Posted on 04/26/2008 6:45:05 PM PDT by melt
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):
Story Continues Below Ad ↓ 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 Americas corn crop now goes to fuel, not food.
I dont 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...

He's not ducking. You see, the debate is over. For every ear of corn Al Gore lets his car eat, there is somebody in Haiti not eating an ear of corn. It's called "Carbon Neutral".
Is that an SUV, a gas guzzler that he is coming out of?????? Carbon Credit violator!!!!!!! Pie him with an organic tofu cream pie!!!!!!/Just Asking - seoul62.......
Mooo.
/johnny/
This “QUACKS ME UP.”
It is not the mandate of ethanol production that is fueling the problem, it is the government subsidies running up the price of corn, causing land normally used for other grains to be used for corn, and in turn the loser supply of THOSE grains caused the price of THEM to increase in turn.
Jeez, the guy is getting uglier and more portentous every day. Typical liberal democrat.
Hey greenies!
How many humans died in Africa today from malaria they cannot wipe out due to your DDT ban?!
This is just the beginning. Can you imagine the choas and pitchforks in the streets when world economies are asked to cut back 20% to appease the global warming gods. We have seen nothing yet. The people preaching and caught up in this hysteria have no intentions of really suffering and turning off their AC.
Perhaps we could get the USF&WS to label him as gross polluter.
This is certainly not the first time millions of people have suffered because of the enviro-nazis. The banning of DDT has caused the death of millions because of the resulting malaria. Throwing a net over every bed in Africa hasn’t done much to help the death rate.
Then there was the MBTE that the eco-terrorists talked Christi Todd Whitman and her EPA to mandate as a gasoline additive, which resulted in the poisoning of the ground water in several states. As a matter of fact, the disastrous mandating of ethanol as a gasoline additive during the Clinton/Gore administration was to “fix” the calamity caused by MBTE.
And now our President and the GOP candidate want to climb on that rickety bandwagon of “climate change”, just as the wheels are coming off and people are realizing that this is just another rip-off of consumer dollars and will probably cause other disastrous consequences. Pathetic.
Hint for them, neither do I. I have guns, mobility, and communications. And alternative methods of power when the grid goes off.
I didn't climb to the top of the food chain to eat veggie burgers.
/johnny
rotflmao!!!
quote/post of the day.
And the global temp has been stable or cooling since 1998 and cooled .7 degrees in 07. Still the morons from hell keep pushing policies to end global warming, as we pass into a significant cooling period and possibly a new ice age. I have not seen such idiocy from people who should know better in all my 53 years.
Fat Al has a lot of ‘esplainin’ to do. He’s ruining peoples’ lives and people are dying just so Fat Al can get his big money-making, “carbon trading” gig going. The boy needs to go to jail.
President Bush and McCain can be included in that group of idiots.
Not quite right. The price of corn as risen way past a level where subsidies would kick in, and in fact, corn farmers are not being directly subsidized. What is driving up the price corn is demand from the ethanol producers.
True, that demand is artifically driven by government mandates. But the point is that corn itself is NOT being directly subsidized these days, and hasn't been for a while now.
Yep, and Gingrich. We are so screwed.
People who retain a minimum of intelligence and the ability to think logically — will be forced to the conclusion that Congress is staffed with the most inept, ignorant, incompetent, dishonest, corrupt and least accomplished morons on the planet Earth.
With rare exception — none have succeeded in running a PRODUCTIVE business successfully. Most have been non-productive leaches, rabble rousers, race pimps or inherited the political office by virtue of marriage, family name or purchased it with family money....
The “Citizen Politician” is a dead concept....
We now have bastards evolving into lifetime political hacks - and once thrown out of office, STILL find some nonproductive way to leverage their former positions into a cash cow..
Jimmuh Carter AlGore and BJ Clinton are at the zenith of this breed of cockroach.
