BioFuel Now Competes Directly with Worlds Food Supply

Are you wondering why your grocery dollars aren’t stretching quite as far? In Mexico City, a barely publicized riot, called “The Tortilla Riots”, break out in protest of escalating corn prices (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6319093.stm) and sharply rising flour prices destabilize Pakistan. In Sudan, a grocer that supplies the countries needy is chocked that the price of white beans has increased by a factor of 5 in two years. Humans just might be embarking on one of the worst ideas yet: using the earth’s food croplands to grow crops that will be converted to Biofuel. According to a recent article in Times Magazine and the Los Angeles Times, food prices are increasing rapidly. LA Times sites two reasons for this: the devaluation of the dollar, and the use of crops for biofuels. Global hunger is now expected to increase instead of decrease, from early estimates of 625 million (a decrease from today’s 800 million) to 1.2 billion starving-humans by 2025. Many scientists and economists now blame this on increased food prices caused by increased demand (and hence profit) for biofuel crops.

So, it’s finally come to this. Our dependence on oil and energy competes head-to-head with our food. Not only is this obvious madness, but many scientists now also believe that this new turn to biofuel is increasing, not decreasing the factors that effect global warming. Ethanol, says Times Magazine, “increases global warming, destroys forests, and inflates food prices”.

The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year.We like our SUV’s, so kiss the Amazon goodbye. And guess what, we, you and me as tax payers, subsidize this madness. Last year, our country produced 7 billion gallons of biofuel, which cost taxpayers at least $8 billion in subsidies. Worse yet, our backwards-and-out-of-touch-as-always Bush Administration signed in an energy bill will mandate production of 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022, up from 7 billion today. “Fuel of the future”, he says. Now there’s a built in profit-making insurance policy for the biofuel industry if I ever saw one, directly guaranteed by the President of the United States.

What can you do? Well, I think we are still a democracy, so write your Congressperson and demand a halt to the biofuel madness. If you are thinking of buying an SUV, don’t! If you are thinking of buying a new car at all in the near future, wait for the hydrogen technology to mature. We will be reporting on this technology soon.