Food Riots and Food Fuels

Believe it or not, there is a substantial number of people who recognize that turning foods such as corn and soybeans into fuel for cars does not make sense. Steven Milloy, who publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com and is an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has written a commentary on food riots and other consequences of the Green lobbyists. The article is entitled A New 'Green' Body Count Begins.

The human population is growing and with it the demand for food and fuel. People in many areas of the world are finally improving their diets and traveling and trading more. The agricultural effort world-wide has been remarkable in doing such a great job in meeting the increased demand for food. The foolish campaign against Frankenfoods, especially strong in childish Europe, is doing what it can to restrict the increase in food production. In general, the Greens are not friendly to farmers. They do not like them using woodlands, prairie lands, or marsh lands. They do not like them using fertilizers and insecticides. They do not like them using water or fuel. They sometimes do want them to produce fuel from foods such as corn, soybeans, sugar cane, and biomass. The use of biomass such as general leaves and stalks is not yet economical and may never be very economic, due to the need to haul large masses of material to biomass fuel plants, as Steven Milloy points out. So, the conversion of valuable food such as corn and soybeans into fuel is now what is happening. This reduces the food supply and drives up prices to the point that many of the poor in the underdeveloped world cannot afford enough food.

Steven Milloy points out food riots in Haiti, Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Ethiopia. He does not mention the anger in Mexico due to rising tortilla prices. He does note that troops have been deployed to protect the farm fields and food warehouses in Pakistan and Thailand. Indian and Turkish government officials are quoted as saying it is foolish to turn food into biofuels.

Milloy goes on to note that the Greens are doing everything they can to prevent us from having adequate power. They propose biomass fuel disasters. They oppose every economical means of generating power, however. The Sierra Club wants to shut down our coal power plants. The Natural Resources Defense Council opposes nuclear power plants. Earth First! opposes almost every source of power, including natural gas, whose cost is rising rapidly now due to the failure to build more nuclear power plants, restrictions on new coal power plants, and restrictions on developing new oil fields in the stable western countries. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has declared that no wind mills will be allowed in Maryland, since they are an eyesore! It is clear that the Greens simply do not want to allow people to have power.

So, how do we plan for a future without power. Well, in Maryland officials are planning rolling blackouts beginning in 2011. As I have noted, we already have nightly brownouts. Personally, I would much rather live with coal-fired power plants and with nuclear power plants! I want my power and, indeed, it is essential for my laboratory business that I have high quality and dependable power. The damn Greens can go and live in Antarctica or take over Paraguay and use as little power as they wish to use!