Given Prime Minister Harper’s ties to oil and big agri-business, it’s not really a surprise that an organization created to shill for those interests is also happy to shill for the Conservative government. What is more surprising is the Harper government’s willingness to let lobbyists from the CRFA into its government, yet they hired Kory Teneycke, a lobbyist from the CRFA, as a research director. It is exactly the kind of thing that Stephen Harper promised to stop with his Accountability Act, but apparently the loopholes were built in to allow the Harper government to evade the spirit, if not the letter, of their own law. The revolving door between lobbyists and government is spinning as fast as ever.
The bio-fuel lobby is a powerful one. It has the backing of the genetically modified crop industry and the oil companies. It is also backed by the farm lobby which, especially in the United States, wields an extraordinary amount of political power. The development of bio-fuels has increased that political power.
In the United States the push to develop ethanol for the new flex-fuel vehicles has pushed the price of corn up. The ripple effect of that within the United States has been to increase the price of other crops as more acres are seeded to corn than to other crops. While that serves to benefit small farmers, it is at least as harmful to the environment as burning fossil fuels. Farming corn using modern methods requires not only the burning of fossil fuels for seeding and harvest, but the use of chemical fertilizers derived from fossil fuels. Those fertilizers release greenhouse gases from the time the raw material is removed from the earth until the nutrients they provide are long spent.
The ripples also reach far outside of the United States. Food riots in Mexico in the last year are directly related to the increase in the price of corn and the monoculture created by the rush to produce suitable crops. Food crops are internationally-traded commodities so higher prices in the wealthy nations of North America and Europe also mean higher prices in the developing world where people were already going hungry because they couldn’t afford food. Now that prices for food are rising, that number could rise from 850 million hungry people to over a billion.
Exacerbating that problem is the amount of land being turned from food production to bio-fuel production. In Swaziland, the current famine is made worse because the government has decided to turn 40 percent of the crop land over to bio-fuel production. That fuel is not for use in Africa, but for export to Europe to help meet the EU’s goal of having five percent of the fuel supply come from bio-fuels.
India is planning to turn 40 million hectares over to bio-fuel in the form of jatropha. While the jatropha plant grows well on marginal land, as George Monbiot pointed out in a recent column it grows even better on good land and is the kind of crop preferred by large agribusiness instead of small farmers.
Bio-fuels are not the only factor putting pressure on food crops. Many hectares are lost every year to suburban sprawl, especially in North America. Low density housing, large houses on large lots, are the style of the day. The sprawl eats up arable land at an incredible rate and puts further stress on resources and the environment.
We are also losing land to soil degradation through erosion and nutrient depletion, especially in countries close the equator. Affecting those same countries is warming that is already occurring, is making seasonal rains unpredictable.
The combined effects of all of these factors is the world supply of grains is shrinking even while the population is growing. This year marked a 47 year low in global supplies with the USDA estimating that we have only a 53 day supply of world grain stocks. Exacerbating a problem by dedicating land to fuel production is a questionable decision at best.
None of this means that bio-fuels are all bad. As a niche fuel and an interim step to cleaner fuel, they are important. Other bio-fuels, like natural gas collected from animal, and human waste, offer substantial reductions in greenhouse emissions. Alternative crops such as switch grass and hemp can offer reduction emissions while creating carbon sinks. Certain kinds of algae, which can be farmed in tanks isolated from watersheds and oceans offer still other opportunities.
That is not how bio-fuels are being presented right now though. Those things are often offered as justifications, but the real push is for ethanol and diesel fuel derived from plants. Corporate interests and the politicians who represent those interests would have us believe that ethanol and bio-diesel are some sort of magic bullet that will enable us to continue driving gas guzzling SUVs. The problem is not with the bio-fuels themselves, or even our ability to develop them. The problem is with a corporate structure that influences political decisions.
That structure is not based on science or careful consideration of the facts surrounding an issue. It is not based on what is sustainable. It is not based on ensuring the poor have enough to eat or having clean water for people to drink. It is based on the fallacy that what is good for corporations is good for the rest of us.
