WARNING - From Barack Obama's campaign website - "Obama will require
36 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be included in the fuel
supply by 2022 and will increase that to at least 60 billion gallons
of advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol by 2030." From Barack
Obama's own mouth - "I've fought successfully in the Senate to
increase our investment in renewable fuels."

The Blundering Biofuel Killers

Are good intentions a legitimate excuse for negligent homicide?

Biofuel production will significantly contribute to the early,
avoidable deaths of at minimum between 10 and 20 million people
worldwide in the year 2008 alone, a conservative estimated based on
United Nations global poverty statistics and advice by experts on
global hunger. Privately, I fear the malnutrition body count will
climb higher, as food prices are rising quickly, and the higher they
go, the more people will die. Global deaths due to malnutrition and
related illness in 2008 could reach as high as 20 to 30 million, but I
hope I and wrong in that dark suspicion. Economists estimate that
given the provable statistics, as many as 30 million people might be
going hungry in Bangladesh at this very moment. The world food crisis
has other significant driving factors, such as high oil prices, the
Australian drought, and expanding populations, but biofuel production
is the only major contributing element that is 100%% under our
immediate control. The fundamental moral question is, why are our
politicians making a difficult situation dramatically worse by turning
mountains of grain into fuel at a time the whole world desperately
needs more food?

To put this tragedy in historical perspective, the infamous Cambodian
dictator Pol Pot killed approximately 1.7 million people between 1975
and 1979. Two hundred thousand were executed, but the rest mainly
died by starvation due to his idiotic agricultural policies. Chairman
Mao Tse Tung's 1958 "Great Leap Forward" 5 year plan caused the
starvation of millions of Chinese, with mortality estimates ranging
widely from 14 million up to 40 million. Mao tried to forcefully
shift China's agricultural based economy to greater industrial
output. Mao had the best of intentions, just like so many of our
politicians who support forcing by government decree the massive
diversion of food to fuel. These leaders hold firm to their almost
mystical beliefs in biofuels, even after being repeatedly warned that
this shift from agriculture to fuel production is starving people
around the world and is murder for the environment as well.

Unless the biofuel bandwagon is halted by public protest, by the year
2020 the world will be diverting 400 million tons of grain each year
into ethanol production, which is calorically equal to 100%% of current
global rice production. There have been major demonstrations and/or
food riots in 23 countries, and according to the World Bank at least
33 nations face political instability as staple food prices have risen
83%% in the last 3 years. Biofuel production is equivalent to a new
tax on food that starves the poor in order to feed money to rich
agricultural corporations. Big business makes our biofuels, not Mom
and Pop.

German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul stated that
production of biofuels is "30 to 70%% responsible" for food price
inflation. Bill Clinton stated that "What's really hurting the food
markets is America moving into ethanol." Massachusetts Congressman
Jim McGovern stated that “If there was a secret vote (on biofuels),
there is a pretty large number of people who would like to reassess
what we are doing.” One of many ways biofuel production causes hunger
is by driving up the cost of fertilizer; up over 200%% in 2007. If
something you eat requires fertilizer to grow, biofuels have increased
its cost.

Oil price increases have not shrunk the human food supply, but biofuel
production has. The more biofuels we produce, the less food we have
to eat, because we grow biofuel crops, even switchgrass, using the
same land, water, fertilizer, farm equipment, and labor we use to grow
food. New studies have shown that ethanol from non-food cellulose
sources, such as switchgrass, wood chips, and crop waste, etc., will
never be economically viable, so biofuels are essentially a dead-end
technology. Biodiesel from algae will never amount to much either, as
we would need approximately 30 million acres of concrete or plastic
lined algae ponds to meet 100%% of projected US automotive fuel usage
by the year 2022. Algae schemes that use less land invariably call
for feeding algae sugar, which means growing sugarcane, corn, or sugar
beets, so you are simply trading ethanol potential to make oil instead
of vodka.

Every year the human race burns the equivalent of 400 years worth of
total planetary vegetation in the condensed form of fossil fuels, so
how are we ever going to replace all of that concentrated biomass
energy by growing a relatively small volume of biofuel crops on our
overpopulated, fresh water starved little planet? How are the
homeless, the elderly, the disabled, veterans, and all those living on
low fixed incomes going to survive 14 more years of rapid food price
inflation caused by the Bush biofuel plan? The justifying claim that
ethanol is a "clean fuel" is false as well. Ethanol blended fuels
burn cleaner on a per gallon basis, but not on a miles traveled basis,
because ethanol contains 33%% less energy than gasoline. Ethanol
blended fuels actually emit more CO2 per miles driven than ordinary
gasoline in addition to emitting far more CO2 during its manufacture.
So why do so many people keep mindlessly repeating the false claim
that ethanol is "green" and "renewable." If we dramatically speed up
global warming by producing ethanol, soon we won't be able to "renew"
much of anything.

Biofuel production causes water pollution, water shortages, erodes
topsoil, tortures wildlife, and numerous studies have proven that
biofuel farming speeds global warming by releasing massive amounts of
greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous
oxide. Biofuels are a major contributor to global famine. If you
kill one person with a gun you go to jail, but what about contributing
to the deaths of millions because of bad policy?

For more information and better energy alternatives, see
http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html

Christopher Calder