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 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
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...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?
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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