The Retardation Of Western Environmental Policy

[Xiao Jie]

I got this off another forum. It just goes to show how the West will put ideology ahead of people.

World cereal stocks are at an all-time low, food-aid programmes have run out of money and millions face starvation. Yet wealthy countries persist with plans to use grain for petrol. Plus Iain Macwhirter on how food prices are rocketing

The irony is extraordinary. At a time when world leaders are expressing grave concern about diminishing food stocks and a coming global food crisis, our government brings into force measures to increase the use of biofuels - a policy that will further increase food prices, and further worsen the plight of the world's poor.

What biofuels do is undeniable: they take food out of the mouths of starving people and divert them to be burned as fuel in the car engines of the world's rich consumers. This is, in the words of the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, nothing less than a "crime against humanity". It is a crime the UK government seems determined to play its part in abetting. The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), introduced on 15 April, mandates petrol retailers to mix 2.5 per cent biofuels into fuel sold to motorists. This will rise to 5.75 per cent by 2010, in line with European Union policy.

The message could not have been clearer if the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, had personally put a torch to a pyre of corn and rice in Parliament Square: even as you take to the streets to protest your empty bellies and hungry children, we will burn your food in our cars. The UK is not uniquely implicated in this scandal: the EU, the United States, India, Brazil and China all have targets to increase biofuels use. But a look at the raw data confirms today's dire situation. According to the World Bank, global maize production increased by 51 million tonnes between 2004 and 2007. During that time, biofuels use in the US alone (mostly ethanol) rose by 50 million tonnes, soaking up almost the entire global increase.

Next year, the use of US corn for ethanol is forecast to rise to 114 million tonnes - nearly a third of the whole projected US crop.

American cars now burn enough corn to cover all the imported food needs of the 82 nations classed by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as "low-income food-deficit countries". There could scarcely be a better way to starve the poor.

The threat posed by biofuels affects all of us. Global grain stockpiles - on which all of humanity depends - are now perilously depleted. Cereal stocks are at their lowest level for 25 years, according to the FAO. The world has consumed more grain than it has produced for seven of the past eight years, and supplies, at roughly only 54 days of consumption, are the lowest on record.

The president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, has already warned that 100 million people could be pushed deeper into poverty because of food price rises caused directly by this imbalance between supply and demand. Even consumers in rich countries are suffering. We now pay higher prices for our food in order to subsidise the biofuels industry, thanks to measures such as the renewable fuels directive.

This is not just a short-term price blip, but the beginnings of a major structural change in the world food market. Population pressure - still something of a taboo subject - is also certainly playing a part. With the world population growing by 78 million a year, and expected to reach nine billion by the middle of the century, there are simply many more mouths to feed.

In addition, rapid economic growth in India and China has created tens of millions of new middle-class consumers, all demanding western-style diets high in meat and dairy products, thereby vastly increasing the quantity of grain required for livestock production.

Inconsistency


The most important structural change, however, is the increasing interlinking of world energy and food markets. Once, food was just for people. Now rising demand for transport fuel - particularly in rich countries - is sucking supply away from the world food market and increasing the upward pressure on prices. In the words of Josette Sheeran, executive director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP): "We are seeing food in many places in the world priced at fuel levels," with increasing quantities of food "being bought by energy markets" for biofuels.

Rising oil prices feed back into the process. With food and fuel markets intertwined, increases in the price of oil are shadowed by increases in the price of grain. The real-world result from this structural shift may be that hundreds of thousands of people will starve in the next few years - unless policies promoting biofuels are urgently reversed.

This is not to suggest that government targets on biofuels are driven by some kind of malicious desire to starve the world's poor. Indeed,
the UK government , has expressed concern about the food supply crisis and the role of biofuels in causing it. But for these two political leaders to voice their concerns while allowing the increased use of biofuels in the UK to be pushed forward - all in the same week - is nothing short of bizarre.

As Oxfam's Robert Bailey puts it: "This inconsistency at the highest levels simply beggars belief." The aid agency calculates that the RTFO represents a ?500m annual subsidy from motorists and taxpayers to the biofuels industry - more than double the amount the WFP is urgently seeking from donor countries to try to mitigate the impact of food price rises on the world's poor.

The EU, meanwhile, persists in the erroneous belief that biofuels can help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
The main reason for its speedy introduction of the replacement fuel initiative was as a sop to motor manufacturers who were lobbying hard against proposed higher fuel economy standards. With biofuels, the EU hoped, it could cave in to the car industry while still getting reduction in emissions.

