Is this a proud day for the global warming movement?

Question

I just watched George Bush defend the most obscene program that the brains that led us to this edge of disaster say we need now to avoid it. That is turning food into gasoline and farm land into fuel production in a world where starvation kills millions who have little or no food every year. We pay big subsidies to those willing to stop feeding us and as a result there’s a food disaster coming that is a lot more obvious than any global warming chart, any so-called environmental expert can fudge.

Congratulations environmentalists. This has always been your baby, a cornerstone policy of your new green world. But I lay awake at night thinking about the misery you and George Bush have done. And you lay awake thinking about how to sell me on even more of those poison pills, those magic pills that your incessant whining suggests solves everything. You should be required to carry warning labels to protect the public. Where am I wrong?

Answer 1

What movement??? The Earth warms then goes into an ice age. Its a cycle. This isn't the first time, and this wont be the last. Try listening to science that isn't funded by politicians with an agenda.

Answer 2

You're wrong if you think the environmentalists support the biofuel programs in the starving countries.  You're wrong if you think the biofuel programs are the cause of the starvation.  And you're wrong if you think George Bush is on the side of the environmentalists.  He was on your side in word and deed up until late last year, and he remains on your side in deed.  He and his Administration are being sued from every side by people trying to get him to allow the EPA and other agencies to do their jobs.  He was taken to the Supreme Court once and they ruled that the EPA was responsible for managing Greenhouse Gases (duh!).  The Governors of 18 States are taking him back to the Supreme Court to make him follow their earlier ruling (double duh!).  He has dragged his feet on enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, and has just been taken to Federal Court on that.  I have no doubt he'll make them take it all the way to the Supreme Court also, as he has with every environmental issue that has arisen during his Administration.

As the farmers point out, they are exceeding production goals for both food and biofuels so biofuels cannot be "causing lower food production". They blame the food problems on high oil prices and droughts due to Global Warming. There is no doubt that the biofuels programs in these countries are ill advised in most cases. However both the government of the USA and the EU provide financial subsides to those farmers to grow biofuels, but none if they grow food (or invest in their own agricultural programs).   In fact, both the EU and the USA purchase food on the world market and sell it below cost in their local markets to prevent them developing an agribusiness of their own.  50% of the grain the USA provides to these countries each year is in this category.

Now here is what is really behind the food prices and shortages. The great financial houses that manage America's pension plans took huge losses last year in the real estate market. In an effort to recoup those losses they are speculating in the futures market in food commodites. Here's how that works. You first buy futures in a commodity, say rice. This means you agree to buy the rice at a future date at a price you lock in today. Then you find a way to make the price go up, or you create a shortage. Once you've done that you just unload the futures to someone else who will see them as a bargain. The financial houses freely admit they are doing this. It is legal, although the UN would like to see speculation in food banned.

Answer 3

You believe George Bush when he says that he's doing something environmental?  That's hilarious!

I agree that producing ethanol fuel and biodiesel from food crops has tremendous negative consequences:

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/hot_...

"E85, a blended fuel consisting of 85-percent ethanol and 15-percent gasoline, has been championed (by GM in particular) as a viable and green solution to the petroleum problem. Unfortunately, both adjectives are a stretch. You could fill volumes with debate over the benefits and social, fiscal, and environmental costs of ethanol, at least the starch-derived strains, so we won’t.

What you need to know is that E85 reduces the fuel economy of any vehicle burning it by about 25 percent."

"Pres. George Bush recently announced a proposed mandate for 35 billion gallons of ethanol production by 2017, so you’ll probably see more vehicles so equipped, regardless."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080207/ap_o...

"The widespread use of ethanol from corn could result in nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions as the gasoline it would replace because of expected land-use changes, researchers concluded Thursday. The study challenges the rush to biofuels as a response to global warming."

"Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning," says the Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of the corn-to-car fuel process. His findings will be published in September, 2001 in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug...

