As I've been saying for a long time, the use of corn and other crops that could be consumed by hungry human beings to convert into fuel for our cars and SUVs is not just foolhardy, it's unethical. Now comes a new study by the World Bank, which finds that "[b]iofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated."
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
Hopefully, studies like this will put the nail in the coffin for corn-based ethanol and other such idiocy. So why isn't this report getting broader exposure? Take one guess:
Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush."It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.
That's right, the report is being suppressed so that sensitive George and Dick won't be embarrassed in the waning days of their Worst Presidency Ever. Meanwhile, "Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt."
But c'mon, priorities priorities. On the one hand, we have 100 million people pushed below the poverty line. On the other hand, we have potential embarrassment for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Obviously, we all know what the answer is here, just as it's been with reports on global warming and many other subjects: suppress the "inconvenient truth" - inconvenient, that is, to the Bush Administration, to Republicans more broadly, and to their financiers in Big Oil, Big Agribusiness, etc.
And yet...as Galileo said after he was forced to "recant" that the Earth revolved around the sun, "eppur si muove" - "and yet it moves!" As much as the Bush Administration wants to suppress the truth, in the end it will come out. In this case, the truth is that corn-based ethanol is a boondoggle, a public policy debacle, and a disaster for people around the world. Heckuva job!
You need to use a TON of corn to get results, compared to most other biofuels.
By the way, the "Brazil model" is mainly based on increasing conventional oil production from deep, offshore drilling. The "Brazil model" is NOT, first and foremost, about sugar cane ethanol.
As for Dubya, he keeps claiming that his legacy will improve over time. I doubt it. If anything, he'll fall from worst President so far, to worst President for all time (past and future) as the ripple effects of his horrible, incompetent, and corrupt actions ruin, well, just about everything.
Environmentalists are bracing for a final battle with the Bush administration over its efforts to weaken clean water, air and toxic waste regulations before a new president moves into the White House.With only about six months left in office, the administration is proposing rule changes that would repeal a 25-year ban on loaded guns in national parks, ease air pollution regulations on power plants near the parks, exempt factory farms from key provisions of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, allow mountaintop mining near streams, and make it easier to dump hazardous waste into the recycling system.
"The Bush administration is feverishly trying to undo as many environmental regulations as it can in the final days before the president leaves office in order to reward big business and special interest groups that have supported them," said Anna Aurilio, director of Environment America's Washington, D.C., office. "It's really a shame because it could take years to undo some of the damage."