Ethanol cars run on human misery.

[denem]

That oh-so-progressive chief of the WTO has a few words to dayy on the march of biofuels and world hunger:

Fill up with E85, starve a child. 11th April 2008

The head of the World Bank has said that soaring food prices are causing hardship and starvation for poor people worldwide, and implied that at least some of the blame lay with Western governments' efforts to encourage biofuel use.

"While many worry about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs," said Bank supremo Robert Zoellick, quoted in today's Guardian.

"This is not just about meals forgone today, or about increasing social unrest, it is about lost learning potential for children and adults in the future, stunted intellectual and physical growth," he added.

"We estimate that the effect of this food crisis on poverty reduction worldwide is in the order of seven lost years."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/11/world_bank_biofuel_kicking/

.

I also wonder how many acres of Brazilian rain forest it takes to fill a few E85 SUVs?

[SteinbachMB]

1. Using food crops for gas

...is INSANE.

[TheFarseer]

12. this was a bit hard to predict

corn was a historically low $1.60/bushel just a few years ago and farming as we know it was a few years from being completely ruined. Now it's swung back way too far the other direction. No matter what you use for biofuels, it will take land out of food production.

[OwnedByFerrets]

2. He seemed to be very upset this morning when

his interviewer tried to back him into this corner.

[denem]

3. Yeah, what can you expect when WTO rules puts the enviromnent

onto the bonfire. 'Reclaiming agricultural land' in Indonesia.

[denem]

4. Who cares?

It's the price at the pump and a few votes in Iowa right? :sarcasm:

[Pavulon]

5. Beats Arab Oil..

expect dis-information. We direct fortunes out of this country for oil. Any bio product that we can use as fuel takes money from these guys.

We are destroying supply by converting it to energy.

[denem]

6. And the hungry be damned.

Try tuning in the BBC for 'food riots' at the moment, in low oil using nations. A UN request went out of hundred's of thousands of tons of seed. Few acceptances, but all that grain makes a pretty gallon of gas.

[madeline_con]

11. Please read up on the subject.

It's not the oil companies that publish the truth about how the poor are exploited for plant-based fuel.

[cynatnite]

7. Brazil uses sugar cane to make their ethanol....

I read a long time ago that it's much better than the ethanol here in the states which grain is made from. Now, I can see someone saying that it can harm food supplies in that case.

[Omaha Steve]

8. Today the price is about 75 cent less for E-85 in the Omaha area

Hard for some people to pass up even with the reduced mileage.

[Jack_DeLeon]

9. I support sustainable growth...

it seems alot of nations cant sustain thier growth without foreign food, which IMO is sad for them, but will eventually work itself out eventually.

A couple years back I remember a news report that farmers in other nations complaining that Americanss dumping thier excess grains on the world market and as foreign aid was driving down the prices to where they couldnt make a profit.

Now it seems that is no longer the case, it looks like they should be able to make profits now and maybe there will be more farming to feed the people.

The real downside I see is that unfortunately more rainforests will probably be burned out to make room for more farms.

[madeline_con]

10. Thanks for posting!

People should not buy into the "green hype". :hi:

[HughMoran]

13. This caught me off gaurd. Amazing that people are rioting over food prices

Oil creates death and despair - who knew food crops would be turned into fuel without significant planning or thought put into the consequences.