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Where you're wrong (thanks for asking) is for you to be blaming environmentalists.  No way would they back ethanol or biodiesel, which is driving the clearcutting of enormous portions of the Amazon Rain Forest:

"The United States will not be able to produce sufficient biomass for biofuel domestically to satisfy its energy appetite. Instead, energy crops will be cultivated in the Global South. Large sugarcane, oil palm, and soy plantations are already supplanting forests and grasslands in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, and Paraguay. Soy cultivation has already resulted in the deforestation of 21 million hectares of forests in Brazil, 14 million hectares in Argentina, two million hectares in Paraguay and 600,000 hectares in Bolivia. In response to global market pressure, Brazil alone will likely clear an additional 60 million hectares of land in the near future (Bravo 2006)."

http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/biofuels/...

The biofuels boom will further consolidate their hold over our food and fuel systems and allow them to determine what, how and how much will be grown, resulting in more rural poverty, environmental destruction and hunger. The ultimate beneficiaries of the biofuel revolution will be grain merchant giants, including Cargill, ADM and Bunge; petroleum companies such as BP, Shell, Chevron, Neste Oil, Repsol and Total; car companies such as General Motors, Volkswagen AG, FMC-Ford France, PSA Peugeot-Citroen and Renault; and biotech giants such as Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta.

http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/biofuels/...

Clearly the major global companies behind this money-making scheme are not "environmentalists", no matter how "green" they paint their activities in their marketing pitches.  The fact is, it's people who believe their dishonest "green" marketing, who fail to take the time to educate themselves, who fail to understand and listen to environmentalists, who allow this sort of travesty to occur.  

Your senseless finger-pointing, at the people who need support to stop the damage, will only allow the problem to continue and to get worse.

Answer 4

Well, whether or not the plan is a good one or not, I don't know. I do know that the environmentalists are being listened to because they have the facts on their side, not because of a conspiracy, not because environmentalism is a religion, and not because they are getting rich off it. More people will lose money by far, and the people with the most monetary power have the most to lose from GW.

Answer 5

Since you asked, here's where you're wrong.

Food experts agree that the role of biofuels in the present food problems, while significant, is only a small part of the problem.  We simply aren't making enough biofuel to drive the situation.

The main problems are drought (possibly due to global warming) and the rise of meat consumption in countries like China, which formerly ate little.  It takes a lot of grain to make meat.

But, the big issue is this.

This is just a prelude to much more serious food shortages if we do nothing about global warming.  The damage it will cause to agriculture in countries like Bangladesh is enormous.  We truly will have many people starving and fleeing across borders, causing wars.

Answer 6

Oh yeah,  W gets religion on GW and caves to agri-business...

and this is the fault of environmentalism?

Biofuels based on food crops are an abomination whether they take food from the starving or not.

Biofuels based on plant waste will be just as bad, we'll cut down trees for the sawdust.

"This has always been your baby, a cornerstone policy of your new green world"

Your entire premise is wrong.

When you need to make a point, just lie.  Most people are ignorant anyway.

Answer 7

Many environmentalists don't believe in bio-fuels, as it does what u say causes food shortages ect.   They want totally different solutions like hydro power ect that wont affect anyone and the rain forests as its being cut down for palm oil

Answer 8

Weather and climate cannot be regulated politically!  



We must clean up dirty air to ensure future generations are free pollution as much as possible.

But to insinuate that these effects are causing long term global warming/climate change,  is noxious in it's own right.

We clean up pollution so our children and elderly don't die from respiratory problems.  

Al Gore made this a political issue and he is no meteorologist or climatologist.  Much of the data that is used to forecast warming trends is from geologic studies and observations.   This is a hint but not a fact and we should be careful not to make predictions with specious data.

We should not alarm children about massive heat waves that will burn up the earth.   We should study what we can to determine what is going on,  but patients are allowed second opinions so the patient can get the best treatment.

Likewise with weather and climate.

Answer 9

You make a good point. However, I don't think that most environmentalists realize the scope of the destruction they are causing. I think they believe in their cause regardless how misguided it may be. Didn't someone once say the road to destruction was paved with good intentions.

On the other hand there are plenty of others who have very bad intentions whose fuel is greed. Greed after all is not exclusive to the entities of so called big oil.

Answer 10

The real green movement is about money.

Answer 11

John, there's only a few more months to go.  Hang on, and check out what our next President has to say.