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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I'm surprised the report (as quoted), Mr. Leonard or the commenters haven't pointed to the obvious impact that $140 (oh, sorry... make that $145) oil is having on the price of just about everything. I find it hard to believe that "changing diets in China and India" would account for even a fraction of the recent rise in food prices compared to the impact of rising oil prices on both production and transportation.
Slave- and futures traders are not playing on the same pitch of endeavors.
The former is a technical/trading bunch- hustling and betting to make a buck (I'm one of them)- whereas the latter are a morally reprehensible lot and as such beyond discussion.
That Bush and his neocon clique are distorters of fact and liars has unfortunately been establishred
To hell with them all. Good riddance come November.
My views on ethanol are not all that sanguine. To distil it from corn is inefficient and costly in many ways.
Import sugar based ethanol from Brasil. Dump tariffs.
However, I like your reasoning, as I hope to meet with you again on another subject.
Love the Baby Jesus and take the easy ones twice.
Mungo
I'm sure you know the haves and have-nots don't divide into equal parts. A very few haves consume far more than the majority of have-nots. So sure, you can stretch your allowance out if you put a progressive squeeze on folks proportional to their uptake.
But see, I'd like the have-nots to have more. I'd like my children, and their children, and on down the line to live increasingly richer lives. And I wish the same for everyone else as well. There's no way any of those things will happen if the world's population doesn't significantly decline. The only thing that could change that would be the invention of viable nuclear fusion power generation. Without that, it's only a matter of time before the well runs dry, no matter how much the top 10% conserve.
It's time to stop trying to see how many rats we can fit into one cage.
p.s. - The folks who talk the most about the need for the minority upper class to reduce their consumption are the chattering upper classes themselves. Meanwhile, the masses are trying to move up. So what happens when the top 10% reduce their consumption by say 50%, and the remaining 90% increase their consumption by 10% on an annualized basis? A big sucking sound.
Personally, I would feel neither materially nor spiritually gratified to live like a peasant. The goal is to address the world's problems without going backwards.
I'm not surprised by this report. Biofuel is about subsidies for Iowa corn farmers, not energy. If we were serious about biofuel as a source of energy, we would stop the barriers to Brazilian sugar cane ethanol.
Gary
It's time to stop trying to see how many rats we can fit into one cage.
We won't agree, but I do want to point out the common logical fallacy used to support your common point of of view. Often, it's scientists themselves who make this error, variously citing studies of rats in cages, or organisms in a petri dish, or deer without predators, etc etc. All of these studies point toward rapidly reproducing species stripping available resources and then suffering sharp population declines.
There analogies do not adequately describe the resource problem humans face because human beings are the only species in which individuals can consume exponentially more resources than what they need to survive and reproduce. Humans also compete in abstracted economic markets in which basics like food (cooking oil or grain) and non-survival luxuries (like most uses of fuel) affect the cost of the other.
Let's modify your analogy to make it more real. You'd like to get rid of some of the "rats" so the remaining rats could consume much more and lead "richer" lives, by which you mean more consumption. Can you see why ten super-rats who consume ten times as many resources as they need to survive will have the same problems with resource depletion as one hundred regular rats who eat enough to get by?
To you, the amount of consumption is a confounding variable that I've introduced as a rhetorical slight of hand. But, to me, I don't think the environment cares whether three billion humans burn X amount of fuel or if two billion humans burn the same X amount of fuel. The emissions released by that same amount of fuel will impact the global climate just as much. I find your arguments magically anthropocentric.
To you, the amount of consumption is a confounding variable that I've introduced as a rhetorical slight of hand. But, to me, I don't think the environment cares whether three billion humans burn X amount of fuel or if two billion humans burn the same X amount of fuel.
The only confounding thing about your argument is how you continue to abuse elementary arithmetic to support the preposterous notion that numbers don't matter. Hey I know, let's double the world's population, because according to you, it won't make a rat's ass bit of difference. And you have the temerity to call me anthropocentric!
What happens if you decrease the world's population and per capita consumption stays the same?! Gee whiz Beaver, total consumption goes down! See, we're both trying to get to the same place, but you would prefer to either use (1) magic or (2) poverty to get there. You claim to speak for the world's poor, but you forbid they elevate themselves. I'm not going to waste any more time arguing with someone who can't comprehend simple math. Enjoy your dharmic asceticsm and your empty cupboard, but don't begrudge the rest of the world their hope of advancement.
The problem is overpopulation. The best answer is education. The alternative answers are scarcity, death, war, and pestilence. Oh yes, and magical thinking.
Critics of corn ethanol seem to originate mostly from people not from the corn belt. Those of us involved with corn and corn research probably have a bias but also sense some misunderstanding among the writers. 1. Most midwestern land is already cultivated for something: corn, soybeans, wheat or hay crops. Most farmers rotate the crops with some adjustment for expected demand. Ethanol is not causing a big shift in land use in the midwest. 2. Most corn in the midwest is not used directly for human food. I suppose 120KG of corn could be used to feed a person for a year but it would be a terrible diet and if that was the objective it would be better to use the land for vegetables. 3. Corn has a wide range of genetics that can be manipulated to suit its ultimate use. Corn ethanol efficiency will improve with research effort in corn genetics and ethanol production technology. Corn remains one of the most efficient plant species in converting sunlight energy into the energy of carbohydrates. It will be interesting to read the details of the World Bank study but on the surface it seems suspect if it is based mostly on use of corn ethanol.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
