Buried in the second to last paragraph: U.S. corn crop diverted to make totally inefficient biofuels up from 20% to 40% in two years. Meanwhile, one billion people are undernourished, and food prices are set to rise world-wide. Corn is an input for all dairy and meat products.
Shouldn't economists be taking a closer look at the relationship between food prices and ethanol? Or is unaffordable food simply of no concern to the wealthy?
Which is the greater evil, Big Oil or Big Corn? The rank hypocrisy - to say nothing of the rank stupidity - is enough to make one pig-biting mad.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Ethanol: An Imminent Threat to Humanity, in English and Greek
I had my expose that I paid the Globe and Mail $90,000 to print, professionally translated into Greek, making it more accessible to the Greeks in my life. Links to both the English and Greek versions are to the left.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Just George
Postscript April 5, 2010
I said I would do it and I did it. I spent $90,000 of my own money on that Globe article, to make the world listen to this little guy. And I went flat broke doing it.
But my higher power was watching, and listening. I had a very personal experience with my higher power this year, one that very, very few people have. I heard my higher power tell me that he/she/it was very impressed with me and my ethanol project. The experience was very stressful and very painful, but I proved I could hack it, with prayer and with faith. Never once losing faith.
I did not need four hallowed walls and mere mortals to guide me in prayer. I know Christ's message: do not judge, love thy neighbour. I established my own personal relationship. Our churches are rotting, and our souls are too. Go ahead, practising Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox (una fazza, una razza) dare to leave your church!
Was my ethanol risk worth it? I thought so, and here we are two years later and nary a word about ethanol. So something happened and I am extremely proud of myself for the risk I took and of the quality of thought that I put into my work. I did not need anyone to tell me I was right, I knew I was. And I did it for the people of the Earth, and for our higher intelligence.
I am noone special. I am a gay man. I am just George.
I said I would do it and I did it. I spent $90,000 of my own money on that Globe article, to make the world listen to this little guy. And I went flat broke doing it.
But my higher power was watching, and listening. I had a very personal experience with my higher power this year, one that very, very few people have. I heard my higher power tell me that he/she/it was very impressed with me and my ethanol project. The experience was very stressful and very painful, but I proved I could hack it, with prayer and with faith. Never once losing faith.
I did not need four hallowed walls and mere mortals to guide me in prayer. I know Christ's message: do not judge, love thy neighbour. I established my own personal relationship. Our churches are rotting, and our souls are too. Go ahead, practising Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox (una fazza, una razza) dare to leave your church!
Was my ethanol risk worth it? I thought so, and here we are two years later and nary a word about ethanol. So something happened and I am extremely proud of myself for the risk I took and of the quality of thought that I put into my work. I did not need anyone to tell me I was right, I knew I was. And I did it for the people of the Earth, and for our higher intelligence.
I am noone special. I am a gay man. I am just George.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saving the Planet, George's Way
Hi all,
Well I'm back home from my desert walkabout and hard at work again. I've been focusing on twitter as a tool to get my message out, and with 1150 followers I think I'm making inroads. I've also linked my twitter account, www.twitter.com/helpstopethanol, to this blog. You can see my five most recent updates a little lower on the right side of the screen.
I read today on twitter about a group called Camfed (http://www.camfed.org/) whose goal is to educate girls in Africa. Did you know that an educated African woman has, on average, two fewer children than an uneducated one? With the planet's population predicted to grow from 6.5B to 9.5B in the next 50 years, is this not the sort of thing we should be focusing on for the sake of people and of the environment?
I also read that a First Energy electric generating facility in Ohio is in the process of switching from burning coal (a hydrocarbon) to burning wood chips and corn (hydrocarbons). This will enable them to get carbon credits. Is this a desirable outcome? Or is it just surreal?
You know that cap & trade and carbon markets, in addition to vast subsidies for renewable energy, are looming large on the American and international agendas. Here's my pitch: We need to be wary of large scale solutions because they don't always generate the desired behaviour and they can be very hard to reverse. And of course, because their impact is far-reaching. We're not talking about retrofitting McDonald's cash registers here.
No one is denying that certain climate patterns are changing, and whether we fully understand what's happening or not, who can argue against less polluting technologies? But for goodness sake lets relax about tipping points and let the scientists do their work. Tremendous progress is being made on electric cars, for example. The world is not going to end tomorrow.
