 at 05:11

Oh and carl, I keep coming back here because Im interesting in your lizards taking over the world theory. Please answer my question- why do these people keep leaving numbers everywhere for you to find?

Frank Fields
23 April 2008 at 09:32

Mark: There will be a trial at the International Criminal Court in about ten years from now. You will be there (in the dock, not as a journalist), and so will Al Gore, Greenpeace and a host of other hysterical environmental groups. The charge? Profiteering from the mania over biofuels, and causing the mass starvation of 100 million people - a genocide. It is truly sick that environmentalists are not only pushing for this, but have been coining it in consulting fees and share investments. This is a major crime and far worse than anything done by any major corporation to date, You should feel shame.

MaggieThatcherRules
23 April 2008 at 15:46

Jesus, we Yanks can't win for losing. First all, all you leftist assholes and yoru icon Al Gore stayed on our asses to decrease emissions and then when we start switching to biofuels--long, LONG after Europe has instituted biofuel use mandates--to save the goddam planet, everyone jumps on our asses again about starving people. Well here's an idea: take care of your own populations and leave us the hell alone. Maybe our guzzling of fossil fuels in large amounts after the rest of you had started using food for fuel wasn't such a bad idea after all, eh? But no, to make the prissy, prancing, unemployed European masses happy we started switching and with a population of 320 million, that's bound to have an impact, so here we are, with folks in Bulgaria having to smuggle cooking oil in from Greece. You know, it might help tok think a little further down the road than the next Bush-slamming bumper-sticker, you hopeless load of worthless slogan slingers.

Carl Jones
23 April 2008 at 17:35

MaggieThatcherRules...i quite agree, we need all Amerikans to return to their "homeland" (fatherland), so we can construct an almighty wall around the USofA....oh, and take the Israeli`s with you! lol

MaggieThatcherRules
23 April 2008 at 18:15

Yeah, then we'd have to take all those many millions of bags of rice and flour that we GIVE AWAY to the rest of the world with us, too and people like you, Carl (Marx) woudl end up getting shivved for the lousy chunk of moldy granola you keep in the pocket of your low-riding ass-crack-showing pants. Happy Trails, little beggar.

Cybertiger
23 April 2008 at 18:17

"construct an almighty wall around the USofA....oh, and take the Israeli`s with you! lol"

I always thought 'Israel in Texas' had an authentic ring to it. - and promises a final solution to a very blessed problem. Israel in Texas - with a wall round it - could be that legacy of peace the 'Beloved One' (Dubya) is looking for. Hurrah for the Amerikans!

Brute
23 April 2008 at 21:08

Apr 23, 2008

Scientist Who voted for Gore in 2000 Now Debunks Warming Fears

By Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus Geology, Western Washington University

We’ve been warming up about a degree per century since the Little Ice Age in about 1600. We’ve been warming for 400 years, long before human generated CO2 could have anything to do with the climate. If we project the previous century into the coming one, my projection is that we will have about a half-a-degree of cooling from 2007 (plus or minus three to five years) to about 2040. Then it will start getting warmer as we enter the next warm cycle, followed by cooling again.

For a number of interviews, especially in the national news media, they ask ‘Are you a Republican?’ and I say ‘No, I�m not, as a matter of fact, I voted for Al Gore. I don’t want to pick on him because he’s not a scientist.’ The nonsense he spews comes from the IPCC [United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], so in a sense I don’t condemn him as much as I do the so-called climatologists like [James] Hansen, who says things that are idiotic. They’re the ones giving him all this stuff.

Al Gore makes a hundred-million dollars? He has five-billion in his slush fund? Look at [U.S. Senator] Barbara Boxer, she sponsored a bill for carbon cap and trade [Sanders/Boxer Global Warming Bill S.309]. Who will benefit from hundreds of billions of dollars for administering a scheme like that? The other thing is research funding. The U.S. spends about two-billion dollars a year on research. Right now, if you submit anything that says CO2 is not the bad guy, you won’t have a chance of getting funding. It all goes to the CO2 people who build little fiefdoms; they have grant money coming out of their ears. They mimic Al Gore and say the debate is over. The last I heard, the U.S. plans to increase its research spending to 3.5 billion dollars, virtually all of which goes into CO2 research.

