Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Message to Progressives from the UN -"The reality is that people are dying already"


Telegraph UK:

Global warming rage lets global hunger grow


By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor

We drive, they starve. The mass diversion of the North American grain harvest into ethanol plants for fuel is reaching its political and moral limits.


A demonstrator eats grass in front of a U.N. peackeeping soldier in Port-au-Prince
A demonstrator eats grass in front of a U.N. peacekeeping soldier during a protest against the high cost of living in Port-au-Prince

"The reality is that people are dying already," said Jacques Diouf, of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "Naturally people won't be sitting dying of starvation, they will react," he said.

The UN says it takes 232kg of corn to fill a 50-litre car tank with ethanol. That is enough to feed a child for a year. Last week, the UN predicted "massacres" unless the biofuel policy is halted.

We are all part of this drama whether we fill up with petrol or ethanol. The substitution effect across global markets makes the two morally identical.
DRILL FOR OIL.
Drill off the California coast.
Drill in Alaska.
Drill in the Bakken formation.
Establish the windfarm off Nantucket, Teddy.
Get more coal for electrical generation
Find technological processes to make hydrogen power more cost efficient
Invest in battery and solar technologies
We should be doing every single thing in our power for energy independence, for economic development, for political independence, for technological leadership, for the ecological considerations, and for the people who WILL have a harder time affording foodstuffs made more expensive not necessarily because ethanol is being used for fuel, but because the cost of fuel affects every single thing on this planet, as parasites with dead dinosaurs under the ground suck the blood from everyone.

It's not our drivers, it's our desire and will to do what is needed to get more energy.
We are not going to conserve our way out of this.
Period

5 comments:

Pastorius said...

Epa,
For once, it might be a good thing the UN is telling us there is a crisis.

The fact is, there is a food crisis (although, much of the problem is distribution, not lack of food), but the reality of rising prices is, indeed, brought about by the "biofuel" policy.

Don't know if you know about this, but we found oil in the Dakotas/Montana area, and the Colorado Rockies, and the amount that is there dwarfs the amount of known reserves in Saudi Arabia.

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/03/massive-oil-field-found-in.html

That means we have the capacity to be the world's largest oil-producing nation, and maybe even to become on of the largest exporters of oil, if only we had the political will.

So maybe this crisis will bring that about.

That's called wishful thinking, I guess.

Epaminondas said...

"Don't know if you know about this, but we found oil in the Dakotas/Montana area, and the Colorado Rockies, and the amount that is there dwarfs the amount of known "

Yah, that's the Bakken Formation..so how come it's not a giant gold rush out there right now?

And if we do drill, we haven't built a new refinery since, what, the 70's?

Pastorius said...

That's right. I think you wrote about that before.

We're not drilling and building refineries, because we are allowing environmentalitsts to go Kervorkian on us.

Michael Travis said...

The Food crisis could lead to an outbreak of regional warfare. The cause of course is the well thought-out plans of American Liberals who have foisted the most ridiculous "Ethanol" laws upon the public. American Ethanol production has created an chain reaction that will end with the deaths of millions and the destruction of our own economy.

Who said that Liberalism is not a deadly disease?

Epaminondas said...

Yes, Michael, but that is precisely why the environmentalists should be happy.

A nice big fat war would make resources abundant for the few left in a stone age industrial milieu