And while the scientists are doing their jobs, why don't the rest of us work on making the lives of Africans and everyone else better by helping those young girls get an education?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Does it walk like a duck?
Hello everyone,
At various points in my blog, I talk about the lack of integrity I have come to see in Canada's political system when it comes to ethanol. Some of you may be uncomfortable that I won't play down the politics of this issue.
Well I won't back down. I can't. I am proud of the work I'm doing and I believe it is necessary. This dangerous situation exists precisely because of a faulty system. The problem IS the politics. If someone doesn't call these guys on their lies and hypocrisy, there will be more ethanol fiascos, banking crises, etc in the future.
Pretty strong assertions, eh? If you want proof, go here and read all about the connections between ethanol lobbyists and Canada's politicians.
Is it corruption? Decide for yourself by applying that tried and true yardstick: when it walks and talks, does it do so in a duck-like fashion?
Cheers,
George
P.S... Has anyone been noticing recent press coverage about imminent crop failures in the southern hemisphere - Argentina, Southern Brazil, Australia - due to drought? Have you heard that there is a move afoot in the U.S. to increase the ethanol blend limit in motor fuel from 10% to 15% to keep afloat an industry that was never viable in the first place? Did you know that in 2007, the U.S ethanol industry received over $3 billion in tax credits, versus $694 million for all other alternative energy sources - solar, wind, geothermal, etc - combined?
If you would like any help connecting the dots, just let me know.
At various points in my blog, I talk about the lack of integrity I have come to see in Canada's political system when it comes to ethanol. Some of you may be uncomfortable that I won't play down the politics of this issue.
Well I won't back down. I can't. I am proud of the work I'm doing and I believe it is necessary. This dangerous situation exists precisely because of a faulty system. The problem IS the politics. If someone doesn't call these guys on their lies and hypocrisy, there will be more ethanol fiascos, banking crises, etc in the future.
Pretty strong assertions, eh? If you want proof, go here and read all about the connections between ethanol lobbyists and Canada's politicians.
Is it corruption? Decide for yourself by applying that tried and true yardstick: when it walks and talks, does it do so in a duck-like fashion?
Cheers,
George
P.S... Has anyone been noticing recent press coverage about imminent crop failures in the southern hemisphere - Argentina, Southern Brazil, Australia - due to drought? Have you heard that there is a move afoot in the U.S. to increase the ethanol blend limit in motor fuel from 10% to 15% to keep afloat an industry that was never viable in the first place? Did you know that in 2007, the U.S ethanol industry received over $3 billion in tax credits, versus $694 million for all other alternative energy sources - solar, wind, geothermal, etc - combined?
If you would like any help connecting the dots, just let me know.
Friday, January 30, 2009
No We Can't
As I mentioned in previous posts, a number of people contacted me about my Globe piece. One of those people is Dr. Helmut Burkhardt, a Professor of Physics Emeritus at Ryerson University in Toronto. Dr. Burkhardt wanted me to know about a paper he published in 2006 entitled Physical Limits to Large Scale Biomass Generation for Replacing Fossil Fuels.
Dr. Burkhardt's paper helped me to understand the arithmetic of energy generation and consumption. Of the many facts and figures he presents, I found this passage particularly useful:
"The problem of large scale global use of biomass can be visualized by comparing it with food energy. A person needs some 100W of food energy - some 2000 kCal per day. Feeding the present world energy system with biomass power of 2300 W/person [current average power consumption per person] is equivalent to feeding 23 'energy slaves' for each person. It is quite obvious that a healthy World ecosystem cannot spare sufficient biomass production to feed the equivalent of 156 billion human beings."
So there are some hard numbers, for perspective. But as you know, I like to liven up hard numbers with intangibles. So here's a bit of touchy-feely stuff...
One very cold day early in the month, I found myself thinking that this business of saving the planet was lots of work. And while Toronto is a great place in June - in January, well not so much. Now just so you know, I am neither a martyr nor a saint. So I did what any normal person that just spent half his assets on a newspaper ad would do. I packed my bags and the next day my laptop and I were in New Orleans, getting ready to start a two month road trip to California and back.
Have you ever driven through the American Southwest? You should. Make sure to get off the interstate to experience the desert from the back roads. Get out of the car and walk. You'll soon see that, far from being dry and dead, the southwest desert is a wondrous place, full of life. Mesquite, creosote, agave and yucca. Roadrunners, javelinas and rattlesnakes. Broad expanses of mountains, rolling hills and open range. Endless blue sky.
