🚀 go-pugleaf

<calderhome@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:21e0c911-a543-495b-8ddb-2dc7b0e61a51@i72g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
> According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
> (FAO), global food prices rose 40% in 2007 to the highest level on
> record!
>
> See news story at:  http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1227-fao.html
>
> The rush to produce biofuels is a man made disaster, because making
> fuel from corn, soybeans, or rapeseed takes more energy to produce
> than it yields as fuel.  Biofuel manufacture releases large amounts of
> greenhouse gases, including nitrous oxide from fertilizers, which is
> 296 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.
> Farming contributes more to global warming than all forms of motorized
> land, sea, and air transportation combined, so growing vast amounts of
> crops for biofuel will heat up the earth's atmosphere faster than if
> we only used imported Saudi Arabian oil.
>
> Most importantly, diverting agricultural resources to biofuel
> production skyrockets the prices of food world wide. The United
> Nations has officially stated that its charity programs can no longer
> afford to feed the starving peoples of the world because of high food
> costs created by biofuel production.  Jean Ziegler, the UN's Special
> Rapporteur on the Right to Food, denounced biofuels as "a crime
> against humanity" and called for a five-year moratorium on their
> production.
>
> The heartless message the US Congress has given the low income people
> of the world is quite clear; LET THEM EAT BIOFUELS!  Is the
> unintentional starvation inflicted on the world by thoughtless
> politicians any more morally excusable than the intentional starvation
> of innocent civilians ordered by infamous dictators during times of
> war?
>
> See "The biofuel hoax is causing a world food crisis!" at:
> http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html
>
> Christopher Calder

I suspect that the rampant rise in the cost of energy, specifically
petroleum and petroleum products including fertilizers and everyting else
associated with oil has more to do with the rapid rise in food prices than
biofuels does. Biofuels are small potatoes compared to the recent increases
in oil and gasoline.

It's $100 oil stupid, not ethanol that is behind most food increases and
there is no end in sight.

To blame biofuels is to totally miss the biggest part of the problem.

If biofuels were significant, they would create a downward pressure on
petroleum and that is clearly not happening. Biofuels are a tiny fraction to
world wide agriculture.