The last part of this equation is the news media and money being made by people like National Geographic who recently put out a show called Six Degrees of Global Warming [Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, by Mark Lynas] and how many people watched that and watched the ads that went with it? How much money did they make doing it? How much money would they have made if they’d said ‘Oh, it’s not CO2, it’s solar?’ Doom and gloom is easy to sell. Herman Goebbels said in World War II, and said it right, that if you tell a big enough lie often enough, people will eventually believe it. Today is like that, total hogwash. Gore made a statement that less than a half-dozen people in world don’t believe that CO2 causes AGW. That’s totally nuts. Read more and an interview with Dr. Easterbrook here.

taghioff.info
24 April 2008 at 04:38

@ antileft

OK, since you don't like reading, lets keep this short and sweet.

Every single argument that you recycle from the Economist rests on a faulty assumption. The faulty assumption is this:

"You can generate infinite wealth from finite resources."

If this assumption is wrong (which it must be) then sooner or later you must look at the distribution of resources. When you look at distribution it means that it is hard to say that rich people getting rich fits easily with poor people getting rich.

I'm glad you liked Bombay, half its residents live on the streets. I am a Brit by the way, and though Playboy is the more rigorous publication, I don't read it either.

taghioff.info
24 April 2008 at 05:21

"The U.S. spends about two-billion dollars a year on research. Right now, if you submit anything that says CO2 is not the bad guy, you won’t have a chance of getting funding. It all goes to the CO2 people who build little fiefdoms; they have grant money coming out of their ears. They mimic Al Gore and say the debate is over. The last I heard, the U.S. plans to increase its research spending to 3.5 billion dollars, virtually all of which goes into CO2 research."

Actually, the financial incentives to debunk CO2 are huge, Exxon Mobil, the world's largest company, has been throwing money at trying to get research to debunk global warming for years.

The research community in the US is finally shrugging off this high-level corruption and is playing catch up with the rest of the world, not a moment too soon.

antileft
24 April 2008 at 07:19

"Every single argument that you recycle from the Economist rests on a faulty assumption. The faulty assumption is this:

"You can generate infinite wealth from finite resources.""

No, that isnt the point at all. You know, marx also said that capitalism couldnt continue to produce indefinitely. That was over a century ago. Yes, some resources are finite, but most are effectively infinite as long as we dont simply breed ourselves into oblivion, which isnt actually happening because the world is developing and the first world is beginning to shrink. We ll need good technology to move onto more sustainable development. That's what this botched attempt at encouraging biofuels is about. I suppose your solution is for us all to go back to the horse, is it? What other solution is there?

antileft
24 April 2008 at 07:42

you know what tagioff? It's typical- a middle class white boy goes to asia and, enjoying a lifestyle thousands of dollars more expensive than the locals, complains about "how unsustainable and how unfair it all is". What a load of crap. Youre little more than a very lucky product of an extremely affluent society. We both are- we re both absolutely rich beyond the dreams of the poor people we see every day, and we both make the most of it by travelling in unsustainable ways, dedicating our lives to study and enjoyment. The difference is that I take these wonderful luxuries while accepting that the system that brought them to me works. Ill tell you what- if you think capitalism is so terrible, quit milking it for all it's worth. Youre studying in india, for christ's sake- you couldnt be much more of a rich, lucky imperialist, and your life couldnt be any more unsustainable. I bet you even spend your last holiday in goa smoking pot and drinking beer with the other loaded but unshaved westerners.

Cybertiger
24 April 2008 at 16:46

“Yes, some resources are finite, but most are effectively infinite as long as we dont simply breed ourselves into oblivion, which isnt actually happening because the world is developing and the first world is beginning to shrink.”