Americans are a lucky bunch.
Spirituality is very personal and I don't like to talk about mine publicly. But I will say this: If this blue sphere of ours is nothing but an accident, it's one helluva of a beautiful accident indeed. During my travels I've been meeting many people - ordinary Americans, foreign tourists, parks staff, and a surprising number of Canucks - that are very committed to respecting and protecting this little accident of ours.
Unfortunately, that's not the case for everybody. Despite the physical impossibility of using plant matter to make a significant dent in our energy requirements, our governments are ignoring math and science and getting ready to dive headfirst into biomass as an alternative energy source.
And then there are people like the anonymous poster that left this telling comment to my post Farmers, and the Yin and Yang of Advocating:
"Dude, here's the fact: Ethanol = Sugar + Yeast. The planet is full of sugar, there are 70 million acres of mesquite in the US southwest with starch pods full of it - it just needs to be harvested."
How do you folks in West Texas, New Mexico and Arizona feel about that?
There you have it. If we want, we can fool ourselves into creating a "new economy" that subsidizes people to cut down, burn and plough over all of our remaining wilderness. There is no shortage of people ready to do just that if there is money to be made. But with all the wishful thinking in the world, it will not make a significant dent in our energy requirements because it is a physical impossibility.
So no, Mr. Obama, you can't.
You just can't.
Dr. Burkhardt's paper helped me to understand the arithmetic of energy generation and consumption. Of the many facts and figures he presents, I found this passage particularly useful:
"The problem of large scale global use of biomass can be visualized by comparing it with food energy. A person needs some 100W of food energy - some 2000 kCal per day. Feeding the present world energy system with biomass power of 2300 W/person [current average power consumption per person] is equivalent to feeding 23 'energy slaves' for each person. It is quite obvious that a healthy World ecosystem cannot spare sufficient biomass production to feed the equivalent of 156 billion human beings."
So there are some hard numbers, for perspective. But as you know, I like to liven up hard numbers with intangibles. So here's a bit of touchy-feely stuff...
One very cold day early in the month, I found myself thinking that this business of saving the planet was lots of work. And while Toronto is a great place in June - in January, well not so much. Now just so you know, I am neither a martyr nor a saint. So I did what any normal person that just spent half his assets on a newspaper ad would do. I packed my bags and the next day my laptop and I were in New Orleans, getting ready to start a two month road trip to California and back.
Have you ever driven through the American Southwest? You should. Make sure to get off the interstate to experience the desert from the back roads. Get out of the car and walk. You'll soon see that, far from being dry and dead, the southwest desert is a wondrous place, full of life. Mesquite, creosote, agave and yucca. Roadrunners, javelinas and rattlesnakes. Broad expanses of mountains, rolling hills and open range. Endless blue sky.
Americans are a lucky bunch.
Spirituality is very personal and I don't like to talk about mine publicly. But I will say this: If this blue sphere of ours is nothing but an accident, it's one helluva of a beautiful accident indeed. During my travels I've been meeting many people - ordinary Americans, foreign tourists, parks staff, and a surprising number of Canucks - that are very committed to respecting and protecting this little accident of ours.
Unfortunately, that's not the case for everybody. Despite the physical impossibility of using plant matter to make a significant dent in our energy requirements, our governments are ignoring math and science and getting ready to dive headfirst into biomass as an alternative energy source.
And then there are people like the anonymous poster that left this telling comment to my post Farmers, and the Yin and Yang of Advocating:
"Dude, here's the fact: Ethanol = Sugar + Yeast. The planet is full of sugar, there are 70 million acres of mesquite in the US southwest with starch pods full of it - it just needs to be harvested."
How do you folks in West Texas, New Mexico and Arizona feel about that?
There you have it. If we want, we can fool ourselves into creating a "new economy" that subsidizes people to cut down, burn and plough over all of our remaining wilderness. There is no shortage of people ready to do just that if there is money to be made. But with all the wishful thinking in the world, it will not make a significant dent in our energy requirements because it is a physical impossibility.
So no, Mr. Obama, you can't.
