Gerry Charlotte Phelps

Mini-Nuclear Plants to Power 40,000 Homes

                                          (Image from hyperionpowergeneration.com)

$25 million shed-size reactors will be delivered by truck.  John Vidal and Nick Rosen, UK Guardian, 11-9-08.*

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. 'Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,' said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. 'They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.'

Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. 'It's leapfrog technology,' he said.

The company plans to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. 'We already have a pipeline for 100 reactors, and we are taking our time to tool up to mass-produce this reactor.'

The first confirmed order came from TES, a Czech infrastructure company specialising in water plants and power plants. 'They ordered six units and optioned a further 12. We are very sure of their capability to purchase,' said Deal. The first one, he said, would be installed in Romania. 'We now have a six-year waiting list. We are in talks with developers in the Cayman Islands, Panama and the Bahamas.'

The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years. Because the reactor is based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory. An application to build the plants will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year.

'You could never have a Chernobyl-type event - there are no moving parts,' said Deal. 'You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium. Temperature-wise it's too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with your bare hands.'

Other companies are known to be designing micro-reactors. Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two metres. Designed to fuel smaller numbers of homes for longer, they could power a single building for up to 40 years.

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* At http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos

World Has Never Seen Such "Freezing Heat"

                            (Image from z.hubpages.com)

ByChristopher Booker, November 16, 2008, in the UK Telegraph.*

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped.

Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world's governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.

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*At http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml  

Palin's Strategic Importance for National Security

                 (Image from arm.gov)

Palin's good looks almost get in the way of taking her seriously.  But much more is at stake in this election than simply an election.  Investor's Business Daily outlines here the importance of Palin in our national security.

Security: The impact of prolonged high oil prices is moving well beyond economics. Russia now takes license to assault Georgia, and intends worse. John McCain's Alaska running mate has the only weapon.

When Alaska governor Sarah Palin was chosen for the McCain vice presidential ticket, most attention was on her beauty-queen past and down-home North Woods family life. In reality, she's the powerful governor of Alaska, the most pivotal state in the union for energy.

They write of John McCain's understanding of the stretegic importance of Alaska.  It has to do not only with the high price of oil, but also increasing threats from hostile oil-producing nations enpowered by high oil prices

Palin's leadership has done much to develop Alaska's energy resources, but the state is still stonewalled by Congress.

Palin's strong Alaskan presence in Washington will change that.

It's got to because America is nearly helpless in the face of a resurgent Russia intent on reclaiming its czarist empire, an Iran hellbent on acquiring nuclear weapons, a China making common cause with dictators to acquire energy and a menacing Venezuela aligning with Russia and Cuba to control sea lanes in the Caribbean, where 64% of all U.S.-bound tanker traffic passes.

These are all emerging threats. That's why Alaska has never been more critical to U.S. security interests.

But Alaska oil peaked in 1988 and has been declining since.   New drilling is needed, to tap the 31 billion barrels in official reserves, including ANWAR.  Alaska's pipeline is being used at only 1/3 capacity, because of declining oil.

No one has fought to bring Alaska front and center like Palin.  She has called on Congress to remove restrictions on drilling in ANWAR.  And she's also asked for something Congress could do right now --

.— remove restrictions on drilling for 30 billion barrels in the Chukchi Sea and all the natural gas of Beaufort Sea in Alaska's offshore. As governor, she's already gotten the environmental impact work out of the way so shipments to the Lower 48 can start in as little as a year or two. "Congress can do that for us right now," she told IBD.  (Emphasis added.)

Palin knows energy, says IBD.

She's already figured out how to deliver energy to the U.S. without Congress — by championing state legislation to create a 1,712-mile natural gas pipeline across Canada to the U.S.

It was a major feat, negotiating with the Canadian government, educating lawmakers and getting the public behind her. In a decade, the $30 billion project will ship 4.5 million cubic feet of gas a day from the North Slope to Houston's air conditioners, Iowa's farm machines and Boston's winter furnaces.

This is the kind of leadership the U.S. needs, says IBDs editorial board.

Not only will getting serious about Alaska help the economy, it will also help our allies in Europe and the Far East whose economies are severely battered by high energy prices and who are seeing some of the most direct threats from the petro-tyrants.

Choosing Palin shows John McCain is serious about energy, says IBD.

Congress mustn't ignore Alaska any longer. Petro-tyranny is moving beyond economics and becoming a national security issue. Alaska is a big part of the answer.

(Hat Tip to Joan Archibald.)

The Truth About ANWAR

This video should help.  5 minutes.

What do you think?

5 Myths About Energy Independence

                         Ethanol and the Corn It Comes From

                                 (Image from evworld.com )

The Washington Post says most of proposed cures for the energy shortage are just myths.  See their reasons here. By Robert Bryce, Sunday, January 13, 2008,

With oil prices still flirting with $100 a barrel, everyone is talking about the need for "energy independence." Late last year, President Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007; Sen. John McCain has declared, "We need energy independence"; and Sen. Barack Obama has called for "serious leadership to get us started down the path of energy independence."

This may all be good politics. But the idea that the United States, the world's single largest energy consumer, can be independent of the $5 trillion-per-year energy business -- the world's single biggest industry -- is ludicrous on its face. The push for energy independence is based on a series of false premises . Here are a few of the most pernicious ones.

1 Energy independence will reduce or eliminate terrorism.

...former CIA director R. James Woolsey Jr. had some advice for American motorists: "The next time you pull into a gas station to fill your car with gas...take a glance in the side-door mirror. . . . you will see a contributor to terrorism against the United States." But according to retired Marine Corps colonel G.I. Wilson...Support for terrorism "doesn't come from oil," he says. "It comes from drugs, crime, human trafficking and the weapons trade."

2 A big push for alternative fuels will break our oil addiction.

The new energy bill requires that the country produce 36 billion gallons of biofuels per year by 2022...but put it in perspective:..If all soybeans were converted by American farmers into biodiesel; that would provide only about 1.5 percent of total annual U.S. oil needs. And if the United States devoted its entire corn crop to producing ethanol, it would supply only about 6 percent of U.S. oil needs.

