Biofuel = Crime Against Humanity?
So says Jean Ziegler of the United Nations who serves as the UN independent expert on the right to food. No, really he said that. Biofuel production is a crime against humanity - in those exact words.
The use of crops for biofuel has being pursued especially in Brazil and the United States.
Last March, President Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an agreement committing their countries to boosting ethanol production. They said increasing use of alternative fuels would lead to more jobs, a cleaner environment and greater independence from the whims of the oil market.
Ziegler called their motives legitimate, but said that "the effect of transforming hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tons of maize, of wheat, of beans, of palm oil, into agricultural fuel is absolutely catastrophic for the hungry people."
The world price of wheat doubled in one year and the price of corn quadrupled, leaving poor countries, especially in Africa, unable to pay for the imported food needed to feed their people, he said. And poor people in those countries are unable to pay the soaring prices for the food that does come in, he added.
"So it's a crime against humanity" to devote agricultural land to biofuel production, Ziegler said a news conference. "What has to be stopped is … the growing catastrophe of the massacre (by) hunger in the world," he said.
As an example, he said, it takes 510 pounds of corn to produce 13 gallons of ethanol. That much corn could feed a child in Zambia or Mexico for a year, he said.
Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said the Bush administration didn't consider biofuel development a threat to the poor.
"It's clear we have a commitment to the development of biofuels," he said. "It's also clear that we are committed to combatting poverty and supporting economic development around the world as the leading contributor of overseas development assistance in the world."
Longtime readers know that I think biofuel production is wasteful and will lead to starvation. But the continual reduction of standards of what constitutes a "crime against humanity" is counterproductive. It will inevitably lead to exactly the kind of pushback that Chang did. It is a fact that US Aid has cut back on the amount of food it purchases because of the high cost of food. It is a fact that biofuel production is actually counter-productive in the effort to cut carbon emissions.
Incidentally, the reporter's assertion that biofuel from food is mostly the US and Brazil is false. China and India are both doing the same thing and are being warned that their water resources are at severe risk.
Energy, Environment, World news | Gaius Saturday, 27 October , 2007
By Mark, Saturday, 27 October , 2007 @ 10:20 am
Conversion of food to fuel is idiotic. The ethanol fad is a sick joke.
By NortonPete, Saturday, 27 October , 2007 @ 1:30 pm
Modern day Alchemy.
By Bleepless, Saturday, 27 October , 2007 @ 3:16 pm
By 510 pounds, did he mean entire ears or just the grain?
By Gaius, Saturday, 27 October , 2007 @ 3:25 pm
grain
By Quilly Mammoth, Saturday, 27 October , 2007 @ 4:53 pm
Since it takes so much energy to make ethanol it’s almost like striking a rock with a staff to make diesel spring out of.
By GeniusNZ, Monday, 29 October , 2007 @ 12:00 am
At the moment earth produces a little more food than we need (at some cost to our fish stocks etc). Add a couple of billion more people and hike the price by an order of magnitude due to sky rocketing fuel costs (which can compete with food almost anywhere that food is grown) and the world in for a very very bad time.