Global hunger or global warming

[shetuck]

I'm starting this thread because I think this debate is the next hot topic as humanity struggles to get its arms around the effects (both positive and negative) of globalization.

The notion that a premature emphasis on converting to biofuels in order to ameliorate the effects of global warming will only serve to effectively steal food from the mouths of the world's poorest populations is a debate will continue to gather momentum.

Here's a piece from today's NYT that sort of sets the stage.

I'll follow it up with a piece from today's UK Telegraph that sets the debate up as the flip-side to concerns about global warming.

The issue is a classic demonstration of the "there's no such thing as a free lunch" addage, in action.


NYT: Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing

Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing

April 15, 2008

By ANDREW MARTIN

The idea of turning farms into fuel plants seemed, for a time, like one of the answers to high global oil prices and supply worries. That strategy seemed to reach a high point last year when Congress mandated a fivefold increase in the use of biofuels.

But now a reaction is building against policies in the United States and Europe to promote ethanol and similar fuels, with political leaders from poor countries contending that these fuels are driving up food prices and starving poor people. Biofuels are fast becoming a new flash point in global diplomacy, putting pressure on Western politicians to reconsider their policies, even as they argue that biofuels are only one factor in the seemingly inexorable rise in food prices.

In some countries, the higher prices are leading to riots, political instability and growing worries about feeding the poorest people. Food riots contributed to the dismissal of Haiti?s prime minister last week, and leaders in some other countries are nervously trying to calm anxious consumers.

At a weekend conference in Washington, finance ministers and central bankers of seven leading industrial nations called for urgent action to deal with the price spikes, and several of them demanded a reconsideration of biofuel policies adopted recently in the West.

Many specialists in food policy consider government mandates for biofuels to be ill advised, agreeing that the diversion of crops like corn into fuel production has contributed to the higher prices. But other factors have played big roles, including droughts that have limited output and rapid global economic growth that has created higher demand for food.

That growth, much faster over the last four years than the historical norm, is lifting millions of people out of destitution and giving them access to better diets. But farmers are having trouble keeping up with the surge in demand.

While there is agreement that the growth of biofuels has contributed to higher food prices, the amount is disputed.

cont'd...

[shetuck]

Telegraph (UK): Global warming rage lets global hunger grow

Global warming rage lets global hunger grow

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor

Last Updated: 1:08pm BST 15/04/2008

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

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.

"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.

Mr Diouf says world grain stocks have fallen to a quarter-century low of 5m tonnes, rations for eight to 12 weeks. America - the world's food superpower - will divert 18pc of its grain output for ethanol this year, chiefly to break dependency on oil imports. It has a 45pc biofuel target for corn by 2015.

Argentina, Canada, and Eastern Europe are joining the race.

The EU has targeted a 5.75pc biofuel share by 2010, though that may change. Europe's farm ministers are to debate a measure this week ensuring "absolute priority" for food output.

"The world food situation is very serious: we have seen riots in Egypt, Cameroon, Haiti and Burkina Faso," said Mr Diouf. "There is a risk that this unrest will spread in countries where 50pc to 60pc of income goes to food," he said.

Haiti's government fell over the weekend following rice and bean riots. Five died.

The global food bill has risen 57pc in the last year. Soaring freight rates make it worse. The cost of food "on the table" has jumped by 74pc in poor countries that rely on imports, according to the FAO.

Roughly 100m people are tipping over the survival line. The import ratio for grains is: Eritrea (88pc), Sierra Leone (85pc), Niger (81pc), Liberia (75pc), Botswana (72pc), Haiti (67pc), and Bangladesh (65pc).

This Malthusian crunch has been building for a long time. We are adding 73m mouths a year. The global population will grow from 6.5bn to 9.5bn before peaking near mid-century.

[...]

The world intelligentsia has been asleep at the wheel. While we rage over global warming, global hunger has swept in under the radar screen.

[AKAKBUCK]

Hey shetuck, give it up, you get ridiculed around here for making the assertion that "going green" (at least without thinking it through) kills people.

[shetuck]

Originally Posted by AKAKBUCK

Hey shetuck, give it up, you get ridiculed around here for making the assertion that "going green" (at least without thinking it through) kills people.

Huh! And all along I've been thinking that "turning blue" is what killed people!

See that's why these debates are so important!

Long live BP!!!

[scarletandgrey]

Not to sound in-humane but really I think that the global warming issue is of more concern. Unfortunately most of the "poor" countries are smaller and do not have the natural resources to produce a large enough economy to sustain the country. Therefore leading to the hunger problem.

Now as far using the farms to produce fuel plants instead of harvest grains or other vegetables to help feed these famished nations i feel is a necessary evil.

You see if we continue to be as oil dependent as we are our economy is going to suffer drastically maybe even leading to a higher poverty rate here in the USA. Now if we can reduce that amount of oil dependancy by using fuel plants I'm all for it.

I know we should help feed the world but if global warming continues it could have such devastating effects that the entire world could be famished not just poor countries. Basically I believe in the fact that we should take care of our own here in the USA before we worry about what's happening in other people's homes.

[Bucky Katt]

Originally Posted by shetuck