So what about cellulosic ethanol? ...even with heavy federal subsidies, it took 13 years before the corn-ethanol sector was able to produce 1 billion gallons of fuel per year. Two and a half decades elapsed before annual corn-ethanol production reached 5 billion gallons, as it did in 2006. But now Congress is demanding that the cellulosic-ethanol business magically produce many times that volume of fuel in just 15 years. It's not going to happen.

3 Energy independence will let America choke off the flow of money to nasty countries.

Fans of energy independence argue that if the United States stops buying foreign energy, it will deny funds to petro-states such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Hugo Ch¿vez's Venezuela. But...Oil is a global commodity. Its price is set globally, not locally. Oil buyers are always seeking the lowest-cost supplier. So any Saudi crude...that doesn't get purchased by a refinery in Corpus Christi or Houston will instead wind up in Singapore or Shanghai.

4 Energy independence will mean reform in the Muslim world.

The most vocal proponent of this one is New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who argues that the United States should build "a wall of energy independence" around itself and thereby lower global oil prices: "Shrink the oil revenue and they will have to open up their economies and their schools and liberate their women so that their people can compete. It is that simple." When the petro-states are effectively bankrupt, Friedman argues, we'll see "political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran."

If only it were that easy. Between about 1986 and 2000, oil prices generally stayed below $20 per barrel; by the end of 1998, they were as low as $11 per barrel. As Alan Reynolds pointed out in May 2005 in the conservative National Review Online, this prolonged period of "cheap oil did nothing to promote economic or political liberty in Algeria, Iran, or anywhere else. This theory has been tested -- and it failed completely."

5 Energy independence will mean a more secure U.S. energy supply.

To see why this is a myth, think back to 2005. After hurricanes ravaged the Gulf Coast, chewing up refineries as they went, several cities in the southeastern United States were hit with gasoline shortages. Thankfully, they were short-lived. The reason? Imported gasoline, from refineries in Venezuela, the Netherlands and elsewhere. Throughout the first nine months of 2005, the United States imported about 1 million barrels of gasoline per day. By mid-October 2005, just six weeks after Hurricane Katrina, those imports soared to 1.5 million barrels per day.

So we're woven in with the rest of the world -- and going to stay that way. Today, in addition to gasoline imports, the United States is buying crude oil from Angola, jet fuel from South Korea, natural gas from Trinidad, coal from Colombia and uranium from Australia. Those imports show that the global energy market is just that: global. Anyone who argues that the United States will be more secure by going it alone on energy hasn't done the homework.

Robert Bryce is a fellow at the Institute for Energy Research. He is the author of the forthcoming "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence.' "  robert@robertbryce.com

New Polls - Americans Favor Drilling Over Conservation Now

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Now 67% of Americans support offshore drilling, while 64% expect it to lower prices.  It showed even liberals have moved from 37% to 46% in favor of drilling.  (From a new Rasmusen Poll, released 6-17-08, at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/67_support_offshore_drilling_64_expect_it_will_lower_prices 

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More recently, a new Pew Poll released Tuesday , here, says :

nearly half of those surveyed - 47 percent - now rate energy exploration, drilling and building new power plants as the top priority, compared with 35 percent who believed that five months ago.

Meanwhile, those who consider energy conservation more important than drilling dropped from a clear majority to  47%.

The number of people who said they considered increasing energy supplies more important than protecting the environment increased from 54 percent in February to 60 percent and the number of people who favor oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge also increased.

How long will it take for these new trends to show up in the pronouncements of politicians?  Pretty quickly in an election year, one would think,.

U.S. Risks Loss of Remaining Oil Companies

  One of 12 Chinese-Made Oil Rigs Drilling off the Coast of Cuba

In this morning's news is evidence that Exxon-Mobile may be moving toward going out of business in a few years, at http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/JubaksJournal/IsExxonMobilsFutureRunningDry.aspx. . Why?  And what would that mean for the U.S.?

It is routine for the U.S. Congress to haul in the CEOs of big U.S. oil companies, slap them around before the cameras, threaten them with even more regulation if they do not "behave" and blame half the troubles of the world on them.  That usually happens in the spring, when gas prices always, always go up because of seasonal changes as our few remaining refineries change over to summer production.  But this spring, with the soaring worldwide price of oil, it happened as never before.

Never mind that the U.S. oil "giants" are now mere bit players in the world.  In the 1970s, they controlled 70% of the world's oil supply.  Now the enormous oil companies of other countries - all government-owned - control 80%.

Meantime, Congress will not let go of U.S. oil companies as whipping boys.  Haliburton became their chief whipping boy all through the Bush administration, because of its misfortune in having had Dick Chaney as its CEO, until he gave up all those bucks to be Bush's Vice President.  After some years of that, Halliburton finally had enough.  They moved out of the U.S., to Dubai.  Can anyone blame them?  Being a favorite whipping boy gets old.

Now there are signs that Exxon-Mobile may be planning to go out of business over the next few years.   

What is the problem?  What isn't!  Not only is Exxon continually harassed by Congress, it is running out of places to drill.  Old fields are producing less.  And almost every new possibility in the U.S., or off its shores, is off limits.  Then too, the costs of drilling are soaring, because more and more of new discoveries are in "extreme" places, like in frozen Artic tundra, or through a mile of water and a mile of salt.  It costs a lot more to drill there!  The highly-specialized equipment for such drilling is in short supply worldwide, with the price being constantly bid up.  Neither are they allowed to build any new refineries in the U.S

Great going, Congress!  Not only are we paying dearly for oil.  But Congress is ensuring we could pay even more, by persecuting, limiting and threatening the only oil companies we still have left.  Exxon - now  only 18th biggest in the world - is our biggest, most capable oil company.  Congress is doing everything it can to make it even smaller.  A couple of them even threatened openly to nationalize them, in open hearings.  ("Nationalize" means to confiscate a company without paying for it - like Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela.) 

Instead, what Congress should be doing is trying to build up the U.S. oil industry.  What is left of it, that is.  They should be cherishing and helping the few oil giants we have left.  Subsidies might be wise.  They should be learning from them, not lecturing them in ways that show their appalling ignorance of energy problems.  They should be talking subsidies, the removal of restrictions, asking them what they need in order to access more of the world's oil reserves.