The usual justification of that claim is that doing the right thing will cost jobs or hurt the economy. Since the adaptation of new technologies makes the economy grow and creates new jobs, usually with higher wages and more benefits, that justification is nothing more than a scare tactic designed to protect vested interests with connections to the Conservative Party.
A recent poll suggested that Canadians are willing to make at least some sacrifices to address global warming and overall environmental degradation. If given the right set of options, we will make the right choices. Those choices are not too complex for Canadians to understand, in fact most indications are that Canadians understand those choices better than our government does.
Our present government, just like our past government, seems overly determined to ensure that the choices we are offered are those favoured by their friends in the lobbying industry and the corporations involved in the bio-fuel industry. Perhaps somebody should point out to Mr. Harper and his friends that you can’t eat money.
[Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on November 19, 2007]Note: Canadian Renewable Fuel... ripple effect recent column
Stumble It!
• When the white man discovered this country Indians were running it. No taxes no debt, women did all the work White man thought he could improve on a system like this.
~ Old Cherokee Saying
I think that besides trying to eat money we should ask if we want to feed cars or people. Displacing food crops, whether for human or animal consumptin in favor of growing crops for convertion to fuel is NOT the answer.<br />
<p>---<br>When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remember that the initial objective was to drain the swamp
Then think again, Amigo.
Limited choices leave only limited answers.
Hemp, a yearly crop needent "displace' food cropps. It ain't an either or situation unless ones thinking is stuck in that mode. I've read most of what you have presented here and yoiu are not a dullard.; Do some brainstorming and i have every confidence you can move beyond your current assertions
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"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."
William Blake
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When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remember that the initial objective was to drain the swamp
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"We are all in this together somehow, some more than others somehow"
the point being that what we focus on we get
I don't give much energy to either/or situations.
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.
"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
Here is the same story, but it is called "Grandfather Tells" which is also known as "The Wolves Within"
An old Grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice, "Let me tell you a story.
I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do.
But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times." He continued, "It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.
But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger,for his anger will change nothing.
Sometimes, it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit."
The boy looked intently into his Grandfather's eyes and asked, "Which one wins, Grandfather?"
The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, "The one I feed."
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"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."
William Blake
BTW do you still believe me to be an Anti-Semitic?
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"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."
William Blake
When Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, James Watts, a religious fundamentalist and rapturist, was asked by reporters whether it bothered him that logging in National Parks may not leave any trees for future generations, he replied:
"According to our calculations there won't be too many future generations and when the last tree is cut the Lord will return"
Now, how can anybody argue with such superior knowledge and faith, that conquers all?
That was about the time when I realized that something was very wrong and started studying economics to see what their scriptures preach and found that the whole racket was a monumental fraud, still going on, worse and bigger than ever.
Ed Deak.
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Expect little from life and get more from it.
The Oil companies have no problem whatsoever with Bio-fuels. To them its not a competeing product, its a flavouring for their own. It helps prolong the 'Combustion' age and thus keeps their bread and butter market alive, the domestic car, and thats all its about. They have no competition, demand is shy-rocketing weekly. Even if all cars were electric, the military fuels market ALONE could keep them profitable. Its not about protecting their product, its about maintaining the 'Dino-fuels' market, that uses it.
Combustion technology based on any kind of mineral spirits is primitive no matter what its made from. Even the German war machine of WWII had no crude supplies of its own. It made huge amounts of synthetic fuels from its coal reserves. (just needed a few easily obtained additives from our side) Big industry however, dosent need cheap food, it needs cheap coal, so Forgetaboutthatone. Our descendents will laugh and cry about the old days when we used to burn food in our fossil fuels based SUVs. The car makers even prolong this lie with thweir BS Green maketing tactics. help SAVE the Environmet, buy THIS car!' - you do care about the evnvironment...dont you? It really is that stupid.
The UN and all its Antactic expiditions and food surveys is just a PUPET show! staged and performed by the same PUPETs the FOCHIN Corporations ALLOW us to call our Governments.
BURN IT ALL QUICKLY! get the Hydro-Carbon age over with. The next step in evoloution is Hydrogen from water. The only problem the Corporations see their is...Who controls the water?
Hal,
Ottawa
Hal,
Ottawa
Hal,
Ottawa