Apparently, there are 320 million Americans and Harryantileft on this planet. If my math is correct, that is 320 million and one assholes too many …

antileft
24 April 2008 at 17:53

"Apparently, there are 320 million Americans and Harryantileft on this planet. If my math is correct, that is 320 million and one assholes too many …"

Haha yes cybertiger, your math is indeed correct- well done! Is that really the best insult you could come up with?! It's not very good, is it?!

Carl Jones
24 April 2008 at 18:22

antileft....the best insult I could ever give you, is not to insult you....you are do so well by yourself...I`m just taking in vibe. :)

taghioff.info
25 April 2008 at 04:59

@Antileft

You seemed to be unable to engage with my arguments, and have fallen to insulting me.

Again, I feel the need to address your false assumptions. I am in many ways a fan of capitalism, but given a choice between yet more wealth and avoiding genocide, I have to take a step back.

Marx was also a fan of capitalism in many ways, his main objection was that it might destroy itself, and a lot of people in the process.

"It's typical- a middle class white boy goes to asia and, enjoying a lifestyle thousands of dollars more expensive than the locals, complains about "how unsustainable and how unfair it all is".

I am acutely aware of how lucky I am, which is why I have spent a lot of my money and a lot of my time trying to understand how to avoid the above scenario.

Actually I accept your charge, but am not willing or able to live like a local, and certainly can't inflict that on my family. I am not morally perfect, but I am part of a movement that is working to try and address these issues.

"You know, marx also said that capitalism couldnt continue to produce indefinitely. That was over a century ago. Yes, some resources are finite, but most are effectively infinite as long as we dont simply breed ourselves into oblivion, which isnt actually happening because the world is developing and the first world is beginning to shrink."

It only takes a few limiting resources to shape the geo-political and economic world, oil and water, and now food being prime candidates. Ignoring that makes you an enemy of both capitalism and the poor.

"suppose your solution is for us all to go back to the horse, is it? What other solution is there?"

If you really are interested in reading about proposed solutions then take a look here. I am not saying for sure it will work, but I am pretty sure this stuff is worth thinking about, and debating:

http://taghioff.info/dant/?p=66

Apologies to those that have seen me post this link endlessly, but it seems that this stuff just doesn't get through without repetition.

So, antileft, are you willing to do some reading and come back with something other than personal attacks?

taghioff.info
25 April 2008 at 05:32

@antileft

On the off chance you are about to become an activist, there is lots of information here about what you can do:

The Growing Global Food Crisis - What You Can Do

http://us.oneworld.net/section/us/alerts/hunger

As rising food prices and shortages sound alarm bells around the world, OneWorld offers an overview of what different countries are facing and how you can help.

Spread the love ;-)

johannine
25 April 2008 at 06:07

between all the name calling [distracting from the topic] i wont get into who would want to do that , but will simply say the cure for this food for fuel lies in growing algae

russion research has proven most fossil fuel isnt fossil it came from algae [algae is so simple to grow [where 10 tons per acre is the return for grain ,algae returns 1000 tons] ,[in the process capturing a heck of a lot more co2 than hundreds of trees]

there are trials in process [as searches will reveal, the algie is grown in circulating water tumbling in stamped plastic bladders [no water is lost] and tons of algae grows

we could use sewrage water turning tons of sustainable fossil fuels out [and never have to turn another food stuff into energy [untill humans have consumed it that is ]

no smell problems either [the raw sewrage could even first leach its fumes into our gas lines [the algae then piped [pumped] to the refineries [it being a slurry [no trucks need to drive it from the farm to the ethinol plant [to the servo]

so you leaders put your carben tax credits into algae bio feul production ,but go ahead you blogging destractors ,scene is all yours

Carl Jones
25 April 2008 at 15:02

johannine....thankyou for bringing some fresh air into the debating chamber.

There are technology solutions, but many have been suppressed. Oil isn`t just energy, its a controlling mechanism on the entire world....this is why the West is desperate to topple the Russian government. an American guy invented a water-splitter over ten years ago. The inventor reckoned that within 5 years it would be small enough to fit under a car bonnet...all you needed to do, was fill the tank with water and the only waste was water. The Saudi`s offered him a $1 billion to shelve his invention, now he`s dead, murdered. The French/US both have companies working on water powered vehicles. But the establishment needs energy it can control, such as hydrogen....the average joe can`t do hydrogen, but he can do water. Its one almighty scam, so don`t get sucked in by the global warming crowd.