Our oil companies have done admirably under decades of persecution.  They have stayed in business.  Their profits may look large in dollars, but they are necessary for the huge investments required.  They must spend huge amounts on ever-more-expensive exploration and development, long before returns come in - if indeed they ever do.  We are on the road to losing more and more of U.S. oil companies if we do not wake up on time.  U.S. energy now has a tiny fraction of the world's oil supply.  It will get smaller fast if we do not turn around quickly on how we treat our oil companies.  Without them, we would be at the mercies of the mid East oil countries and Russia.

There is a tiny chance that Congress might decide to give US comsumers a tiny concession, by letting oil companies drill in the US.  Who do they want to do our drilling anyhow - US companies?  Or someone like Hugo Chavez or the Saudis or the Chinese?  The way we are going, that might be our only option.

How dumb can Congress get?

There Are No "Oil Giants" in America

                       (Image from bbsnews.net)

Exxon-Mobile is a tiny oil company (even though it is the biggest of the U.S. oil companies.)  At 18th in the world, it ranks way down in the scales.  The other 17 companies are the real oil giants.  They are all government-owned oil companies.  Saudia Arabia.  Kuwait. Venezuela.  Pemex in Mexico.  It is a very different picture from what you may have been thinking, or hearing.

You want to go after the "oil giants"?  Good!  Then look somewhere else.  None of them are U.S. oil companies, which have shrunk and shrunk over the years, under environmentalist attack in the U.S., and through being shut out of foreign oil by the governments who own all the oil in their countries. 

You really want to go after the "oil giants?"  (Remember now, all of them are oil giants owned by the governments of other countries.)  Then drill here!  Drill now!  What is happening to our energy is going to hurt everyone in the U.S. and in the world. 

Someday we may have enough alternative fuels, on a massive-enough scale and cheap enough, to take oil's place.  We need to keep trying.  But until then, right now, we need to INCREASE THE SUPPLY OF OIL.  If we wait, we will get poorer and poorer and have less and less money to finance a great effort to increase our domestic oil supply.  And if we don't start now, it won't be fixed at all, much less 10 years from now.

Please - get on the right side of this!  If you want to know how bad it can get, start with looking at the "oil shock" during the Carter years.  That was inflation rates of 12%, interest rates of 12%, and the highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression. 

And this time can get even worse than that.  The 1970s Oil Shock was a minor shock, deliberately caused by OPEC.  This time, OPEC is involved, but there are also much greater other problems, real, stubborn and huge, between soaring demand for oil and a shrinking supply.  That equation will only get worse, for years to come.  It will affect global politics, global warfare and the global economy.  Everyone in the world will be affected, even Americans.

If we don't drill now, and drill here, we are going to be very, very sorry.  The resulting pain will bring down many a politician and raise national misery to a level we have not seen in 2 or 3 generations.  We are already getting a very small taste of what lies ahead.

For your own sake - do whatever research on this you need to be convinced of the actual facts.  They are very different from what Congress has been saying.  And the solution is not less U.S. oil, but way, way more.

(May I suggest you start with what economists say, instead of your friendly politicians?)

Economist Robert Samuelson - "Start Drilling!"

      One of 12 Chinese-made oil rigs drilling off the coast of Cuba

                          (Image from havanajournal.com)

This is excerpted from the dean of American economists, Robert Samuelson, at realclearpolitics.com here.

What to do about oil, as the price soars and is likely to keep soaring?  Samuelson says we are almost powerless to affect oil prices, because...

...we didn't take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two.

The first thing to do: Start drilling.

The U.S. is the 3rd largest oil producer in the world.  We could be producing more:

...but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico...these areas may contain 25-30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).

What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both "energy independence" and cheap fuel. They deplore imports -- who wants to pay foreigners? -- but oppose more production in the United States.

Got it?

The basic cause of exploding prices is that growing world demand has nearly exhausted global surplus oil production capacity.

The best we can do is to try to influence the global balance of supply and demand. Increase our supply. Restrain our demand.

Output from older fields, including Alaska's North Slope, is declining. Although production from restricted areas won't make the U.S. self-sufficient, it might stabilize output or even reduce imports. No one knows exactly what's in these areas, because the exploratory work is old. Estimates indicate that production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge might equal almost 5 percent of present U.S. oil use.

Congress complains about high oil profits, but frustrates oil companies from using these profits to explore and produce oil in the U.S.  Meantime, high oil prices perversely encourage other countries to cut back on production, to drive up prices ever more.

But it's hard for the United States to complain that other countries limit access to their reserves when we're doing the same. If higher U.S. production reduced world prices, other countries might expand production. What they couldn't get from prices they'd try to get from greater sales.

Oddly, alternatives to drilling are often environmentally worse.

Subsidies to ethanol made from corn have increased food prices and used scarce water, with few benefits. If oil is imported, it's vulnerable to tanker spills. By contrast, local production is probably safer. There were 4,000 platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit. Despite extensive damage, there were no major spills.

Our long-term oil problem will remain, although we can make it much better.

But this is not a task of a month or a year. It is a task of decades; new production projects take that long.

If we don't start now, our future dependence and its dangers will grow. Count on it.

But read the whole article.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison Targets Biofuels

                          (Image from blogs.princeton.edu)

"Undoing America's Ethanol Mistake," Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison , April 25, 2008

"The Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman once said, 'One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.'"

                 (Image from kvii.com)

In the International Business Daily on Friday, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison came out opposing ethanol production, offering other energy alternatives.  She said:

When Congress passed legislation to greatly expand America's commitment to biofuels, it intended to create energy independence and protect the environment.

But the results have been quite different. America remains equally dependent on foreign sources of energy, and new evidence suggests that ethanol is causing great harm to the environment.

She points to the connection between biofuels and soaring food prices.

"...the correlation between government biofuel mandates and rapidly rising food prices has become undeniable... . Nearly all our domestic corn and grain supply is needed to meet this (government) mandate, robbing the world of one of its most important sources of food...

Last year, 25% of America's corn crop was diverted to produce ethanol. In 2008, that number will grow to 30%-35%, and it will soar even higher in the years to come...

Furthermore, the trend of farmers supplanting other grains with corn is decreasing the supply of numerous agricultural products. When the supply of those products goes down, the price inevitably goes up.

Subsequently, the cost of feeding farm and ranch animals increases and the cost is passed to consumers of beef, poultry and pork products.

Since February 2006, the price of corn, wheat and soybeans has increased by more than 240%. Rising food prices are hitting the pockets of lower-income Americans and people who live on fixed incomes.

