1 post tagged “new statesman”
In the endeavour to find an alternative source of energy or at least something to take a little of the place of Oil, one suggestion is biofuels.
In and of itself, this sounds interesting, it is renewable, it can be local and it can happen now. Plus it becomes an additive and so you use less petroleum and therefore less carbon is pumped into the atmosphere. Almost sounds like a winner.
There is just one problem and it is articulated in this article. It appears the mad rush towards biofuels is responsible for pushing up the price of food and therefore bringing starvation and all sorts of suffering upon the globe's poor.
So a solution to our environmental crisis is feeding another crisis and that is the spectre of starvation. Grain that could be used for food is being removed and becoming fuel. The problem with all this is it takes a lot to bring it about. I recall reading an article that said to produce all the biofuel needed for the US for one year, would take the entire corn crop. Every single solitary kernel of corn would go towards the production of fuel. That means, no corn for animals or for people. So forget your Corn Flakes, they ain't part of the diet any more. One person suggested it takes 450 lbs of corn to make one gallon of ethanol.
That's just the start of the problem, Global Research put online an article entitled: Biofuels: The Five Myths of Agro-fuels Transition. The writer states a myth is being given to the Media of the advantages of biofuel and how it will change the environment for the better. However, as always, there are consequences which are not being reported. The five myths are:
Agro-fuels will not result in deforestation
Agro-fuels will bring rural development
Agro-fuels will not cause hunger
Better “second-generation” agro-fuels are just around the corner
As for #4, the New Statesman article as a list of some of the food riots that have broken out across the planet. All have to do with the sudden doubling of the price of staples. We are not talking about luxery items, but the basics that people require to live.
With #5, the promise is that the second generation will use the waste, such as the husks of of the corn, but that is still a few years off and in the meantime, people will starve so that Westerners can drive their fuel guzzling SUV's. An obvious win-win scenario.