You just can't.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Un-Canadian
Hi everyone,
It's been a couple of weeks so it's time for a new post. I'm finding that building grassroots support is a bit like starting a campfire. You work like crazy to get those first few sparks ignited, and then you pray. I think this is one fire that's about to catch. In addition to the 100 plus people that have written me and the government with their support, my facebook group now has 257 members. That means people young and old are listening. You know this facebook thing - when it catches, it doesn't take long to catch like wildfire.
I have also internationalized and shortened my article Ethanol: An Imminent Threat to Humanity. The obscure Canadian political bits are gone to make it relevant to Americans and others. Just in time for Mr. Obama's inauguration and his energy team's all-out assault on the planet's environment and economic well-being. Death by ethanol disguised as energy policy. Deathanol.
I submitted the piece to the New York Times as an OpEd, but I guess they had better offers. Apparently, the forces of the universe are bound and determined that it is up to me to save the world with absolutely no help from the establishment.
Fine then, I will.
Please read my article. If you agree with what I'm saying then cut, paste and send it to everyone you know.
Many countries have implemented policies to encourage the replacement of conventional fuel with ethanol and other bio-fuels typically made from corn or other grains. The International Energy Agency estimates that it would take 15% - 20% of the world's farmland to achieve a minimum content requirement of just 5% ethanol in motor fuel, if that standard was implemented worldwide.
With today's level of agricultural productivity, 15% of the world's farmland feeds about one billion of its people. For every percentage point of the world's farmland that we choose to divert to fuel crops, food for 65 million people will disappear.
See the problem?
Did you know that 2008 was one of the best years ever in just about every agricultural region on earth, yet global grain stocks are near all time lows? It’s clear now that the world is using grains faster than it can produce them even in the best of years. Unless we act quickly, we will run out of food.
See the other problem?
If this sounds serious, that’s because it is. So let’s take a closer look at last spring’s food crisis flare up. With a bit of basic economics, perhaps we can understand and learn from it.
For some time leading up to last spring, demand for food grains had been exceeding supply. Not even the ethanol lobby denied that the ethanol boom played a part in the supply/demand imbalance. The result was historically low grain stockpiles. Where the world usually has six months' supply of food grains, last spring it dropped to less than two months' worth.
Economic theory teaches that no commodity is more sensitive to the forces of supply and demand than food. In fact, when there's a concern that supply will not meet demand, the economics of food become the economics of scarcity. Panic buying, hoarding and large price gyrations occur. Intuitively, this is not hard to understand.
Theoretically, it can be explained with concepts from Economics 101. First, in economic terms, demand for food is almost completely inelastic, meaning that it remains almost constant in the face of supply drops or price increases because people can't put off the decision to eat until the economics become more favorable. Secondly, prices of basic staples are inter-related because one can substitute for another in basic diets. In economic terms, they are substitute goods. Hence, even a small deficit in the supply/demand balance for corn can cause shortages and price spikes not only for corn but for rice, wheat, and soybeans too, as people shift their diets in search of affordable alternatives.
That's what we started to see last spring. Supply could not keep up with demand, cupboards became increasingly bare, and there was a run up in prices for all grains. The world's poorest economies were most affected because their people are least able to absorb increased costs. They began to fear losing access to affordable food and the results were predictable: demonstrations, riots, panic buying, and export restrictions in some countries (hoarding on a national scale).
The key point: Even a very small ongoing deficit between supply and demand quickly translates into shortages and very large price spikes. That, and that people get incredibly cranky when their grocery bill triples. Not a good idea to mess around with the world's food supply.
Let's be clear. The market wasn’t breaking down last spring. It was behaving exactly as science predicts. When you take food production out of the system, you'd better be damn sure you can replace 100% of it with new supply or else there will be bidding wars for what remains and someone down the line will have to go without.
Luckily, exceptional weather conditions and the general collapse of commodity prices brought grain markets back to earth last summer. The underlying supply/demand problem, however, did not go away. Yet governments that should have learned something insist on forcing increasingly greater amounts of grain out of the food supply to make bio-fuel. What happens if, this year, we aren’t so lucky with the weather?
This is a man-made problem and it is putting everyone at risk.Will it affect you when your supermarket starts to run out of bread, rice, and pasta, and has to triple their prices? How about chicken, beef, eggs and milk - because farm animals eat grains too? In fact, when everything you eat is under pressure because when people can't get one type of food they try to substitute another?