There are other contributing factors, but

— the expansion of biofuels has been a major source of the problem.

The International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that biofuel production accounts for between one-quarter and one-third of the recent spike in global commodity prices.

For the first time in 30 years, food riots are breaking out in many parts of the globe, including major countries such as Mexico, Pakistan and Indonesia.

The fact that America's energy policies are creating global instability should concern the leaders of both political parties.

As a recent Time cover story pointed out, biofuel mandates increase greenhouse gasses and create incentives for global deforestation.

In the Amazon basin, huge swaths of forest are being cleared to meet the growing hunger for biofuels.

In addition, relief organizations are facing gaping shortfalls as the cost of food outpaces their ability to provide aid for the 800 million people who lack food security.

What should we do then?

The best way to lower energy prices, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, is to accelerate production of all forms of domestic energy.

Expanding biofuels while refusing to take other measures, such as lifting the ban on oil and natural gas production in Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf, is counterproductive. We should be tapping into a broad portfolio of energy options, including clean coal, nuclear power and wave energy.

The key is increasing energy supply. By taking these measures, we can enable biofuels to be part of the energy solution, instead of contributing to the energy problem.

She is introducigt legislation to freeze the "biofuel mandate" at current levels, instead of steadily increasing it through 2022..

This is a common-sense measure that will reduce pressure on global food prices and restore balance to America's energy policy.

At one point, expanding biofuels made sense for America's energy security. But the recent surge in food prices has forced us to adapt. The global demand for energy and food is expected to rise about 50% in the next 20 years...That will require a careful, finely tuned approach to America's farm products.

By freezing the biofuel mandate at current levels, we will go a long way to achieving that goal.

(Hutchison is a member of the Senate Republican leadership and the senior senator from Texas.  Tead the whole article at http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=294015465776712 )

What Took the Environmentalists So Long?

                          Ethanol and the Corn It Comes From

                                 (Image from evworld.com )

Environmentalists are objecting to biofuels?  Just what is going on?  Well, exactly what was predicted.

The hand-wringing is getting frantic.  Yesterday Simon Jenkins wrote in "The Cost of Green Tinkering is in Famine and Starvation" in The Guardian, that "Biofuels threaten food supplies, rain forest and climate - yet our leaders push them in the name of the environment" 

Jenkins begins:

Farewell the age of reason, welcome the idiocracy. Only George Orwell could have invented - and named - the government's Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) that came into operation yesterday. It is the latest in a long line of measures intended to ease the conscience of the rich while keeping the poor miserable, in this case spectacularly so.

Jenkins is not a lone voice.  The day before in The Guardian, environmentalist George Monbiot wrote about biofuels causing world hunger, with humane anguish and alarm.  Already, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and the World Bank have all joined the hue and cry against the wicked biofuels that are causing world hunger.

What a change!  Only two or three short years ago, they supported the very enviromentalists who were demostrating, lobbying, pressuring and hounding governments to use alternative fuels to avoid global warming.  Finally, most governments caved in and started such programs.  Naturally, it took awhile for these new programs - mostly for biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel - to come online.

But also at the very same time, a few years back, hundreds of scientists who opposed the concept of global warming warned about the many problems of biofuels..  They pointed to the self-evident fact that using crops for fuel, not food, would lead to increased world hunger.  They were dismissed, including by all the above-named media.

Now after just two years, those predictions have come true.  Already 37 countries are in a "hunger crisis," which is expected to get worse.  Oddly, that also happens to be just two short years after U.S. ethanol subsidies started.  About that time, the Brits also planned their program to force biofuels to be added to all fuels.  That program finally came online 3 days ago.

Now the leftist Guardian, environmentalist to its toes, has been running articles that practically scream out against the same buifuels they once thought were so necessary, because, just as predicted, they are causuig world hunger.

Excuse me, but what took the environmentalists and their media supporters so long?. Shouldn't they be publicly repenting their previous arrogance and eating a little crow? 

It might help people's heads to stop spinning.

The Real Global Crisis is Hunger, Not Credit

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So writes award-winning environmentalist and professor, George Monbiot, in Britain's The Guardian yesterday here . His headline says:

A food recession is underway.  Biofuels are a crime against humanity.  But - take it from a flesh-eater - eating meat is worse.

He writes:

Never mind the economic crisis. Focus for a moment on a more urgent threat: the great food recession that is sweeping the world faster than the credit crunch... the price of rice has risen by three-quarters over the past year, that of wheat by 130%. There are food crises in 37 countries. One hundred million people, according to the World Bank, could be pushed into deeper poverty by the high prices.

But the most telling statistic?  World grain production also broke all records, 5% bigger than all previous years.  So it is not lack of increasing production! But...

Of the 2.13bn tonnes likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01bn...will feed people.

Remarking on the new UK law which yesterday required all transport fuel to be mixed with biofuels, he notes that:

The World Bank points out that "the grain required to fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol ... could feed one person for a year".

This year global stockpiles of cereals will decline by around 53m tonnes...The production of biofuels will consume almost 100m tonnes.

This indicates that biofuels "are directly responsible for the current crisis."

In the midst of a global humanitarian crisis, we have just become legally obliged to use food as fuel. It is a crime against humanity, in which every driver in this country has been forced to participate.

He sees, however, an even bigger cause of world hunger than biofuels. 

While 100m tonnes of food will be diverted this year to feed cars, 760m tonnes will be snatched from the mouths of humans to feed animals - which could cover the global food deficit 14 times. If you care about hunger, eat less meat.

The U.S. eats about 2 kg. (4.4 lbs) of meat a week per person, the UK about 1kg, which is about 40% above the global average.  Cows eat 8 kg of grain per pound of beef produced, but chickens only 2 kg of grain per pound ofmeat.

He cites figures to show that a vegan UK could feed itself using only half of its farmland..

But I cannot advocate a diet that I am incapable of following. I tried it for about 18 months, lost two stone, went as white as bone and felt that I was losing my mind. I know a few healthy-looking vegans, and I admire them immensely. But after almost every talk that I give, I am pestered by swarms of vegans demanding that I adopt their lifestyle. I cannot help noticing that in most cases their skin has turned a fascinating pearl grey.