Yet recent research suggests otherwise:

two major studies published in Science magazine in February showed clearly that once the agricultural displacement effects of the new fuels on rainforests, peatlands and grasslands are taken into account, emissions are many times worse than from conventional mineral petrol.

In other words, it would be better for the climate if we just went back to fossil fuels.

Biofuels are not a "necessary but painful" way of saving the climate; they are a calamitous mistake by almost every criterion, whether social, ethical or environmental and will starve the 3rd world of food supplies .



Reversing the damage


The industry claims that "second-generation" biofuels, using by-products such as corn stalks and woodchip as a feedstock, will be able to redress the balance. But if this technological advance is achieved (and that is by no means certain) it could usher in an even worse scenario: the annihilation of the world's forests. If all plant life was seen as potentially convertible for transport fuel, there would be nothing to stop what was left of the planet's biosphere from being strip-mined to keep rich motorists on the road. There is no simple solution. Much of the increased biofuel demand comes from the US, where Democratic and Republican politicians alike have talked themselves into a dead-end search for "energy security" - with US-grown corn top of the list.

But the UK and the EU can reverse some of the damage by immediately ditching their own biofuels policies and providing vital aid funding, principally through the WFP, to help prevent widespread starvation in the short term. Politicians need to realise that there is no such thing as "sustainable biofuels", either now or in the future.

As for investors, they need to realise that pouring money into biofuels is a bad bet: subsidies will be quickly withdrawn when policymakers face up to the reality of their ghastly error.In the meantime, billions face starvation and death from increasing hunger and malnutrition.

There is no time to lose.

[Xiao Jie]

I thought this was funny stuff,

The global warming tax is just a way to extract money from dopey Westerners. It won't stop 3rd world fuckwits from having families with 10 children they can not feed or shelter.

/Buy Gore Brand carbon credits - they're for the children.

[Cartman]

I thought this was funny stuff,

The global warming tax is just a way to extract money from dopey Westerners. It won't stop 3rd world fuckwits from having families with 10 children they can not feed or shelter.

/Buy Gore Brand carbon credits - they're for the children.

That was not in the quoted article.

[Gary Oak]

 XiaoJie you ****

[Xiao Jie]

I thought this was funny stuff,

The global warming tax is just a way to extract money from dopey Westerners. It won't stop 3rd world fuckwits from having families with 10 children they can not feed or shelter.

/Buy Gore Brand carbon credits - they're for the children.

That was not in the quoted article.

Oh sorry, I should`ve explained . That was a quote from another site. Anyway, welcome Cartman.

[Reel]

Most environmental policy is set by business interests and market segments.  It very often doesn't make sense. 

I know you believe that they are the result of failed sociopolitical policies, but in fact most of the time it has little to do with that.  At face value, biofuels seem to make little sense, but they make a lot more sense if you follow the money.  Agriculture is a large economic sector, but it is relatively flat in terms of growth.  People pay a certain amount for a food type and they won't really pay more.  Biofuels provided an unprecedented opportunity to add value to a product with very few development opportunities (bioengineering aside).  Quite simply, there is a huge amount of grain production in Canada at stagnant or negative growth.  It costs a lot to support an industry with zero or negative growth, so added value is welcomed both by the industry and by the government economists.

Thus biofuels are actually a product of capitalism with a light powdering of environmental green glitter to help with the sell.

[Reel]

You could of course argue (and I often do) that it is consumers who set the trends and pull products onto the market, but in the case of biofuels, I simply don't believe that is true.  I think the industry saw an opportunity and pushed onto the market with a hard sell.

[Xiao Jie]

It suddenly got far more intelligent on this forum. Reel is a gifted poster. Welcome my friend.

[Reel]

Thanks.

Now lets argue about environmentalism!

Personally, I think if the intent was really to benefit the environment, policies would focus first on the low hanging fruit.  Canadian policy would be that everyone shuts the hell up about the rest until the residential building code is modified to require airtight vapour barriers and R-40 insulation.  Biofuels are ridiculous by comparison to the benefit that would bring. 

Unfortunately, the construction lobby is much stronger than the insulation manufacturing lobby, so no real changes will be effected.

[Xiao Jie]

Thanks.

Now lets argue about environmentalism!

Personally, I think if the intent was really to benefit the environment, policies would focus first on the low hanging fruit.  Canadian policy would be that everyone shuts the hell up about the rest until the residential building code is modified to require airtight vapour barriers and R-40 insulation.  Biofuels are ridiculous by comparison to the benefit that would bring. 