TheElitesWin
26 April 2008 at 11:10

Antileft

Get yourself a copy of Alex Jones END GAME, and all your queries will by answered about the NWO and population control. I'm sure you will finally have your ears and eyes opened. I am also not going to banter at length over the issue either.

Brute
26 April 2008 at 14:31

Gore Ducks Questions About Food Crisis, Ethanol and Climate Alarmism

By Noel Sheppard | April 25, 2008 - 10:28 ET

A remarkable thing happened Thursday: a press member wanted to ask Nobel Laureate Al Gore about the growing international food crisis and how it relates to ethanol and global warming hysteria.

Not surprisingly, the man who cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate fourteen years ago mandating the use of ethanol wasn't available, and a spokesman for his hysteria-driving Alliance for Climate Protection declined to comment.

Isn't that convenient?

Regardless, the good news is that press outlets continue to recognize this unholy connection, and that someone, even at the conservative New York Sun, would deign to report it (emphasis added throughout):

The campaign against climate change could be set back by the global food crisis, as foreign populations turn against measures to use foodstuffs as substitutes for fossil fuels. [...]

One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use of government subsidies to promote the use of corn for ethanol production. An estimated 30% of America’s corn crop now goes to fuel, not food.

“I don’t think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly substantial,” a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge, said. A study by a Washington think tank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, indicated that between a quarter and a third of the recent hike in commodities prices is attributable to biofuels.

Frankly, I believe this is conservative, for I doubt it includes the speculation associated with biofuels. For instance, how much of the current daily futures volume is specifically associated with investor purchases due to ethanol? Maybe more important, how much might such speculative purchases decline if ethanol was taken out of the equation?

But I digress:

“It takes around 400 pounds of corn to make 25 gallons of ethanol,” Mr. Senauer, also an applied economics professor at Minnesota, said. “It’s not going to be a very good diet but that’s roughly enough to keep an adult person alive for a year.”

Mr. Senauer said climate change advocates, such as Vice President Gore, need to distance themselves from ethanol to avoid tarnishing the effort against global warming. “Crop-based biofuels are not part of the solution. They, in fact, add to the problem. Whether Al Gore has caught up with that, somebody ought to ask him,” the professor said. “There are lots of solutions, real solutions to climate change. We need to get to those.”

Mr. Gore was not available for an interview yesterday on the food crisis, according to his spokeswoman. A spokesman for Mr. Gore’s public campaign to address climate change, the Alliance for Climate Protection, declined to comment for this article.

Isn't that dandy? The person that cast the deciding vote in 1994 beginning ethanol mandates, who has been traveling the world advocating biofuels, and even admitted in March 2008 to having investments in biofuel companies, wasn't available to discuss the food crisis and its relationship to ethanol.

Maybe this is why Gore isn't allowing press members into his speeches.

Regardless, the pressure is mounting, and as more media outlets begin seeking his opinion concerning this matter, it seems a metaphysical certitude he won't be able to hide forever.

Stay tuned.

stevenearlsalmony
27 April 2008 at 15:51

Thanks for this opportunity to communicate openly about what to me looks like the proverbial "mother" of all global challenges: the human overpopulation of Earth in our time.

It looks like humankind inhabits a tiny celestial orb that is miraculously set among of sea of stars. As far as we know, life as we know it exists nowhere else in the Universe. In the light of these one-of-a-kind circumstances, perhaps we of the human family have the responsibility of assuring the security for the future of life in our planetary home.

I am trying to focus attention on the pressing need for human beings to protect and preserve the finite resources of Earth and its frangible ecosystems. If we fail to achieve this goal, then an unimaginably bleak future could await our children. In all the seriousness of what could be somehow true, I mean the children of my generation.