But "...some livestock is raised on pasture, so it doesn't contribute to the grain deficit. Simon Fairlie estimates that if animals were kept only on land that is unsuitable for arable farming, and given scraps and waste from food processing, the world could produce between a third and two-thirds of its current milk and meat supply...The only reasonable answer to the question of how much meat we should eat is as little as possible. Let's reserve it - as most societies have done until recently - for special occasions."

Re-reading this article, I see that there is something surreal about it. While half the world wonders whether it will eat at all...our shops are better stocked than ever before. We perceive the global food crisis dimly, if at all.

(George Montiot's website is www.monbiot.com.)

You Can't Eat Ethanol

                  (Image from starchildscience.org)

This is excerpted from the Boston Globe, at http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/04/13/cant_eat_ethanol/

CORN should be used for food, not motor fuel, and yet the United States is committed to a policy that encourages farmers to turn an increasing amount of their crop into ethanol. This may save the nation a bit of the cost of imported oil, but it increases global-warming gases and contributes to higher food prices. (Emphasis added.)

Ethanol is a sad story:

                          (Image from celcius.com)

It uses up almost a quarter of US corn production.

Increased ethanol production isn't the only reason for the spike in food costs, but it's more controllable than drought in Australia, higher fertilizer prices, or increased meat consumption by the Chinese. Unlike those other cost-drivers, ethanol production is encouraged by federal subsidies.

Ethanol does not improve the environment.

When emissions inherent in the production process are included, ethanol consumption generates more carbon dioxide per gallon than gasoline, according to a recent report in Science magazine. Conversion of other cultivated biomass, such as sugarcane or soy, presents the same problem. The only biofuel that produces a net benefit is agricultural waste, an uncertain source. The best way for American motorists to use less gasoline is to drive fewer miles in lighter vehicles, rather than rely on the false promise of biofuels.

More ethanol means more greenhouse gases and higher prices for food and livestock feed.

There's a limited role for biofuels, excluding corn, in reducing oil imports from volatile regions, but they are not the answer to the world's need for energy on the go.

World Bank Says Biofuels Starving World's Poor

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The following report, based on the World Bank report below, is from outsidethebeltway.com yesterday at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2008/04/biofuels_starving_worlds_poor/

            (Image from npr.org)

The drastic rise in prices for corn, rice, and other staples that is wreaking havoc in parts of the developing world is due in large part to Western investment in biofuels, according to a recent report of the World Bank.

The rising trend in international food prices continued, and even accelerated, in 2008.

U.S. wheat export prices rose from $375/ton in January to $440/ton in March, and Thai rice export prices increased from $365/ton to $562/ton. This came on top of a 181 percent increase in global wheat prices over the 36 months leading up to February 2008, and a 83 percent increase in overall global food prices over the same period.

Increased bio-fuel production has contributed to the rise in food prices.

Concerns over oil prices, energy security and climate change have prompted governments to take a more
proactive stance towards encouraging production and use of bio-fuels. This has led to increased demand for bio-fuel raw materials, such as wheat, soy, maize (corn) and palm oil, and increased competition for cropland.

Almost all of the increase in global maize (corn) production from 2004 to 2007 (the period
when grain prices rose sharply) went for bio-fuels production in the U.S..

The observed increase in food prices is not a temporary phenomenon, but likely to persist in the medium term. .., they are likely to remain well above the 2004 levels through 2015 for most food crops.

Forecasts of other major organizations (FAO, OECD, and USDA) that regularly monitor and project commodity prices are broadly consistent with these projections. Predictions of high food price...are further strengthened when we factor in the impact of policies aimed at achieving energy security and reduced carbon dioxide emissions, which may present strong trade-offs with food security objectives.

More details are available in the backgrounder, “Rising food prices: policy options and World Bank response” [PDF].

World Bank President Bob Zoellick was on NPR this morning talking about this.

Demand for ethanol and other biofuels is a “significant contributor” to soaring food prices around the world.. helped create “a perfect storm” that has boosted those prices, he says.

The soaring costs of food and fuel led to riots in Haiti and Egypt and a general strike in Burkina Faso this week. Skyrocketing food prices are topping the agenda this weekend of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual spring meetings in Washington.

Zoellick held up a bag of rice during a news conference Thursday to illustrate the severity of the food crisis. “In Bangladesh a two-kilogram bag of rice … now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family,” he said. “The price of a loaf of bread … has more than doubled. Poor people in Yemen are now spending more than a quarter of their incomes just on bread.”

And Zoellick says prices for basic staples will remain high for an extended period of time...As the Indian commerce minister said to me, going from one meal a day to two meals a day for 300 million people increases demand a lot.

"It has long struck me as wrongheaded, if not immoral, to take cheap, efficient sources of nutrition to turn them into expensive, inefficient fuels. "

A gallon of ethanol produces roughly two-thirds the energy of a gallon of gasoline and is far more expensive. And, while farmers and, especially, processors make more money by the increased demand for biofuels, it means that food is now out of reach for millions.

Where to draw the line on these things is unclear. It’s inefficient to feed grain to livestock in order to produce meat — another trend highlighted by Zoellick and the report. But at least that’s turning food into a more desirable (if not necessarily more healthy) food.

NYTimes Agrees - Biofuels Cause Soaring Food Prices

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This editorial from the NY Times today, "The World Food Crisis" 4-10-08, at ://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/opinion/10thu1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin .

Most Americans take food for granted. Even the poorest fifth of households in the United States spend only 16 percent of their budget on food. In many other countries, it is less of a given. Nigerian families spend 73 percent of their budgets to eat, Vietnamese 65 percent, Indonesians half. They are in trouble.

Last year, the food import bill of developing countries rose by 25 percent as food prices rose to levels not seen in a generation. Corn doubled in price over the last two years. Wheat reached its highest price in 28 years. The increases are already sparking unrest from Haiti to Egypt. Many countries have imposed price controls on food or taxes on agricultural exports.

What is causing these increases in food prices?

The rise in food prices is partly because of uncontrollable forces — including rising energy costs and the growth of the middle class in China and India. This has increased demand for animal protein, which requires large amounts of grain.