Unfortunately, the construction lobby is much stronger than the insulation manufacturing lobby, so no real changes will be effected.

I totally agree Reel and it`s not just because you`re a formidable debater.  The whole environmental debate/movement in the West is f*cked up. Here in the city of Edmonton, toxic waste is being dumped beside the North Saskatchewan River for $100/ton. Wonder how much they would charge to dump it right into the river??

[ScotlandYard]

Environmentalism per se is a construct stemming from UN policies and affecting both business and public alike. Rather than dealing with poor living standards and a runaway population explosion the poorer nation without much money would need help to develop themselves first by education and then on up the economic chain to self supporting and ultimately prosperity.
If the UN was sincere in this they would supply the means for their self support in these areas...rather than them expecting handouts all the time from the wealthier nations. That socialist nonsense has to come to and end and get to the root problems starting with knowledge\education. It is found that when poor nations seriously start investing that way their population rate of growth falls away to lower numbers as they become wealthier.Ultimately less of a burden on the wealthier nations for charity. This of course isn't what the UN is doing is it. It promotes charity and not solution\self reliance. Why? Because they are wolves in sheep's clothing promoting a global socialism in disguise and affecting the nations of the world and their decision making in the background as  virtually all are members and let the UN get involved in their countries operations. When shall we all stand up and say enough is enough and de link ourselves from the wastefulness of the UN and their evil. Back to governing ourselves!
BTW we aren't our brothers keepers either.These poorer nations must learn to be responsible for their actions and work for their pay.
The UN was set up as a foil for [Global Governance] from the onset by Communist Spies [I will get to that later]..set up for a Global Socialist State. Since then peeps like Soros and Strong have been tweaking it tightening it up,enslaving us all. The new  global Carbon [Credit] Tax being one. The  major drain over that recent decades  is a huge outpouring of monies going to China [so-called aid] for its emergence on the world stage. More of the same in the form of  this Carbon Tax [inspired by Maurice Strong\Communist and friend of China]. We are aiding and abetting this hostile nation to emerge and dominate us all with the UN's help\your money----via taxation!
The UN is a Vatican controlled construct..[later too]. That is where its masters are and the chief controller\The Black Pope.

[Xiao Jie]

All very true SY. I`ve heard you claim in the past that Chinese are brainwashed and that is 100% true. However, as you pointed out in your post, Westerners can be brainwashed too!

[Maggie]

Most environmental policy is set by business interests and market segments.  It very often doesn't make sense. 

I know you believe that they are the result of failed sociopolitical policies, but in fact most of the time it has little to do with that.  At face value, biofuels seem to make little sense, but they make a lot more sense if you follow the money.  Agriculture is a large economic sector, but it is relatively flat in terms of growth.  People pay a certain amount for a food type and they won't really pay more.  Biofuels provided an unprecedented opportunity to add value to a product with very few development opportunities (bioengineering aside).  Quite simply, there is a huge amount of grain production in Canada at stagnant or negative growth.  It costs a lot to support an industry with zero or negative growth, so added value is welcomed both by the industry and by the government economists.

Thus biofuels are actually a product of capitalism with a light powdering of environmental green glitter to help with the sell.

thanks for that Reel..i have been preaching this for years....i wish wish wish i would have purchased more farmland 20 years ago when a group of us put this very scenario together...they did while i chose to go to Asia.......it took them a while but with wheat at $7 and Canola at $13 and no end in sight it will not take them long to fulfill the projections we did so long ago.....

[ScotlandYard]

you mean Corporate farming, Mr Munday?

[Xiao Jie]

Most environmental policy is set by business interests and market segments.  It very often doesn't make sense. 

I know you believe that they are the result of failed sociopolitical policies, but in fact most of the time it has little to do with that.  At face value, biofuels seem to make little sense, but they make a lot more sense if you follow the money.  Agriculture is a large economic sector, but it is relatively flat in terms of growth.  People pay a certain amount for a food type and they won't really pay more.  Biofuels provided an unprecedented opportunity to add value to a product with very few development opportunities (bioengineering aside).  Quite simply, there is a huge amount of grain production in Canada at stagnant or negative growth.  It costs a lot to support an industry with zero or negative growth, so added value is welcomed both by the industry and by the government economists.

Thus biofuels are actually a product of capitalism with a light powdering of environmental green glitter to help with the sell.

Reel, I don`t dispute what you are saying. What I`m saying is that there`s big money behind Western environmental groups. Really big money and yes they do have influence over Mr and Mrs Average Citizen.