If 6+ billion human beings live on Earth now and 9+ billion are expected to populate our small planet by 2050, then the human species simply cannot keep engaging in certain unbridled activities that we can see overspreading the Earth because the Earth has limited resources upon which all forms of life and human constructions like national economies utterly depend for existence. Without adequate resources and ecosystem system services of Earth, life as we know it and human institutions could collapse, I suppose.

Now, some portion of the world's human population conspicuously over-consumes the resources of our planetary home. Other people, working in huge multinational conglomerations, are operating businesses in a way that recklessly scours the oceans' floor, decapitates mountains, turns biomass into human mass and, in these and many other ways, end up dissipating natural resources at such an alarming rate that the Earth has insufficient time to restore the resources for human benefit. Still other people in the family of humanity are overpopulating the planet. The leviathan-like scale and rapid growth of global human consumption, production and propagation activities are putting the Earth, life as we know it, and the human community in grave, clear and present danger.

Elder human beings of the overdeveloped world, of whom I am one, are among the people in our planetary home who are ravenously over-consuming Earth's resources. We could choose to consume less. People in the developing could choose to limit overproduction of unnecessary things, to stop ravaging the planet, and to contain industrial pollution. People in the underdeveloped world could limit their number of offspring. Perhaps these are some ways the family of humanity begins to respond ably to the human-induced global challenges that loom so ominously before humanity in our time.

While I certainly agree that action should have been taken by my generation of old folks when we were young in the 60s and 70s, when we became aware of the "population bomb," still we have responsibilities to assume and duties to perform, here and now, for the sake of our children, grandchildren and coming generations.

The idea of making a conscious choice to do nothing in the face of the recognizably daunting global challenges that are visible before humanity on the far horizon is anathema to me.

At a minimum, do we not have a "duty to warn" others of the potential for some kind of ecological catastrophe if the human community adamantly chooses to continue relentlessly down the current "primrose path" marked by soon to become unsustainable consumption, production and propagation activities now threatening to overwhelm the Earth?

Always with thanks,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony

AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,

established 2001

http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php

Carl Jones
27 April 2008 at 19:57

Steven, you assume that the elite really care for the masses? I don`t, the elite/establishment, or NWO have a long history of sacrifice. So please don`t worry, the global population will be slashed. At the moment, it looks like Ug99 will compound the food crisis...one way or another, the NWO will deploy mechanisms to cull the majority of human life. All you have to do is stay smart and survive, knowing its coming, is half the battle.lol

EU22
29 April 2008 at 19:21

The answer is algae or regular pond scum.

It's cheap and it has an extremely high growth rate it doubles every four hours - and its growth can be safely contained. Some of these algae have up to 50% of their weight in oil. In addition they can engineer the algae to produce fuel for specific industry needs.

Check out this CNN article and news clip

"All about algae: Can pond scum power our future?"

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/04/11/eco.algae/in...#cnnSTCVideo

EU22
29 April 2008 at 19:52

Only 2% of the world's food is used for biofuels.

Perhaps the use of foods for biofuels is only a part of the problem; it is more likely the change in living standards of the Chinese and Indian put populations together. They now want to eat meat, which requires grain as feed and likely they want to eat more of the type of frivolous foods - that are popular in the west - these 'junk' foods no doubt require more grain - than say the simple bowl of rice or lentils that was once the staple across Asia.

The problem with oil is that we don't know how much of it is left and for ex. The Arabs aren't saying. We are going to have to develop new methods of producing fuel and first on the agenda is biofuel technology. We just need to find an alternative to food stocks, like agricultural waste or the extremely fast growing and high oil content algae.

Carl Jones
30 April 2008 at 00:02

EU22....yes, but you don`t get it....the NWO isn`t interested in these solutions. This is a NWO construct. One third of US grain is used to produce Ethanol...400lb to produce 25 gallons of Ethanol, enough to feed a person for one year. You are SELLING solutions which have no context in todays NWO genocide construct. You are complict, by selling some imagined dream while people are starving....maybe you should wait for the next gadget?

taghioff.info
30 April 2008 at 04:14

@stevenearlsalmony

Monbiot did some numbers in the Guardian, and it seems that the greed of the rich is likely to contribute about 32 times as much to our future resource problems as population growth amongst the poor. As ever, social power is the biggest issue.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2248614,00....

