The Hunger vs the Gas

This morning a collection of articles and quotes on a real crisis vs. an imagined or inflated one:

Doug Ross at The Journal points out a little noted story about a group that is directly challenging the IPCC conclusions from the famous computer-generated hockey stick graph. New data belies the effect of carbon in the computer modeled graph.
carbon graph

At American Thinker there are two articles of note, Earth First! (people later):

And frankly, to hear people who are so wealthy that they’re clinically obese from excess food and leisure time yammering on about what kind of light-bulbs they use, while other people are literally starving to death…  It’s beyond bizarre.  It speaks to a frightening level of self-deception that seemingly intelligent folks engage in en masse.

And No Starvation for Fuel!:

No Blood for Oil” is a spurious rallying cry on the left, but apparently it is acceptable for the poor in the third world to starve so that American Eco-activists can feel self-righteous about driving “flex-fuel” vehicles.  According to the WORLD BANK:

“almost all of the increase in global maize production from 2004 to 2007 (the period when grain prices rose sharply) went for biofuels production in the U.S.

A quote from the Bloomberg article linked in the American Thinker article above:

Energy independence is important, but biofuels have very limited potential in that regard. Elam states that it would take the entire world grain crop to make enough ethanol to replace just the U.S.’s annual consumption of gasoline. A solution to an excessive reliance on greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuels must be found, but biofuels aren’t it.

During the Bengal famine, Sen found that the government failed to fight the catastrophe effectively because it didn’t recognize that high prices were the true source of the problem. Cognizant of the lessons of history, then, the initial steps being taken seem prudent given the enormous risks.

For example, the U.S. has already committed an additional $200 million in food aid to help in the current crisis.

Still, we must also look ahead to policy changes that can have a longer-term positive impact. With that in mind, how can one possibly justify continued government subsidies for bio- fuels?

It’s wonderful that others are picking this up and publicizing it, however it’s horrible that it took food riots to gain the notice. I’ve been predicting this path a while, for both oil and food are too valuable to burn.

It takes clean abundant power to take care of the billion of people in this world and maintain clean ecosystems as well. That’s why energy and environment have been a part of this online journal since it’s creation. We as a nation have a noble challenge before us this century, and it’s not staving off Global Warming; instead it’s leading the world to a clean energy abundant future. Do not let the eco-luddites steal the lightning from our children.

Recent articles on Hunger vs Energy