You misunderstand. I wasn’t referring to the corn subsidies. The demand for corn has been caused by increasing ethanol producers who are being subsidized by your ane my tax dollars to the tune of about $0.51 a gallon.
While they’re at it, someone ask this gasbag why we in Seattle got snow in mid-April for the first time since 1972. Inconvenient Truth...what BS. How could anyone stand to be so false?


There are several remarkable things about this entire episode. First...the Brazilians...who are the “kings” of this biofuel stuff...years ago discovered that sugar beets were the best product to produce the fuel. After planting the beets...there is little to do but wait until harvest season, and the process to get fuel out of the sugar beets is a more productive process...than using corn.
Second...for farmers have sat there complaining about the profit margin of agriculture in America. So now...this year...with everyone demanding corn...the price has soared. It will be a record turn-out and farmers will take home vast sums of money...to spend on their mortgage, their new farm equipment, and fixing up the house for mama.
Third...alot of guys who used to take the government money not to grow anything...aren’t taking this year. They probably won’t take it next year, and I’m betting that this entire game has come to an end. If you can make twice as much on growing corn...why wouldn’t you do it?
Fourth....every country on the face of the earth...with the exception of North Korea....has the ability to grow enough corn and food to feed their population. Sadly....a bunch of fools have rendered their agriculture program null and void....Zimbabwe comes to mind when I mention that. The idea that America is the bread-basket to the world....is a farce. Only because of mass incompetence in the world....are we selling all of these products and making profit off of them.
Finally...at the end of the day....we still have a fuel issue and ethanol is the eventual end-answer. We can’t avoid it. With oil at $117 a barrel...the idea of using our agriculture program isn’t that stupid. And when oil hits $150 a barrel, which it will....this simply makes more sense.
“Algore is lyin’, and people are dyin’!”
Because of the above percentage of American corn that now goes to fuel, I keep an eye on the following development in non-corn ethanol.
Non-corn ethanol
Hey! Ever hear of “Commas”?
Gore is the Pied Piper of the modern Global Warming SCARE, and now the world suffers because of his refusal to adapt plans for increased international energy and food consumption.
Gored would have a difficult time debating Daffy Duck.
>>Third...alot of guys who used to take the government money not to grow anything...arent taking this year. They probably wont take it next year, and Im betting that this entire game has come to an end. If you can make twice as much on growing corn...why wouldnt you do it?
Just because the corn farmers are now one step removed from the government subsidy (by the subsidized ethanol producers) does *not* mean they aren’t taking government money, to any discerning person. Substance over form.
I don’t disagree with your points, but Brazil grows sugarcane. Beets aren’t nearly as efficient. Don’t get me started on the US laws and boondoggles that keep ‘big sugar’ raking in the dough domestically.
I never thought my country -— or my world — had such extravagant oversupplies that we had “food to burn.”
It will be something when it’s revealed Gore got rich by promoting global warming and the scams it produced.
Over the years there has been a steady complant about 'paying farmers NOT to grow crops'.
What this whole 'exercise' has illustrated is the level at which food prices need to be to allow farmers to opt out of the Farm Programs.
I think most people are surprised at how effective the farm programs were at keeping food prices low.
I don’t know why they picked corn. It doesn’t have nearly as much sugar as other products, and after all, it is the sugar that us used to make ethanol. But anyway, our future is not in burning our fuel and turning every farm into a energy plant. We have HUGE reserves of oil in Alaska and off the coasts of the US. We also have immense reserves of coal that can be converted to oil for about $40 a barrel. All it takes is a president with the willpower to stand up and tell Congress that they are all a bunch of idiots and to sign a few EO’s.
good post. I don't see anyone in a position of leadership in government who has the strength of conviction, a love of Liberty, or a basic understanding of science. We seem to be moving toward very difficult times -- because of the fraudulent AGW and the evil rabid enviro nuts. the AGW crowd will be directly responsible for more deaths than Hitler, Mao and Stalin combined.
I am truly astounded that there seems to be no way to defeat the evil left.
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