Just How Far Will We Let This Global Warming Hysteria Go?

Question

"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."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/14/ccview114.xml

This whole deal smacks of the DDT business. Hope that spotted Owl was worth it.

Answer 1

It's not hysteria, it's proven scientific fact.  These guys agree.

The National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Physics, the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Association, etc.

If you think food shortages are a problem now, they'll be a nightmare if we do nothing about global warming.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNe...

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg2.h...

EDIT - You're right that crops would grow in different places.  Moving our intensive agriculture and irrigation systems will not be easy.  Not to mention the geopolitics of crops moving across national borders.  Note that changing precipitation patterns add to the problem.  One reason there'll be problems is precipitation will move toward the poles, leaving good land short of good water.

The advanced nations can cope, but it will cost them _huge_ sums of money.  Places like Bangladesh, where much farmland will be flooded by sea water, can't cope.

Answer 2

GW is a scam just look at who is making billions of dollars.

Answer 3

Yes, you've answered the $64,000 question!  Global warming mandates only serve to artificially increase food and fuel prices and cause shortages.  And all for what?  For a phenomenon that politicians and the media are playing upon people's fears when it's just another little fluctuation in earth's life cycle.

Answer 4

crazy isn't it?  We sometimes need a crisis to adapt to change though...

Answer 5

Biofuels are a good idea, but the US biofuel policy reeks of special interest.  If we are really serious about ethanol, then lets use plants that are plentiful, fast growing, and high in sugar content, like sugarcane.  Brazil would love us, and we could prevent the coming food crisis.

We could even promote biodiesel if we had more diesel engines to use it in.

Corn is not the answer.  If it were the answer, then you would NEED global warming in order to have enough available land, growing season, and CO2 to even have a chance for corn to work.

Answer 6

Hysteria feeds on itself especially if that hysteria is being funded in the billions of dollars.

Answer 7

Global warming is the warming up of the planet above the temperature it "should" be. It is such a concern at the moment as it seems that the temperature is rising at a rate far faster than ever before and it is thought that it may be the activities of the human population over the last 150 years or so that is doing it.

Global warming is the single biggest threat to wildlife today.

Scientists have told us that we must reduce global warming pollution by 80% by 2050 to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. They have set the goal, now we have to set the pace. We can get there by reducing global warming pollution by 2% every year for the next 40 years.

The Antarctic Peninsula is particularly sensitive to small rises in the annual average temperature, this has increased about 2.5�C in the region in the last 50 years, this is 2 or 3 times faster than the average in the rest of the world. The temperature of Antarctica as a whole is predicted to rise by a small amount over the next 50 years. Any increase in the rate of ice melting is expected to be at least partly offset by increased snowfall as a result of the warming.

Answer 8

You're jumbling two things together (Global Warming and biofuels).  

In a less biased source that report also says

"The EU finances the exports of European agricultural surpluses to Africa ... where they are offered at one half or one third of their (production) price," the UN official charged.

"That completely ruins African agriculture," he added.

"In addition, international market speculation on food commodities must cease"

So biofuels may be a contributing factor at most.  Australian farmers blame the problems on droughts caused by Global Warming

"  contributing factors to rising food prices are the high price of oil (which increases costs of food production and distribution), population growth in Asia and drought in wheat-producing countries including Australia and Kazakhstan. "

as does this National Geographic artice.

"  Impoverished farmers in South Asia and southern Africa could face growing food shortages due to climate change within just 20 years, a new study says.

Increasing levels of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are heating up the planet, with droughts and shifting rainfall patterns predicted for many parts of the world. "

American farmers blame Oil and Oil and Oil

"  Corn prices have had minimal impact on rising food prices according to a report released by Texas A&M's Agricultural and Food Policy Center. Instead the study says the underlying force raising the cost of food is higher oil prices, and the cost of groceries like bread, milk and eggs are unrelated to corn prices or ethanol.

"The Texas A&M study dispels the food versus fuel debate," says National Corn Growers Association President Ron Litterer. "This study shows there are many forces creating increases in food costs and ethanol is not a major factor. Clearly, corn is meeting the demands for biofuels."

The report also found that relaxing the Renewable Fuels Standard that calls for the use of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022 would not lower corn prices. The ethanol infrastructure is in place and the industry has grown in excess of the RFS, so relaxing it would not lower corn prices.

According to the study, the price of oil that has gone to $100 per barrel is the main factor impacting the agricultural industry and the economy as a whole "

I agree with the UN that biofuels are causing problems, but I don't agree that the food shortages are among them.  True you can feed people corn, but the areas with food shortages are short of wheat and rice.  How can biofuels be causing that?  Even so, I don't like these programs because of the damage being done to the rain forests.

The idea that the programs are a component of Global Warming is infantile.  In my opinion most of them were hand picked by special interests trying to demonstrate failure so petroleum technology can be continued.