7/4/2008, "Biofuels May Be Even Worse than First Thought," Der Spiegel
"Biofuels have driven up global food prices by 75 percent, according to the Guardian report, accounting for more than half of the 140 percent jump in price since 2002 of the food examined by the study. The paper claims that the report, completed in April, was not made public in order to avoid embarrassing US President George W. Bush....
"Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," Oxfam policy advisor Robert Bailey told the Guardian on Friday.
Demand for biofuels has risen significantly in recent years as industrialized countries seek to cut CO2 emissions by relying more on renewable energy sources. In April, London introduced new regulations requiring that 2.5 percent of fuel sold at pumps in the United Kingdom be composed of biofuels with the mixture to be boosted to 5 percent in 2010. The European Union has set itself a goal of a 10 percent admixture by 2020 across the continent. US President George W. Bush has also latched onto bio-ethanol as a way to reduce America's independence on foreign oil.
In a report published on Tuesday by the World Bank ahead of next week's G-8 Summit, the organization recommends that the G-8 "agree on action in the US and Europe to ease subsidies, mandates and tariffs on biofuels that are derived from maize and oilseeds."
Criticism of fuel from grains and grass has not just centered on food prices. With farmers in developing countries cutting down rain forest and draining peat bogs -- both valuable for their ability to soak CO2 out of the atmosphere -- to make way for biofuel plantations, many doubt that the substance is carbon neutral. Plus, some fertilizers used in the production of grains for biofuels release nitrous oxide into the atmosphere, a greenhouse gas that is up to 300 times more harmful than CO2.
The World Bank report obtained by the Guardian says that biofuels production puts pressure on food prices by driving grain away from food production, by encouraging farmers to set aside land for biofuels crops, and by triggering grain speculation on the financial markets.
The problem has become so bad that UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler called biofuels a "crime against humanity" earlier this spring. "----------------------------------------------
More no-strings US taxpayer money is needed for "sustainable" research. Arab uprisings were due to US greed.
6/5/11, "Global Food Shortage Becomes Urgent as Planet Warms," livescience.com, Britt
"Scientists have been predicting for years that a warmer planet coupled with increasing water demands could cause food shortages. A study in 2007, building on and confirming previous research, warned that climate change could help cause food shortages leading to war....
The situation became acute in 2008 when food shortages helped fuel uprisings in several poorer countries. High food prices played a role in the ouster of the Haitian government that year....
Global food prices have spiked since the year 2000, mostly since 2006, with some key crops doubling.
"Food security" has emerged as a political buzzword in conversations about stability in the developing world. Three-fourths of the people in the least developed countries live on $2 per day. "Recent global food price hikes threatened to create a new food crisis in those nations, where the poorest people often spent three-quarters of their income on food," according to a recent statement from the United Nations. "Only through greater investment in sustainable agriculture — a long-neglected area — could those nations ensure both food security and competitiveness on the international markets." ...
The New York Times provided an extensive look at a world struggling to feed itself. After interviews with dozens of scientists, farmers and food industry experts, the article confirmed what many experts have been saying: World population growth is outpacing food production, particularly with the four crops that provide the bulk of the world's nutrition: wheat, rice, corn and soybeans.
As studies have shown previously, there's little land left to convert to farming, water supplies are drying up, and global warming is wreaking havoc on the growing seasons and contributing to weather extremes that destroy crops.
But the urgent global food shortage problem is not being matched by urgent research efforts to improve the outlook in the future, the article concludes. ...
A report last month from the international aid organization Oxfam warned that global food prices will continue rising. With the world's poor spending about 75 percent of their income on food, the situation is expected to cause more to go hungry and
- also to fuel dissent....
The unrest sweeping the Arab world this year has also been linked, in part, to the rising cost of food. ...
"We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people," Fedoroff said."
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6/13/12, "Scientists urge Rio moves on population and consumption," BBC, Richard Black
"Global consumption levels are at an all time high, largely because of the high per-capita consumption of developed countries."
If the billion poorest people are to have adequate access to food, water and energy, the academies say, developed countries will have to reduce their own consumption of natural resources."...
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