But the rich world is exacerbating these effects by supporting the production of biofuels. The International Monetary Fund estimates that corn ethanol production in the United States accounted for at least half the rise in world corn demand in each of the past three years. This elevated corn prices. Feed prices rose. So did prices of other crops — mainly soybeans — as farmers switched their fields to corn, according to the Agriculture Department. (Emphasis added)

Is ethanol the solution to our energy problems?  The Times says:

At best, corn ethanol delivers only a small reduction in greenhouse gases compared with gasoline. And it could make things far worse if it leads to more farming in forests and grasslands. Rising food prices provide an urgent argument to nix ethanol’s supports.

The rich world needs to act quickly, because it caused the problem:

Last month, the World Food Program said rising grain costs blew a hole of more than $500 million in its budget for helping millions of victims of hunger around the world...Rich countries’ energy policies helped create the problem. Now those countries should help solve it.

Forget the Poor?

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We talk about the poor a lot.  We arrange our politics around the poor.  Our religion points us toward the poor.  There have been revolutions about helping the poor.  But when it comes down to it, many of us are ready to throw the poor overboard.

Food prices are soaring all over the world.  Three billion people subsist mostly on rice.  Yet the price of rice has soared again, rising by 10% this time.  Corn is the basic food of much of Latin America, and also the basic feed for meat-producing animals.  Yet the price of corn keeps soaring, up to $6 a bushel this week.  Two years ago it was at about $2 a bushel.  The poor in Africa, Asia and Latin America are suffering because their groceries cost so much more now.  Their suffering will only get worse as food prices continue to rise.

Why are food prices rising?  Two main reasons.  One is biofuels.  The other is rising oil prices. 

As for the effect of biofuels, corn and soybeans are being substituted for other food crops for use as biofuels, not food. This is happening all over the world.   So not only are biofuels driving up the cost of corn and soybeans, but of other basic foods too.  Because of environmentalism, essentially we have decided to use more and more of our topsoil to produce fuel, not food.  Obviously, that will mean less food produced, and bring higher food prices to us all.  We middle-class people will struggle, but survive.  But the burden on the world's poor will be crushing.

Then higher oil prices are causing food prices to rise as well.  Farmers need petroleum-based fertilizers and fuel for their farm machinery.  Truckers and ships need fuel.  Refrigerated trucks, warehouses and grocery-store displays of cold and frozen foods take fuel too.  Rising oil prices make all these cost more, so that all food costs more, not just the basic grains.

Why are oil prices higher?  Actually, it has nothing to do with American oil giants.  The market really, truly, determines the price.  But there are two principal causes of rising oil prices.  One is rising demand, as some of the poor countries become more prosperous.  The other is the success of environmentalists in the U.S. 

Environmentalists have succeeded in suppressing oil production in the U.S., a country that was once the major producer of oil in the world.  Because of environmentalists, there have been no new refineries in the U.S. for 30 years.  Because of them, we do not drill in ANWAR, where we could access one of the largest oil deposits in the world with almost no pollution.  We do not drill offshore, when the Gulf of Mexico is filling up with foreign oil rigs, including those of China and Cuba.  So not drilling offshore does not mean there is no drilling there - only that our own offshore oil will go to other countries, not us.

The increased prices of oil, and of food, are likely to be permanent, probably going even higher.  Why?  Because environmentalism has won politically over concern about the poor.  Soaring food prices and the growing suffering of the poor, which has already begun worldwide, are happening principally because of one thing: environmentalism.

We have a choice to make.  Will we choose to help the poor? Or environmentalism?  It appears we cannot do both.

(For documentation, see: http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=213343.  World Food Stocks Dwindling Rapicly, UN, http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/17/europe/food.php.  Wheat rises to all-time high, Bloomberg, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aP6EBENKxOLk.  Rush LImbaugh Comment, http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_032508/content/01125104.guest.html.  On Increased Food Prices around world, Food costs worldwide spiked 23 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to the FAO. Grains went up 42 percent, oils 50 percent and dairy 80 percent. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/25/business/LA-FEA-FIN-Mexico-Fighting-for-Food.php. rudge: price of rice up 10%, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4813b3c4-0250-11dd-9388-000077b07658.html?.nclick_check=1  Corn up to $6 a bushel, http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080403/corn_at_6.html?.v=6)

Cheap Oil Won't Be Back

       (Image from legendsofamerica.com)

Why not?  Because of two things.  One is that damand for oil is gtowing steeply, especially as such countries as China and India become more prosperous.  It can only keep growing.

The other reason is that many oil producers believe that oil production hit the peak of what it could produce in about 2005.  From then on - absent the opening of huge new oil fields - oil production will be in long-term decline  Also, demand for oil is so great now and oil-field technology so improved that new oil fields are depleted faster than ever..

So what we have is more and more people wanting oil products, and less and less oil being produced, with no let-up in sight.  Any way out?

The size of the problem can be seen in "The Gospel According to Matthew," by Mimi Swartz  in the February Texas Monthly magazine, at www.texasmonthly.com, in which she intertiews Matthew R. Simmons, part of the Houston oil scene and head of one of the largest investment banking firms in the world.  His view of the oil situation has made a lot of money for himself and for firms associated with his company.

But for the last 20 years he has been flying all over the world at his own expense, trying to persuade people that oil production has in fact peaked, permanently.  Not only does he not look to the Saudis to increase production, he thinks they can't.  Not only that, he does not believe Saudi reserves are remotely as large as they claim.  And he scoffs at the idea that alternative fuels can take the place of oil.

Simmons does have his high-level opponents.  One is Amy Meyers Jaffe, of James A Baker III Public Policy and Rice University.  The other is Daniel Yergin and his CERA.  But while they believe oil will be available longer than Simmons, it is only about 20 years longer.  And they agree with Simmons about changes we need to make.

One is for millions more to work from their homes, saving on transportation fuel  One is not to ship so much food so far, so that we can, for instance, have things like watermelon year-round.  Another is to ship more goods by water and less in other ways.  And finally, to insist on getting much better data on what oil there is.

But this is just a small sample of what this article offers.  You should read the whole thing!

Biofuels Worse than Oil for Planet, Poor

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"We need a 5-year freeze on biofuels, before they wreck the planet, writes George Monbiot in The Guardian, here.

The theory is that fuels made from plants will reduce carbon dioxide from cars and trucks.  What is wrong with that?  Just this:

Plants absorb carbon as they grow - it is released again when the fuel is burnt. By encouraging oil companies to switch from fossil plants to living ones, governments on both sides of the Atlantic claim to be “decarbonising” our transport networks.

