UPPERWEATHER.COM _{-Meteorological Musings}

I have been firmly against them for quite some time. Not because I hate the planet, quite the contrary, but because more gasoline is used in their production than fuel is produced. This is like the kids story where one kid has a dollar, and trades it for TWO quarters, then he trades those for THREE dimes, then FOUR nickels, FIVE pennies.

We are burning up oil and food, to produce a comparatively small amount of "green" fuel.

I read a really interesting and thought provoking article yesterday, that points out reasons that food should be linked to energy.

It should not be forgotten that in the entire sweep of human history prior to 90 years ago, almost all non-railway transport fuel was grown on farms and the trade-off between the use of grain for food or transport was a central element of all human commerce. A part of every farm was set aside as the "horse paddock" and part of every oat or corn crop was set aside for both family consumption and horse transport and traction purposes. The family's ride into town was fueled by a stomach full of grass but it was the bag of oats, that was contentedly munched on while the shopping was done, that fueled the ride back home. Every farmer also knew that if they wanted the ploughing done on schedule then they would need a few more bags of supplemental grain to maintain the effort. And all the products the family had bought had been transported by animals whose sole source of fuel was grain that had been bought in the same market where the same grains (of slightly different quality) were sold as food for humans.

The whole article is great and well worth the read. I had never thought of it that way. Maybe linking food to energy is a good thing after all. However, I really can't see how this negative energy balance is the way to do it.

I see how linking the two is a more economically sustainable way of doing things. The article states it well...

For the rural poor this doubling and trebling of food prices is the good economic news that well informed development economists have been calling for for decades. The major cause of their poverty was the low cost of energy and the resulting artificially low break even price of industrially farmed commodities. These low priced industrial food stocks undermined the prices of third world farming produce to the point where the results of a days labour were insufficient to feed the farmers family for that day. This was further exacerbated by the dumping of subsidised food as "aid" to the expanding urbanised populations that needed to be placated to maintain any semblance of order.

If the farmers in third world countries are benefiting from the US not giving away as much food, then the US should stop giving away as much food! That is a huge issue too! I think Bono's aid to Africa is a terrible thing. It is done in the worst way. It is destroying the livelihood of these people and making them completely dependent on this aid. However, I really don't see what that has to do with biofuels.