OpEdNews » The Great Biofuel Famine

Refresh Tag(s): Biofuels; Crisis; Death; Energy; Energy; Energy; Illness; Leader; Oil; Poverty; (more...) Riots; Security; Technology; Technology (less...)
Add to My Group

April 10, 2008 at 17:28:21

View Ratings | Rate It

The Great Biofuel Famine

by Christopher Calder Page 1 of 1 page(s)

www.opednews.com

SAVE FAVORITES

VIEW FAVORITES

How many deaths per gallon are you getting in your SUV?

Using United Nations global poverty statistics as a base, it is now clear that United States and European Union biofuel policies will significantly contribute to the early, avoidable deaths of between 10 and 20 million people in the year 2008 alone. Only a post-disaster assessment by future scientific studies and historians can give a more exact figure for the body count of The Great Biofuel Famine, which may continue for many years to come. Of the earth's 6.66 billion residents, 4 billion live in poverty, and those at the bottom of that group are already very skinny and without sufficient food to be able to function normally. The biofuel famine will push millions of those poorest families into the clutches of death, thanks to our leaders turning mountain's of food into biofuel.

When humans don't get enough food to eat over a prolonged period of time, their immune systems get stressed and weakened, and they become vulnerable to common illnesses which the well fed can easily fight off. That is the main, indirect way that a lack of sufficient food kills people, but many will die of direct, emaciating starvation as well. Even in the "wealthy" USA, the homeless, veterans, the disabled, the elderly, and all those living on low fixed incomes are going to have a tough time surviving our new "GREEN" policies, which John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama currently support.

World leaders attending the recent Progressive Governance Summit in England heard testimony from experts about the growing global food crisis and the destructive impact of turning food into fuel. Former US President Bill Clinton spoke frankly at the meeting, stating that "What's really hurting the food markets is America moving into ethanol. People there are moving into corn and you have pasta riots in Italy related to what some people are doing in farming in America." The USDA states that by the end of May, US wheat supplies will be lower than at any time since 1948 because so many wheat farmers switched to growing corn for biofuel. This spring, US farmers are planting more wheat but less corn, so next year corn prices will be even higher, with devastating effects on food prices around the world.

Biofuels are a dead end technology that can only lead to more human misery, hunger, and environmental destruction no matter what biofuel crops we grow. Two years ago the price of corn was only $2 bushel, but expanding ethanol production has pushed corn prices up to over $6 a bushel today, which raises the price of chicken, eggs, beef, and diary products, as corn is our main animal feed. In the year 2007, the USA alone turned enough corn, soybeans, and rapeseed into biofuels to satisfy the yearly caloric needs of over 250 million people. The World Bank states that staple food prices have increased by an incredible 80% in the 3 year period from 2005 to 2008, and that 33 nations now face political instability as a result. There have been food riots in at least 20 different countries, even in wealthy Italy. In Haiti, some of the poor have resorted to eating cookies made of mud, and Haitian food riots are beginning to look more like outright revolution.

There is no safe way to make biofuels in sufficient quantity to have any significant positive effect on our economy. Objective, industry independent studies show that ethanol from cellulose (switchgrass, wood chips, crops waste, etc.) will never be cost effective. Affordable biodiesel fuel from algae is a pipe dream that has wasted research money since the 1970s. Making ethanol from corn takes so much natural gas, coal, and oil to produce that it is not energy efficient, and certainly not worth the disastrous environmental and human life destruction it causes.

Respected scientific studies have shown that biofuel production is torture for wildlife and the biosphere, and speeds global warming faster than using ordinary gasoline, so what justification is there for biofuel production at all?

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Stop biofuels now!

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

Christopher Calder is an advocate for world food supply security, and has no financial interest in any energy related business.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

Contact Author

Contact Editor

View Authors' Articles

Book Recommendations for "Biofuels Crisis"

The MTBE crisis and the future of biofuels : hearing before the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, United States Senate, Subcommittee on ... 18, 2000 (SuDoc Y 4.AG 8/3:S.HRG.106-863)

Number of pages:
Publisher: U.S. G.P.O.