First, this sets up a competition for food between cars and people. 

The people would necessarily lose: those who can afford to drive are, by definition, richer than those who are in danger of starvation.

It would also lead to the destruction of rainforests and other important habitats(5).

This is already happening.

Since the beginning of last year, the price of maize (corn) has doubled(6). The price of wheat has also reached a 10-year high, while global stockpiles of both grains have reached 25-year lows(7). Already there have been food riots in Mexico and reports that the poor are feeling the strain all over the world...According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the main reason is the demand for ethanol: the alcohol used for motor fuel, which can be made from both maize (corn) and wheat(9).

Farmers will respond to better prices by planting more, but it is not clear that they can overtake the booming demand for biofuel. Even if they do, they will catch up only by ploughing virgin habitat.

Second, besides taking food from the poor, biofuel is already known to be worse for the planet than petroleum.

The UN has just published a report suggesting that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia will be degraded or gone by 2022(10). Just five years ago, the same agencies predicted that this wouldn’t happen until 2032. But they reckoned without the planting of palm oil to turn into biodiesel for the European market.

This is now the main cause of deforestation there and it is likely soon to become responsible for the extinction of the orang utan in the wild. But it gets worse. As the forests are burnt, both the trees and the peat they sit on are turned into carbon dioxide. A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in up to 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or ten times as much as petroleum produces(11).

I feel I need to say that again. Biodiesel from palm oil causes up to TEN TIMES as much climate change as ordinary diesel.

Similar impacts are happening all over the world.

Sugarcane producers are moving into rare scrubland habitats (the cerrado) in Brazil and soya farmers are ripping up the Amazon rainforests. As President Bush has just signed a biofuel agreement with President Lula, it’s likely to become a lot worse. Indigenous people in South America, Asia and Africa are starting to complain about incursions onto their land by fuel planters. A petition launched by a group called biofuelwatch, begging western governments to stop, has been signed by campaigners from 250 groups(12).

The British government is well aware that there’s a problem. On his blog last year the environment secretary David Miliband noted that palm oil plantations “are destroying 0.7% of the Malaysian rain forest each year, reducing a vital natural resource (and in the process, destroying the natural habitat of the orang-utan). It is all connected.”(13)

Then why are governments so enthused about biofuels?  It is because they don't upset drivers.

(Biofuels) appear to reduce the amount of carbon from our cars, without requiring new taxes. It’s an illusion sustained by the fact that only the emissions produced at home count towards our national total. The forest clearance in Malaysia doesn’t increase our official impact by a gram.

So what should we do?  Monbiot says:

We need a moratorium on all targets and incentives for biofuels, until a second generation of fuels can be produced for less than it costs to make fuel from palm oil or sugarcane.

I suggest a five-year freeze.

This would be very hard to do, because "...encouraged by government policy, vast investments are now being made by farmers and chemical companies. Stopping them requires one heck of a battle. But it has to be fought."

Monbiot's foottnotes can be found at the link at the top of this post.  (See also here.) 

Christians, the Poor, the Climate and - Vegetarianism!

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What do the poor and the climate have to do with vegetarianism?  A lot, it turns out.

First, take the climate.  There may be Global Warming.  But the big question is whether humans are causing it.  Most assume we are.

So we are urged to cut back on producing carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse warming gas.  That means cutting back on electricity and transportation.  But CO2 accounts for only about 3% of the global warming gasses.  And human-caused CO2 is only 4.5% of that 3%, or 0.00135% of the total, here. 

In fact, water vapor accounts for 95% of all global warming gases.  All the other warming gases together account for only 5% of the total, here.

But according to the UN, methane is a much greater cause of global warming than CO2, here. Livestock alone accounts for 18% of all warming from methane.  Methane is also 20 times more climate-warming than CO2. So getting rid of much of the 1.5 billion cows in the world would slow global warming much more than getting rid of all planes, trains, ships and automobiles.  That's what vegetarianism could do.

Second, take the world's poor.

In 1970, Frances Moore Lappe pointed out in her best-seller, "Diet for a Small Planet," that eating grains and legumes directly is much less of a burden on the earth than feeding them to livestock, then eating the meat.  The poor can much more easily afford a pound of grain and legumes than a pound of meat.  For those who want to help the poor, not eating animal products is a real contribution.

There is no ecological need to eliminate all meat-eating.  Large areas of the world are too dry or too cold to support food crops, but provide grazing lands for livestock and game.  If more meat was grass-fed, not grain and soy-fed, then crop lands could grow grain and other food crops to feed people directly rather than to produce meat.  That would help the world's poor, and still provide grass-fed meat.

Third, a plant-based diet can easily support a much larger world population

A  plant-based diet produces far more protein per acre of cropland.  For instance, an acre of grain produces 5 times as much protein, an acre of beans 10 times as much, and an acre of green leafy vegetables 15 times as much, as an acre of grain fed to livestock!*

But isn't animal protein necessary for optimum human health and strength?

Actually, vegetarianism is better.  Large-scale, long-term population studies such as "The China Study" have shown that populations that are largely vegetarian have few of the "degenerative" diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer's, etc., although they do still have the infectious diseases.  But when such populations turn to a more "Western" diet, then they develop the degenerative diseases.**

As to strength, most athletes perform better on a diet high in complex carbohydrates.  With the exception of body-builders, most athletes do not need a huge amount of protein.  instead, they need to "load" on carbs.  A vegetarian diet provides plenty of protein anyhow, normally at least 50 grams a day.

So....

Not everyone is attracted to a vegetarian diet - although it can be very tasty.  Choice of diet is a free, individual decision.  But it seems clear that the more vegetarianism there is, the better.

It would help with global warming gases more than eliminating all human sources of CO2.  It would be a great help to the world's poor.  The croplands already in use could support a much bigger world population.  And individual health can be improved by vegetarianism.

For these reasons, Christians who are concerned about the poor, the environment, and being good stewards of their own bodies, should not dismiss the very large potential benefits of vegetarianism.

