Gore Ducks, as Backlash Builds Against Biofuels…
Did it never occur to him what would happen to our food supply, or did he just not care? Alternative fuel sources are necessary, but they must be viable. As it stands, some people must choose between gasoline and food, while others must fight to keep their food from becoming gasoline:
With prices for rice, wheat, and corn soaring, food-related unrest has broken out in places such as Haiti, Indonesia, and Afghanistan. Several countries have blocked the export of grain. There is even talk that governments could fall if they cannot bring food costs down.
One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use of government subsidies to promote the use of corn for ethanol production. An estimated 30% of America’s corn crop now goes to fuel, not food.
30% is huge. Do any of you have good links to information that will show us how many farmers are being paid not to farm?
Mr. Senauer said climate change advocates, such as Vice President Gore, need to distance themselves from ethanol to avoid tarnishing the effort against global warming. “Crop-based biofuels are not part of the solution. They, in fact, add to the problem. Whether Al Gore has caught up with that, somebody ought to ask him,” the professor said. “There are lots of solutions, real solutions to climate change. We need to get to those.”
Mr. Gore was not available for an interview yesterday on the food crisis, according to his spokeswoman. A spokesman for Mr. Gore’s public campaign to address climate change, the Alliance for Climate Protection, declined to comment for this article.
However, the scientist who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore, Rajendra Pachauri of the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, has warned that climate campaigners are unwise to promote biofuels in a way that risks food supplies. “We should be very, very careful about coming up with biofuel solutions that have major impact on production of food grains and may have an implication for overall food security,” Mr. Pachauri told reporters last month, according to Reuters. “Questions do arise about what is being done in North America, for instance, to convert corn into sugar then into biofuels, into ethanol.”
In an interview last year, Mr. Gore expressed his support for corn-based ethanol, but endorsed moving to what he called a “third generation” of so-called cellulosic ethanol production, which is still in laboratory research. “It doesn’t compete with food crops, so it doesn’t put pressure on food prices,” the former vice president told Popular Mechanics magazine.
A Harvard professor of environmental studies who has advised Mr. Gore, Michael McElroy, warned in a November-December 2006 article in Harvard Magazine that “the production of ethanol from either corn or sugar cane presents a new dilemma: whether the feedstock should be devoted to food or fuel. With increasing use of corn and sugar cane for fuel, a rise in related food prices would seem inevitable.” The article, “The Ethanol Illusion” went so far as to praise Senator McCain for summing up the corn-ethanol energy initiative launched in the United States in 2003 as “highway robbery perpetrated on the American public by Congress.”
The goal may be noble, but laboratory research can take years! Why jump right into our food supply?
Biofuel advocates say they are being made a bogeyman for a food crisis that has much more to do with record oil prices, surging demand in the developing world, and unusual weather patterns. “The people who seek to solely blame ethanol for the food crisis and the rising price of food that we see across the globe are taking a terribly simplistic look at this very complex issue,” Matthew Hartwig of the Renewable Fuels Association said.
Mr. Hartwig said oil companies and food manufacturers are behind the attempt to undercut ethanol. “There is a concerted misinformation campaign being put out there by those people who are threatened by ethanol’s growing prominence in the marketplace,” he said.
Or maybe Mr. Hartwig is just too ignorant to see what is right in front of him.
April 25, 2008 - 07:46 AM on April 25th, 2008
Gore should be scorned, ostracized, and cast out of society. He is an arch hypocrite, a liar, a fraud, and a con man. I could type for an hour about all the ways he has damaged this country and our future, but I don’t have time right now.
I heard the other day that the scene in Gore’s Inconveneient Truth movie about the melting ice in Antarctica is totally fake; it was borrowed from “The Day After” and was a special effects thing done for that movie using styrofoam. This so-called documentary was a huge FRAUD!
The consequences of his actions are so profound that, as many of us have predicted, even those who initially bought into his Inconvenient Truth BS will have second thoughts.
It is starting to unravel for Gore and the Envirofraud movement. The worst part is even those of us who could see it all in advance will have to go through the pain caused by the failure of most to see the obvious.
April 25, 2008 - 08:03 AM on April 25th, 2008
Ethanol from Corn is a huge boondoggle. It makes little if any sense on its own, and none whatsoever when you factor in the impact on food supplies.
And Erhanol production is mandated as a percentage of the nations’s fuel supply by Federal law, which also heavily subsidizes its production. This was the centerpiece of the “Energy” policy passed several years ago.
I see the lack of an energy policy that does anything but damage another colossal failure of the Bush Admin. and Congress. But they’re not alone; no President or Congress has done anything in the last 36 years to do anything substantial about a problem that was well identified in the first Arab oil boycott (~1972).
April 25, 2008 - 08:07 AM on April 25th, 2008
Too bad but maybe AL GORE should be harnessed himself i mean HOT AIR can be put to many uses
April 25, 2008 - 09:15 AM on April 25th, 2008
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April 25, 2008 - 01:32 PM on April 25th, 2008
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April 25, 2008 - 02:20 PM on April 25th, 2008
I was listening to a report somewhere that said the amount of grain used to produce a gallon of alcohol could feed a person for a year.
If this is true, why are we starving people instead of drilling in Alaska?
April 25, 2008 - 02:40 PM on April 25th, 2008
Good question Sasha but the only answer I can give you is that liberals do not think logically. They are very quick to play victim though but they just don’t think logically.
April 25, 2008 - 03:32 PM on April 25th, 2008
Another thing comes to mind: Early in his first term, W was pushing for drilling in ANWR. Gas prices were what in 2001?
One big pushback coming from some opponents of drilling in ANWR was that it would take five years to get in there, get set up and start producing.
Well, here we are, more than five years after that, no drilling, gas is now at what(?), and we’re bowing at the altar of PC environmentalism and making it even more difficult for the poor in this country and elsewhere to buy food.
April 25, 2008 - 09:28 PM on April 25th, 2008
Give the Girl a CIGAR. She’s figured out that the environmental whackos are more interested in political correctness no matter how many other people have to starve to feed their excessively large egos.
April 27, 2008 - 08:32 AM on April 27th, 2008
FAO, who are you giving the cigar?
BonBon – Female
Sasha – Male
April 28, 2008 - 12:23 AM on April 28th, 2008
Hell give them both cigars. I buy them in bulk anyway. I don’t have enough room in my humidor as it is.
May 1, 2008 - 09:43 AM on May 1st, 2008
I can work with that.
May 6, 2008 - 11:35 AM on May 6th, 2008
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May 6, 2008 - 01:17 PM on May 6th, 2008
Gore is such a fraud and hypocrite. The evidence is mounting almost daily that the entire human-caused-GW thing is a huge fraud, a scam, a boondoggle.
May 6, 2008 - 10:09 PM on May 6th, 2008
I don’t see what the fuss is all about, I like warmer weather. The world has adjusted to much more than global warming and survived. Hell, I figured it was good for at least another thousand years and in that length of time you’ll never know the difference. Gore is a gourd head but seems to be making money anyway. Hope he pays his taxes???
It will help the economy! LOL Now the only thing the world can’t survive: You guessed it: Obama and his gang!