Biofuels in the energetic and food crisis/Los biocombustibles en la crisis energetica y alimentaria/Os biocombustiveis na crise energetica e alimentar.(EDITORIAL)(Editorial): ... An article from: Interciencia
by Jorge Laine

$9.95

Number of pages: 8
Publisher: Interciencia Association

View All Book Recommendations

Share this page: (what's this?) Tell a Friend:

(More...)

9 comments

Kuzminski

Dead end technology?

This piece is a sad example of misguided 'progressive' rhetoric. Biofuels, which are a renewable resource, are condemned here because there are too many people in the world and we cannot hope to grow both food and energy for all. This is true enought, but it is an argument for reducing the world population, not for knee-jerk condemnations of biofuels. The presumption by Christopher Calder is that we can have it all, that is, somehow feed everyone and keep the energy system going at something like current levels. With wishful thinking like this operative, there will be no facing the realities before us until they do us in. Biofuels are not only renewable, but even the least efficient forms, such as corn ethanol, have a positive net energy gain, contrary to his unsubstantiated claims. Some cellulosic projects, such as one at the Environmental Sciences and Forestry School at Syracuse University, are considerably more promising with regard to energy gained. Let's recognize that we need to dramatically reduce our population to come into balance with the renewable carrying capacity of the planet. Biofuels will likely have a postiive role to play in that context.

by Kuzminski (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 93 comments) on Thursday, Apr 10, 2008 at 7:11:44 PM

(0+)

Jeanette Doney

There are crops for fuel such as Industrial hemp and switchgrass..but I would look at Monsanto and the UN Agenda 21 as the problem.

by Jeanette Doney (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 307 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Apr 10, 2008 at 8:50:14 PM

(0+)

Christopher Calder

Reply: Hemp and switchgrass won't work.

A study from three agricultural economists at Iowa State University with insider information on the latest biofuel technology says ethanol made from cellulose will likely NEVER be affordable. The federal tax credits for ethanol made from cellulose would have to be raised from the current $.51 to $1.55 per gallon, which will be unacceptable to Congress and the American public. Switchgrass, hemp, crop waste, and wood chip biofuel schemes are too expensive to ever work.

The full study can be found here - pdf 180kb at: http://www.card.iastate.edu/publications/DBS/PDFFiles/08wp460.pdf

Coming soon after the Princeton study published in SCIENCE showing that all biofuels are far worse for the environment and global warming than gasoline leaves biofuel advocates little cover to hide behind.

SEE - http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861

In practical terms, there is not enough usable land area to grow a sufficient quantity of biofuel plants to meet the world's energy demands. Even if the USA dedicated 100% of our corn and soybean production to biofuels, we would only satisfy 12% of gasoline demand and 6% of diesel demand. To quote Stuart Staniford, "The biofuel potential of the entire human food supply is quite a small amount of energy compared to the global oil supply - somewhere between 15 to 20% on a volumetric basis, so 10 to 15% on an energy basis." Every year the human race burns up the equivalent of 400 years worth of planetary vegetation in the condensed form of fossil fuels. How are we going to replace all that concentrated energy by growing biofuel crops on our desperately overpopulated, pure water starved little planet?

Please visit my page on biofuels, "The biofuel hoax is causing a world food crisis!" at:

http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html

by Christopher Calder (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments) on Thursday, Apr 10, 2008 at 9:52:03 PM

(0+)

Jeanette Doney

Reply: I disagree

First, I don't believe there is ONE solution, but there are many and industrial hemp and switchgrass, algee, fungi, methane, all of these fuels, and alternatives, which includes Tesla technology, should become LEGAL for small farms...and that is the biggest hurdle we have is the government preventing us from growing or producing fuel/energy for ourselves.

Here in Mendocino CA, we have the land to grow hemp, we have the water, we have the old forest mills, industrial areas to process and fuels from local crops to sustain a community, if all we did was co-op industrial hemp for local trucking we would reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and create a sustainable economy based on our own energy production and use.

by Jeanette Doney (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 307 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Apr 11, 2008 at 8:23:01 AM

(0+)

John Haigh

Did I understand Kuzminski?

