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Ist Bio-Kraftstoff verantwortlich für die Lebensmittelkrise?

Global food shortage linked to biofuel use (part I)

from youtube.com posted with vodpod

Jean Ziegler, Switzerland,  the United Nations’ independent expert on the right to food, was right to call for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production in October 2007.

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 at 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,” Bush said at that time. ”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.” 

 Read the full story here”. Still, it would be wrong to blame the Bush administration who was under tremendous pressure to do something to save planet earth from global warming after not signing the Kyoto Protocol. The international pressure for so-called “carbon-neutral” alternatives to burning fossil fuels was immense.

Biofuel programs and commodity speculation affecting staple food worldwide

A few months later, a worldwide food shortage became evident when the Asian newspaper “The Straight Times” reported about a looming shortage of rice worldwide last February (see previous post). At that time, a link to biofuel did not seem to be the issue as yet, but rather global warming with its droughts and government interventions were named as possible culprits.

Another two months later, we see the full picture. The prestigeous subsidized biofuel programs from wheat, corn and soy beans in the U.S., Brazil and the European Union have proved to substantially contribute to the soaring food prices worldwide. The following article describes best the mechanism of the narrow, free part, of the world’s staple food market that became a commodity for speculation of governments, even to traders in Thailand and the Philippines. Many blamed the food crisis more on global warming (namely the drought in Australia and plant deceases in Vietnam) and on market failures at first. Whatever the case, burning an increasing amount of wheat and corn was the final straw in an already existing worldwide food inflation with its tidal waves reaching staple food rice in Asia after corn, wheat and soi beans. Read this excellent arcticle by the economist here. Cnn reported today about the same.

Today is Earth Day. The good earth is for the people before anything else.

 

Al Gore greeted with Airforce-One-like Superpuma helicopter

Swiss-airshow.ch

This is the monstrous helicopter used by Swiss Minister Pascal Couchepain when he attended a ceremony in the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. Maybe he forgot that the guest of honor was Al Gore who came instead with a hybrid limousine

Or maybe Couchepain forgot what the honoring award is for. Because in his speech during a conference before the ceremony, he emphasized according to the English online version of ‘24heures’ , that the nuclear option was a “necessary solution” because electricity needs are rising and alternative energy sources are not convincing. He said wind-powered generators use a lot of concrete and steel while solar power “is not yet competitive.” Alternative energy sources must be “supported, developed, practised,” but they will not be able to fill the energy gap expected in the next 50 years.  

The honorable Doctor Al Gore was not only given the opportunity to deliver a free speech this time. He was even given the opportunity to debate with a climate change skeptic. But unfortunately again, the media were not allowed to attend. Because Al Gore insisted on receiving the honorable degree behind closed doors.