Becuase Everything Else Sucks

World Will Starve: Biofuels are “Profoundly Stupid”

By Manila Ryce
Published Saturday, March 8th, 2008, 5:08 pm
Filed under: Human Rights, Economic, Science and Technology, World Issues

A UN expert has said that the world’s population will starve before it dies of climate change. These sentiments have been expressed before, notably by former Cuban President Fidel Castro when he harshly criticized targets set by President Bush to increase the production of ethanol. Castro claimed biofuel could eventually cause the “hunger and thirst of more than 3bn people of the world.” Of course, we actually would have enough food if we cared more about feeding people than making a profit from it (aside from turning it into fuel, destroying surplus food the old-fashioned way also comes to mind).

Food security and the rapid rise in food prices make up the “elephant in the room” that politicians must face up to quickly, according to the government’s new chief scientific adviser.

In his first major speech since taking over, Professor John Beddington said the global rush to grow biofuels was compounding the problem, and cutting down rainforest to produce biofuel crops was “profoundly stupid”.

He told the Govnet Sustainable Development UK Conference in Westminster: “There is progress on climate change. But out there is another major problem. It is very hard to imagine how we can see a world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous increase in the demand for food which is quite properly going to happen as we alleviate poverty.”

He predicted that price rises in staples such as rice, maize and wheat would continue because of increased demand caused by population growth and increasing wealth in developing nations. He also said that climate change would lead to pressure on food supplies because of decreased rainfall in many areas and crop failures related to climate. “The agriculture industry needs to double its food production, using less water than today,” he said. The food crisis would bite more quickly than climate change, he added.

But he reserved some of his most scathing comments for the biofuel industry, which he said had delivered a “major shock” to world food prices. “In terms of biofuels there has been, quite properly, a reaction against it,” he said. “There are real problems with unsustainability.”

Biofuel production is due to increase hugely in the next 15 years. The US plans to produce 30bn gallons of biofuels by 2022 - which will mean trebling maize production. The EU has a target for biofuels to make up 5.75% of transport fuels by 2010.

But Beddington said it was vital that biofuels were grown sustainably. “Some of the biofuels are hopeless. The idea that you cut down rainforest to actually grow biofuels seems profoundly stupid.”

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3 Responses to “World Will Starve: Biofuels are “Profoundly Stupid””

  1. I get your point, but there are biofuels and there are biofuels. Corn for ethanol is stupid and unsustainable. Algae and waste oil for biodiesel is smart AND sustainable. The US is a slave to it’s farm lobby, thus the focus on ethanol.

    J. Milton
    03/9/08 at 9:07 pm

  2. @J. Milton
    Well, ethanol made from non-food products is stupid for other reasons. Ethanol in general raises ozone levels which contribute to respiratory problems that already kill about 4,700 people per year.

    Manila Ryce
    03/10/08 at 3:03 am

  3. This whole argument is pointless! First of all, to think that dedicating crops to biofuels will somehow deplete the world food supply is ridiculous. Yes, there is rampant hunger across the globe, but paradoxically, thanks to technological advances in agribusiness, there is also massive agricultural overproduction. It is why the US government has to spend so many billions of dollars per year to bail out the nation’s farmers. The shear volume of harvested goods consistently drives prices down. But aside from the economic effect, the fact is that, according to Diana Wright of sustainability.com, even as long ago as 1984, 1st world nations produced and stored enough food to feed every hungry person in the world up to 50 times over.

    So we have the surplus food already. We overproduce food to the extent where hunger shouldn’t exist, and yet it does. Right now! So the impact of bio-fuel harvesting is a moot point.

    However, that’s not to say it isn’t at least a potential concern. So let’s, for the sake of arguement, pretend that this idiot sentiment were absolutely true. Well, even then, impacting the world’s food supply would still not be a necessary step in producing bio-fuel. According to Dr. Robert Froece of Michigan Tech, the US currently produces enough agricultural waste, that is corn stalks, leaves, husks, and other non-edible harvest by products, to power the bio-fuel industry. 534 million tons annually, to be precise. So, conceivably, one wouldn’t even need to harvest the edible corn for bio-fuels, especially given the new bio-fuel technology that is, AGAIN, Currently Available, thanks to the scientists at Purdue University who have developed a new type of bacteria that can up to 40% more produce bio-fuel sugars from the non-productive parts of plants.

    In short, none these concerns, while potentially valid, are anywhere near unsolvable using current technologies. The problem, as always, is the perpetual willful ignorance by those who profit from the suspension of progress.

    In other words, even smart people are idiots.

    http://www.mda.state.mi.us/renewablefuels/documents/biomass_feedstock_michigan.pdf

    http://www.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/2004/040628.Ho.ethanol.html

    http://www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn170faped

    PapaFigue
    03/17/08 at 1:54 am

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