Did he/she write that we can't have food and fuel, therefore we must be realistic and accept that millions should die so that Americans can keep driving their SUVs?

by John Haigh (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 118 comments) on Thursday, Apr 10, 2008 at 9:51:45 PM

(0+)

ramsheyi

Greed And Willful Destruction Of The Planet

"...so what justification is there for biofuel production at all?"

The answer : Greed and immediate gain and profit without any hindsight about its disastrous consequences for the planet. Let us call it the biggest crime against the environment ever, leaving aside the obvious human casualties.

by ramsheyi (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 793 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Apr 11, 2008 at 7:11:33 AM

(0+)

Christopher Calder

Reply: What will the final body count be?

Biofuel production will contribute to the early, avoidable deaths of at least between 10 and 20 million people worldwide in the year 2008. That is my public estimate of the death toll, and is in a way a cop-out on my part, as the 2007 global death toll due to malnutrition and malnutrition related illness was in the 14 to 16 million range. I did not want to stick my neck out and be accused of inflating the numbers to support my opposition to biofuels. Privately, I fear the death toll for 2008 will be much higher as food prices have skyrocketed far beyond 2007 levels. I really believe that in 2008 global deaths due to malnutrition and related illness will be in the 20 to 30 million range. Economists estimate that 30 million people could be going hungry in Bangladesh alone.

To put this global tragedy in perspective, the infamous Cambodian dictator Pol Pot only killed 1.7 million people between 1975 and 1979, mainly by starvation due to his idiotic agricultural policies. Mao's 1958 "Great Leap Forward" 5 year plan caused the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese, and Mao had the best of intentions just like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain, who all support biofuels vigorously despite being repeatedly warned that biofuels are killing people and are murder for the environment as well. An exact body count of the Great Biofuel Famine is not possible, and usually the more affluent sectors of society only wake up and realizes the magnitude of the great famines years after the event is over.

German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul stated that production of biofuels is "30 to 70% responsible for the rapid rise in food prices." Bill Clinton stated that "What's really hurting the food markets is America moving into ethanol." Unless the biofuel bandwagon is stopped, by the year 2020 the world will be diverting 400 million tons of grain each year into ethanol production, which is equal to the entire current global rice harvest. Biofuel production is equivalent to a new tax on food that starves the poor in order to feed money to rich agricultural corporations.

Every year humans burn the equivalent of 400 years worth of total planetary vegetation in the condensed form of fossil fuels. How are we going to replace all that concentrated biomass energy by growing a relatively small volume of biofuel crops on our overpopulated, fresh water starved planet? Another BIG LIE about biofuels is that they are "clean." Ethanol blended fuels burn cleaner on a per gallon basis, but not on a miles traveled basis, because ethanol contains 30% less energy than gasoline and thus yields very poor gas mileage. Why are US and EU politicians still falsely claiming that turning our own food into fuel is good for the environment?

Biofuels facts and better alternatives at: http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html

by Christopher Calder (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments) on Thursday, Apr 17, 2008 at 11:14:02 AM

(0+)

Kuzminski

Understanding Kuzminski

No I didn't say that millions must die so that Americans can continue to drive their SUVs. I said that there are far too many people in the world, including Americans, than can be supported by renewable foods and energies. In that light, you can decide what to do about your SUV. Calder ignores this point, sidesteps the population issue, thinking that somehow we can find both the food and energy needed to support 6 billion plus people.

by Kuzminski (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 93 comments) on Friday, Apr 11, 2008 at 2:47:35 PM

(0+)

ronheri

Reply: Will Kuzminski show us the way

Ted Turner of CNN, who has 5 children, also thinks families should be limited to one child, to sove the "overpopulation-problem"; perhaps Ted and Kuzminski should show some leadership by holding hands and jumping off a cliff together. That would be a start.

by ronheri (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 256 comments [45 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Apr 12, 2008 at 1:40:24 PM

(0+)