___

*"Diet for a Small Planet," Frances Moore Lape, Ballentine, 1971, 1975, p. 10

**See www.drmcdougall.com.

Paleo-Enviro Craziness

   (Image from antigreen.blogspot.com)

Population Control?  The Earth-Day environmentalists are calling for population control?  This is after demographers - the experts on population - have been warning about the dire effects of declining birth rates, all over the world, for years now?  After the old "population bomb" scare turned out to be a total dud, many years ago?  Have they all been living in a cave somewhere?

And what about the world's desperately poor that they were so-o-o concerned about, at least up until a couple of weeks ago, when Global Warming swallowed up all of their other causes? 

Environmentalism has allowed its slip to show again.  It was born among the population-controllers.  Actually, it was among the Eugenicists, before they decided on the new name of population control.  You remember, the ones who wanted undesirables not to be born?  Especially those of the "wrong' races.  The ones whose theories the Nazis found so inspirational.  Those are the ones. 

Their present-day environmentalist descendents are the ones that see the human race as some kind of scum on the face of Mother Earth, a kind of infection that has to be controlled.   Their first concern is not for human welfare.  Will their efforts hurt the world economy so badly that the world's poorest will suffer more than ever?  Too bad.  It is a price that they are willing for the rest of us to pay.

But I am not being gentle.  So here is a spokeperson who says it much more nicely.  It is in a press release today by the IRD, the Institute for Religion and Democracy:

"Washington, DC--As the world celebrates Earth Day this month, many environmental groups are stepping up their calls for radical change, including strict regulation of carbon emissions and population control.  The Institute on Religion & Democracy supports the care and stewardship of the earth, but asks if such radical policies are putting our priorities out of order. 

"The Rev. Janes Tonkowich, IRD President, commented:

"As environmental groups call for the observance of Earth Day this spring, the Institute on Religion & Democracy encourages people to examine the consequences of their advocacy.  Policies that condemn the world's poor to a perpetual state of underdevelopment for the sake of extreme environmentalist ideology are not good stewardship:

"We place things out of their proper order when the well-being of the poor and the sancitity of life are sacrificed on the altar of an environmental agenda that imposes population control and denies the improverished a high quality of life.

"Unfortunately, respect for the Earth as the home of humanity has devolved into the elevation of the Earth above humanity.

"Christians are called to be good stewards of God's creation; this does not mean that we elevate that creation at the expense of our fellow humans.

"Any environmental policy that views humankind as the enemy needs to be re-evaluated.  Biblically, the Earth's purpose is as a home for mankind, not an end in itself."

If I were a better person, maybe I would have said it that way myself.

(IRD link at http://www.ird-renew.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=fvKVLfMVIsG&b=390529&ct=3822453)

Ethanol As Globe-Warming As Gas

(Image from seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Today's best post, at "Cheat Seeking Missles," is too good to miss.  Laer calls it "Warmie Economics: Stupid, Stupid, Stupid".  He writes:

"Warmie economics are bizarre.  Take wind energy: every Greenie wants it, but environs sue to stop wind farms because they're bad for view and sometimes kill birds.  Worse, far worse, is ethanol.  Ethanol production and distribution is a government-sponsored false economy and it's hurting you and me.

Strong demand for corn from ethanol plants is driving up the cost of livestock and will raise prices for beef, pork and chicken, the Agriculture Department said Friday.  "Ethanol fuel, which is consuming 20% of last year's corn crop, is expected to gobble up more than 25% of this year's crop."

So the cost of feeding chickens has gone up 40%.  The National Chicken Council says chicken - the most popular meat - will soon cost more at the grocery.  They worry that ethanol could cause a shortage of corn.

There have already been riots in Mexico because of the soaring cost of corn tortillas.  The poor live mostly on corn tortillas and beans, and cannot afford price increases of 60% and up. 

The price of U.S. corn has risen more than 60%, from $2 a bushel last year to $3.20 last month.  Laer says, "Imagine the whoops of media and Dem outrage if gasoline went up from $2 a gallon to $3.20!  The obscenities directed at Big Oil and the Bush administration would deafen all reasonable people."

Ethanol is not nearly as efficient as gasoline.  Further, it takes so much energy to produce it and the corn that it "...does basically nothing to curtail global warming."

"But no matter, right?" says Laer.  "Eat your more expensive chicken and steak and shut up."

"Just don't ever, ever allow us to get to our own oil in Alaska and offshore."

(After 6 tries, I still could not make this link work.  You can find the original at http://cheatseekingmissiles.blogspot.com/2007/03/warmie-economics-stupid-stupid-stupid.html.)

IMMIGRATION, ENERGY AND MEXICAN ELECTIONS

(This is #10 in a series on immigration.  My purpose is not to support any given political view or legislation.  Rather, it is to lay out the basic issues that must be tackled, regardless of what any particular partisan view may be.)

                            (Image from Stratfor)

The immigration issue is getting bigger.  It would seem to affect, not only our economic and security issues, but also our energy crunch and the Global War on Terror.

First, our major energy supplier is not Saudia Arabia, or even the Middle East.  Our major energy supplier is the Americas, here.  Who is our biggest oil supplier?  Mexico!  Second biggest?  Canada.  Third?  That would be Saudia Arabia.  Fourth is a very unstable Nigeria.  Fifth is Hugo Chavez' Venezuela.  Of special significance is that Mexico and Venezuela together supply a third of all our oil imports.

Over half of the oil imports of the U.S., then, come from Canada and Latin America.  About 22% comes from the Middle East, and most of the rest from Africa.

Why is this important in relation to illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico?  Because of the Mexican elections on July 2.  Far-leftist Presidential candidate, Lopez Obrador (known as AMLO), is in the lead.  He also appears to be getting heavy funding from his good friend, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, a close ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro. 

Lopez Obrador is not a shoo-in.  His opponent, Felipe Calderon (from Fox's PAN party), is gaining.  But how it all works out depends on how our immigration debate develops.  If the result seems harsh to Mexicans - 2/3 of whom feel the U.S. is racist toward Mexicans - it could bring victory to Lopez Obrador, who strongly opposes U.S. attempts to restrict illegal immigration.

Up to now, our problems with Mexico have centered on immigration and drugs.  Now we need to add energy to those.  If Lopez Obrador wins, he is likely to unite Mexican policies with those of Chavez and Castro.  And if Mexico and Venezuela choose, together they could deny us 1/3 of our oil imports.

But more is at stake in the Mexica