Would you say that the global warming hypothesis has led to food shortages worldwide?

Question

With the surge in systems worldwide being operated on food products partly due to the global warming scare, is it feasible to believe that it has caused food shortages worldwide?

Answer 1

With about 25% of the US corn and oil grain crop diverted to ethanol production-- and with the $4.30 per gallon cost of diesel fuel driving up the cost of transportation (of all types- including ocean shipping).... food prices worldwide have escalated.

Answer 2

Yes.... and even more.

From the Wall Street Journal:

"Ethanol's Water Shortage

October 17, 2007

If the Senate's new "renewable fuels" mandate becomes law, get ready for a giant slurping sound as Midwest water supplies are siphoned off to slake Big Ethanol. House and Senate negotiators are preparing for an energy-bill conference, and if the Senate's language prevails, America's economy will be forced to consume more than five times current ethanol production.

Heavily subsidized and absurdly inefficient, corn-based ethanol has already driven up food prices. But the Senate's plan to increase production to 36 billion gallons by 2022, from less than seven billion today, will place even greater pressure on farm-belt aquifers.

Some corn-producing regions are already scrapping over dwindling supply.  The Grand Forks Herald reports local opposition to a proposed ethanol plant in Erskine, Minnesota, with anti-refinery yard signs sprouting up and residents concerned about well water. Backers of a proposed plant in Jamestown, North Dakota, recently withdrew their application when it became clear that the plant's million-gallon-a-day appetite would drain too much from a local aquifer.  

Ethanol's big environmental footprint is not limited to water, because biofuels like ethanol are highly inefficient. In September, the Chairman of the OECD's Roundtable on Sustainable Development released a report entitled, "Biofuels: Is the Cure Worse than the Disease?"

Oil -- because it requires only a narrow hole in the earth and is extracted as a highly concentrated form of energy -- is up to 1,000 times more efficient than solar energy.

But even solar power is roughly 10 times as efficient as biomass-derived fuels like ethanol.

In other words, growing the corn to produce ethanol means clearing land and killing animals on a massive scale, or converting land from food production to fuel production. Peter Huber of the Manhattan Institute says that the best-case scenario promoted by ethanol cheerleaders will actually cause the greatest environmental disaster. If people can actually refine cheap, low-maintenance production techniques that don't require huge water supplies, Mr. Huber predicts a world-wide leveling of forestland as farmers turn vegetation into fuel.

Writing in Science magazine, Renton Righelato and Dominick Spracklen estimate that in order to replace just 10% of gasoline and diesel consumption, the U.S. would need to convert a full 43% of its cropland to ethanol production. The alternative approach -- clearing wilderness -- would mean more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than simply sticking with gasoline, because the CO2-munching trees cut down to make way for King Ethanol absorb more emissions than ethanol saves.

Slowly but surely, these problems are beginning to alert public opinion to the huge costs of force-feeding corn ethanol as an energy savior. The ethanol lobby is still hoping it can keep all of this under wraps long enough to shove one more big mandate through Congress, but the Members need to know the problems they'll be creating. We hope that House conferees, who did not include a new mandate in their energy bill, insist that any final bill is ethanol-free.

Answer 3

Global warming is not a "hypothesis" it is a proven fact.  As for food shortages in some countries, those  are the result of political or economic factors, not global warming--at least not yet.

Which oil company is paying you to post false propaganda?

Answer 4

Not a hypothesis but fact.Many have starved because of weather conditions since the beginning of time.Food shortages are also a result of expanded populations.The cost of producing food as well. Some 3rd world countries are in dire shape when the poor have to pay several times more for their meager bowl of rice.When Civil Wars destroy the little farmland and the farmers.The use of corn as a bio fuel instead of a food source has a role to(one of those things that sound good on paper but a disaster in reality)Just a few degree drop in temperature can cause floods,droughts etc.Partly nature and partly man made.The good news we have the technology our forefathers did not which may help.It's time our leader's worldwide get together and head the problem off at the pass.

Answer 5

Im still trying to figure out how in the world there is a food shortage myself

Answer 6

It's a minor factor.  The food price increase is due to a number of things.  Drought is more important than diversion of crops to energy use.

But, what is true is that, if we do nothing, damage to agriculture caused by global warming will make the present food situation look like good times.

EDIT - I don't think these guys are in favor of a massive government bureaucracy.  And they're annoyed at people who make Conservatives look ignorant by denying global warming.

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged fellow conservatives to stop resisting scientific evidence of global warming"

"National Review (the most prestigious conservative magazine) published a cover story calling on conservatives to shake off denial and get into the climate policy debate"

Answer 7

There is NOT A FOOD SHORTAGE. If the food on the planet was distributed EQUALLY, everyone on the planet would have more than enough food.

But unfortuanetly it isn't, and so there are strarving people all over the world.

Answer 8

Bob is always faithful to his religion and will instinctually protect it from even the most obvious claims.  Obviously, the global warming doomsday cult has helped create biofuel as an alternative.  This is but a minor problem compared to future problems that will be created by Global warming alarmists.  The biggest problems lie ahead when political opportunists begin to construct their socialist solutions.  They seek to impose a huge federal bureaucracy and massive hidden tax in their upcoming legislation favored by McCain and Lieberman.  Obama's would certainly be even worse.