Food or fuel
The UN is saying we have a perfect storm brewing because of global food shortages and rising food prices. Much of the world, already burdened with huge populations and barely subsisting are now being hit with that double whammy and then being further crushed under the additional stupidity of methanol production to make up for the diminishing oil and higher crude prices. The western world and some second world countries have tried to have their cake and eat it too by growing high sugar producing crops to feed their travel/transportation addiction, which in turn is based on business greed and avarice.
Let me say up front that methanol additives to gasoline is one of the most stupid hair brained concoctions every to come out the collective brain trusts we have shilling for big business. Here’s why. A fourth grader could have worked this one out.
Let’s just keep driving and pretending that we are actually doing something constructive to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Let’s keep the same economic model in place that touts more growth and consumption.
Instead of growing food to eat let’s grow food to stick in our cars and trucks.
Let’s again disenfranchise the poorest of the poor so we can have conveniences that gobble up what we want when we want.
Brazil has done this for years. They have added methanol to their gasoline because until recently they didn’t have fossils fuels within their national boundaries. What this has meant is because it has sought industrialize and achieve parity with other global powers, the resources within its boundaries were up for grabs. That is why the rain forest has been disappearing at a huge, accelerating rate. Its not because the Brazilians need more food, they need more fuel. So the attitude has been why don’t we just chop down the forests, grow high yield ethanol crops and drive on the ecosystem. With the costs of crude going through the roof the dollar incentive is there and they can then afford to mulch the rain forest into methanol.
Scientists know that if you burn methanol you get CO2, just like gasoline produces. But business has justified the ethanol approach even though it does nothing to stop the CO2 increases, through something called CO2 credits. The argument goes like this. If you grow the plant, it absorbs carbon through its lifetime. They if it is a fuel it is just putting back what you took out in the first place. What the business folks don’t tell you is that to grow this crop you have to till it, fertilize it, process it and ship it. You also have to cut down natural ecosystems which worked full time to clean the filth we pump into it.
When will we stop tricking, lying and distorting things and really do something. Now, not only the ecosystem is expendable, the poor are being mulched to feed our cars!