As am I. Can I assume we are going to discuss like big kids now? The demand is artificial. It is being artificially subsidized. You're getting it cheap because the tax payer is absorbing the cost of subsidizing the industry. Like your confusion that I might have been a neocon, I'm agnostic when it comes to the different fuel alternatives. I could care less if we use wind, solar, oil or ethanol. It's irrelevant to me, except cost/convenience. I don't even care about sustainability. The one source that intrigues me is nuclear. I think electric cars with increased nuclear power production could revolutionize the country. It could resuscitate our automotive industry for sure. No, you're missing it. Resources are scarce, not infinite. There is money in ethanol, and hence farmers are concentrating on producing corn right now. They can't grow more corn without expanding, or changing from producing other crops for consumptive purposes. Resources are FINITE. If you want to sway me to your argument, let's see some statistics on land usage, and crop production over the last 10 years. Make your case with the numbers. The problem is not overpopulation. That's nonsense used to promote an agenda of shortening up the world's population to a (sic) sustainable level.
The cost is low because it is vegetable oil! Vegetable oil is abundant and cheap compared to petro-fuel. Always has been. No offense, but I do have a living to conduct between these time-wasting debates. The research you want would take an afternoon, and still not convince you. You want these statistics, produce them and I'll subject them to scrutiny. I predict they will show that the effect is negligible. Rather than statistics, I use common sense. Food crops are dominated by agribusiness. These folk sell food. They will not change just because growing fuel is more profitable. The land allocation will not change. Land is abundant enough that we grow food for cattle who thrive better on grass. Most "cash crops" worldwide are not food staples, grain staples are cheap because abundantly produced, and these shortages have not been caused, directly or indirectly, for the tenth time, by ethanol use. If you want to argue that this might happen in the future, I say that corn is a stopgap source and that nonfood items will dominate. So a farmer seeking to cash in on biofuel is going to switch, not from food crops to feed lot corn, but from cash crops intended for clothing and other items, to growing fuel. The land used can be largely untilled land currently being used for very little. It can even be grown to restore infertile soil (fallow technique). I already knew you're not a neocon. But you talk about economics like it's voodoo or something. Statistics bore me. I discern the reason they are being presented, and if that reason is to prove a point, those figures are not reliable. So I repeat-you find statistics which show that crop lands are significantly reallocated from human food to fuel, and I'll respond accordingly. But I have some sites to maintain right now. Food Demand ---> Rising due to higher population Food Supply--->Rising at a slower rate What part of economics are you missing here? FOOD SHORTAGE IS ALWAYS CAUSED BY OVERPOPULATION
So if too many people is the problem, what is the solution? Scratch that, I don't want to know. I agree with a lot of what you are saying, that fuel can be created out of waste & otherwise discarded leftovers. This is a great thing. But you sort of dismissed the problem that agriculture will shift to energy if the price is right, and U.S. government subsidies have made sure that the price is good for corn growers to switch over to bio-fuel instead of livestock feed. Sure, a lot of grains are already used for non-food purposes, but that is a quantity of "food" not being used as "food" at a time when there are shortages of food. Biofuel has its ups & downs, and I think part of the problem is not the potential but how its been used in America currently.
I figured asking you for some basis for your positions would put an end to the conjecture and opinion. I've already provided my statistics as well as the article I linked previously explaining the cost of gas/oil. You have yet to refute how gold, silver, platinum etc are all also going up. You haven't shown an increase in demand. You haven't shown this either. Your facts? Not pestilence? Not frost? Not weather changes? Not transportation issues? Sorry friend, but you don't have an argument, just a series of theories and opinions. Food shortage right now is being caused by the diversion of agricultural resources towards producing energy crops. That's not the only reason, but it is a prevailing one. And again, your ethanol is not cheap. Someone else is subsidizing it. The taxpayer. He's the one making it profitable for the farmers to produce it. Human action and economics are intertwined. I recommend you get interested in economics. It will help you rationalize your opinions. Of course, it might also help you to realize that you are wrong about some things if you have the courage to question them.
Haven't found a global solution to rising population yet. Personally, we won't be having children. Beyond that, I only hope that some solution will be found for better birth control. Current options are inadequate and toxic, but hopefully something will happen to curb the birthrate before our numbers increase the death rate much more. I addressed that: agribusiness will not switch, they grow and manufacture food, subsidies are for struggling farmers. Biofuel can be produced profitably if distributed widely. Then we won't need subsidies. There is no shortage of feedlot corn, and we'll all be better off if the practice were stopped. But there aren't very many independent farmers left in the US; they used to get subsidies not to grow, so subsidy farmers are going back to work and not impacting the food supply in any significant way. Of course, there will be some food land reallocated. But it's not necessary. The quality of land needed to grow food is higher than that to grow weeds, so we'll see new farmers getting into it, buying cheap non-arable land, and making nonproducing land bear the brunt of biofuel production. I couldn't agree more. The arguments against biofuel presume a corn-based model, I think we all know it's temporary. Grasses may turn out to be ideal and restore burnt-out land in the bargain.
The world has consumed more food than it has produced the last 3 years. World grain stocks are down to 50 days supply from 116 days in the early 1990s.
Wonder what will happen if there is a series of bad harvests due to the erratic climate changes. I guess the rich countries would still survive by paying more for their food, but the lower countries may starve en bloc.
The US is producing grain at record levels. But due to the weak dollar the world is buying up US grain faster than we produce it. Argentina and Russia are already moving to restrict their grain exports. US may need to place export controls soon. US is down to 20 day soy bean supply and stocks of wheat and rice are hitting record lows bot seen since the 1970s.
Bogart is single handedly making Yahoo relevant on the web. You'd think they would have given him share options by now.
I hope that there is 50 days supply of grain left UN World Food Program head Josette Sheeran said "The world has been consuming more than it has been producing for the past three years, so stocks have been drawn down," http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/new...-silent-tsunami/2008/04/23/1208742973076.html Here is a source for grain supply but it's already a year out of date. "USDA predicts supplies will plunge to a 53-day equivalent-their lowest level in the 47-year period for which data exists." http://hartlandag.blogspot.com/2007/05/global-grain-production-falls-behind.html
Assuming your links support your earlier statement. Do you think that has to do with the inability to produce, an intentional decrease in production, or food production turning into fuel production?
World population and demand is increasing. A third of the U.S. corn crop could be dedicated to fuel production. Field corn is not as high quality for human consumption as flour corn. But it can be ground for making tortillas, tamales, corn grits and corn mush that the Amish eat.
That is quite a contributing factor too. With USD dropping, investors are using food commodity as well as crude oil as a hedge further increasing the prices.
The people with the most time on their hands at DP get to be declared "winners" for that reason. For the rest of us, two line rebuttals is all we have time for.