Carl Jones
30 April 2008 at 11:21

Not quite, while there are more rich and they are getting richer, it is the rising wealth of ordinary workers who are aspiring to live like Westerners. A small car was recently launched in India, it cost about £1,300 and many will by it. The improved safety alone will increae population. It will use one more tire than a rickshaw and journey distances will increase, so better roads will be built. Population growth is an issue, but the real problem, are the two Europe/US sized populations in China and India, who are about to live like Westerners...this is happening now, but will become a critical problem within 10/15 years.

Can we ween ourselves off oil in 15 years? No is the simple answer. If recent oil prices rises are the start of the bell curve, the pain will only ease when oil is replaced, this is a long way off, or the world population declines rapidly....you can read what you like into my last comment.lol

Cybertiger
30 April 2008 at 12:54

@Jonesy

"If recent oil prices rises are the start of the bell curve, the pain will only ease when oil is replaced, this is a long way off, or the world population declines rapidly...."

Quack, quack , quack, QUACK .... is it possible that a bird-flu pandemic could be the saving of mankind?

taghioff.info
30 April 2008 at 15:07

@cybertiger

Fair does, slipped into polemics there.

It is indeed economic growth rather than "the rich" per se that will do the damage, though if you look at income inequality trends and consumption patterns dissaggregated by income, you still see that what I said is not totally off the mark.

taghioff.info
30 April 2008 at 15:09

@carl jones rather, tired....

Carl Jones
01 May 2008 at 01:13

Cybertiger, I was posting about H5N1 on the BBC Radio 4 Today message boards before they became a totally censored forum....sorry, but I will take every opportunity to spotlight the "dark forces".

It oppears the NWO are fighting population growth on multiple fronts. Obama has disowned his old pastor for claiming HIV was invented, manufactured and deployed by the US government....of course, he`s right. HIV was the result of a speech by George Bush in 1976 on population. In reality, HIV was very crude, and people take a long time to die. Of course, we don`t know the WHO/US military brief on HIV.

Some of you might remember and if you don`t, I`ll refresh. After the NWO sanctioned 9/11 terror attack, the MSM peddled the message that (alledged) terrorists "could have Small Pox, or any other biological weapon you`d care to mention". This NWO message was deplyed all over the world...and I`ve spoken to people from all over the world who remember it.

The Today programme had an Oxford professor on. He said there was no evidence there had been a breech of security at any of the 3 sites which stores Small Pox....but never mind. The US ordered 100 million Small Pox vaccine shots (corporate profit), the UK ordered 30 million. The NHS ordered 8000 biowarfare kits and 100`s of biowarfare vehicles. The government has prepared a raft of legislation to enable public control under a military lockdown. Of course, its possible the NWO will still use Small Pox and blame it on fictional terrorists.

SARS is another man made/tampered virus. Two senior scientists from Moscow healthcare, said SARS was a virus made from two old viruses and was man made. I believe SARS is man made, and is genetically selective. SARS failed to spread into Russia along the Beijing/Moscow railway...it never closed. Two Chinese cabin crew went ill with SARS in Sydney. They had been flying back and too with a Western passengers...no one caught it. There was an outbreak in Toronto. I spoke to a lady in Toronto and she said all the infected (mainly working in a hospital) were Asian. It has been suggested there have been significant deaths in China from unknown viruses.

If you listen to the MSM, you`ve heard the message....H5N1 comes from Asia and we are due a pandemic.....but here`s a fact for you. The global spread of H5N1 cannot be explained by wild bird migration. If you followed the news, you also know that family clusters in Asia and Turkey resulted in only 1 or 2 family members becoming infected, usuall resulting in death. These families live in confined conditions, kill, cook and eat the same birds, yet H5N1 only infects 2 out of a cluster of 6.....H5N! is genetically selective.

The Washington Post had a very good article a couple of years a