How will it affect the ONE BILLION people that make less than $2 a day? Or the 60% of the world's population that is already malnourished, according to the World Health Organization?
What happens when food goes out-of-stock anyway? Can you back-order it? Do some people stop eating for a while? Or will we somehow convince everyone to eat a little bit less, say with higher food prices? Will we be fair and allocate higher prices disproportionally to the wealthy? Or will the world’s poor get priced out and resort to rioting again? Maybe even killing each other over scraps? After all, with that stubborn financial crisis that no one predicted, we won’t have as much emergency food aid money to give as last year, will we?
The stakes are high. If we keep pushing ethanol, we’d better start thinking hard about the likelihood that the entire world - developed and developing – will face the economic, geopolitical and humanitarian implications of food hyper-inflation and widespread hunger this year.
No discussion of ethanol would be complete without considering the environment. It certainly seems that fuel you can grow should be a great alternative to oil. And if it was, one could try making the case that the risks are worth it. But by now you probably know that almost as much energy goes into growing, harvesting, transporting and refining grains as is produced by the process. And that deforestation, pollution from fertilizers, and impacts on water supply are real concerns as more land is pressured to grow even more crops. And that outfits like the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund have all spoken out against ethanol. And some very well respected scientists too.
No, ethanol is NOT good environmental policy.
Lots of time can be spent arguing that ethanol is not the only factor contributing to the food crisis – that fuel costs, improving diets in the developing world and poor weather in past years have influenced supply/demand and inflation. In fact, wasting time arguing the relative impact of each factor is exactly what the ethanol industry wants us to do. Why would it want to change the status quo? It gets huge subsidies to help us burn food.
Of course there are many factors affecting the world's food supply. No, talking about them ad nauseum isn't going to solve the problem. We need an immediate, concrete way to restore sustainable balance. The only lever that can do that is the one that caused the imbalance in the first place: ethanol policy.
Any sensible government should be facing up to that inconvenient truth and pulling the ethanol lever – subsidies and quotas - right now.
Concerned? Tell President Obama: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/... and join my facebook group Stop Ethanol and Save the Planet so we can prove the strength of our numbers.
It's been a couple of weeks so it's time for a new post. I'm finding that building grassroots support is a bit like starting a campfire. You work like crazy to get those first few sparks ignited, and then you pray. I think this is one fire that's about to catch. In addition to the 100 plus people that have written me and the government with their support, my facebook group now has 257 members. That means people young and old are listening. You know this facebook thing - when it catches, it doesn't take long to catch like wildfire.
I have also internationalized and shortened my article Ethanol: An Imminent Threat to Humanity. The obscure Canadian political bits are gone to make it relevant to Americans and others. Just in time for Mr. Obama's inauguration and his energy team's all-out assault on the planet's environment and economic well-being. Death by ethanol disguised as energy policy. Deathanol.
I submitted the piece to the New York Times as an OpEd, but I guess they had better offers. Apparently, the forces of the universe are bound and determined that it is up to me to save the world with absolutely no help from the establishment.
Fine then, I will.
Please read my article. If you agree with what I'm saying then cut, paste and send it to everyone you know.
Ethanol: An Imminent Threat to Humanity
Many countries have implemented policies to encourage the replacement of conventional fuel with ethanol and other bio-fuels typically made from corn or other grains. The International Energy Agency estimates that it would take 15% - 20% of the world's farmland to achieve a minimum content requirement of just 5% ethanol in motor fuel, if that standard was implemented worldwide.
With today's level of agricultural productivity, 15% of the world's farmland feeds about one billion of its people. For every percentage point of the world's farmland that we choose to divert to fuel crops, food for 65 million people will disappear.
See the problem?
Did you know that 2008 was one of the best years ever in just about every agricultural region on earth, yet global grain stocks are near all time lows? It’s clear now that the world is using grains faster than it can produce them even in the best of years. Unless we act quickly, we will run out of food.
See the other problem?
If this sounds serious, that’s because it is. So let’s take a closer look at last spring’s food crisis flare up. With a bit of basic economics, perhaps we can understand and learn from it.
For some time leading up to last spring, demand for food grains had been exceeding supply. Not even the ethanol lobby denied that the ethanol boom played a part in the supply/demand imbalance. The result was historically low grain stockpiles. Where the world usually has six months' supply of food grains, last spring it dropped to less than two months' worth.
Economic theory teaches that no commodity is more sensitive to the forces of supply and demand than food. In fact, when there's a concern that supply will not meet demand, the economics of food become the economics of scarcity. Panic buying, hoarding and large price gyrations occur. Intuitively, this is not hard to understand.
Theoretically, it can be explained with concepts from Economics 101. First, in economic terms, demand for food is almost completely inelastic, meaning that it remains almost constant in the face of supply drops or price increases because people can't put off the decision to eat until the economics become more favorable. Secondly, prices of basic staples are inter-related because one can substitute for another in basic diets. In economic terms, they are substitute goods. Hence, even a small deficit in the supply/demand balance for corn can cause shortages and price spikes not only for corn but for rice, wheat, and soybeans too, as people shift their diets in search of affordable alternatives.
That's what we started to see last spring. Supply could not keep up with demand, cupboards became increasingly bare, and there was a run up in prices for all grains. The world's poorest economies were most affected because their people are least able to absorb increased costs. They began to fear losing access to affordable food and the results were predictable: demonstrations, riots, panic buying, and export restrictions in some countries (hoarding on a national scale).
The key point: Even a very small ongoing deficit between supply and demand quickly translates into shortages and very large price spikes. That, and that people get incredibly cranky when their grocery bill triples. Not a good idea to mess around with the world's food supply.
Let's be clear. The market wasn’t breaking down last spring. It was behaving exactly as science predicts. When you take food production out of the system, you'd better be damn sure you can replace 100% of it with new supply or else there will be bidding wars for what remains and someone down the line will have to go without.
Luckily, exceptional weather conditions and the general collapse of commodity prices brought grain markets back to earth last summer. The underlying supply/demand problem, however, did not go away. Yet governments that should have learned something insist on forcing increasingly greater amounts of grain out of the food supply to make bio-fuel. What happens if, this year, we aren’t so lucky with the weather?
This is a man-made problem and it is putting everyone at risk.Will it affect you when your supermarket starts to run out of bread, rice, and pasta, and has to triple their prices? How about chicken, beef, eggs and milk - because farm animals eat grains too? In fact, when everything you eat is under pressure because when people can't get one type of food they try to substitute another?
How will it affect the ONE BILLION people that make less than $2 a day? Or the 60% of the world's population that is already malnourished, according to the World Health Organization?
What happens when food goes out-of-stock anyway? Can you back-order it? Do some people stop eating for a while? Or will we somehow convince everyone to eat a little bit less, say with higher food prices? Will we be fair and allocate higher prices disproportionally to the wealthy? Or will the world’s poor get priced out and resort to rioting again? Maybe even killing each other over scraps? After all, with that stubborn financial crisis that no one predicted, we won’t have as much emergency food aid money to give as last year, will we?
The stakes are high. If we keep pushing ethanol, we’d better start thinking hard about the likelihood that the entire world - developed and developing – will face the economic, geopolitical and humanitarian implications of food hyper-inflation and widespread hunger this year.
No discussion of ethanol would be complete without considering the environment. It certainly seems that fuel you can grow should be a great alternative to oil. And if it was, one could try making the case that the risks are worth it. But by now you probably know that almost as much energy goes into growing, harvesting, transporting and refining grains as is produced by the process. And that deforestation, pollution from fertilizers, and impacts on water supply are real concerns as more land is pressured to grow even more crops. And that outfits like the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund have all spoken out against ethanol. And some very well respected scientists too.
No, ethanol is NOT good environmental policy.
Lots of time can be spent arguing that ethanol is not the only factor contributing to the food crisis – that fuel costs, improving diets in the developing world and poor weather in past years have influenced supply/demand and inflation. In fact, wasting time arguing the relative impact of each factor is exactly what the ethanol industry wants us to do. Why would it want to change the status quo? It gets huge subsidies to help us burn food.
Of course there are many factors affecting the world's food supply. No, talking about them ad nauseum isn't going to solve the problem. We need an immediate, concrete way to restore sustainable balance. The only lever that can do that is the one that caused the imbalance in the first place: ethanol policy.
Any sensible government should be facing up to that inconvenient truth and pulling the ethanol lever – subsidies and quotas - right now.
Concerned? Tell President Obama: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/... and join my facebook group Stop Ethanol and Save the Planet so we can prove the strength of our numbers.
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