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View Full Version : World Bank chief: Ethanol cars run on human misery


SUBMAN1
04-14-08, 04:13 PM
Thanks Biofuel.

-S

Fill up with E85, starve a child
...The head of the World Bank has said that soaring food prices are causing hardship and starvation for poor people worldwide, and implied that at least some of the blame lay with Western governments' efforts to encourage biofuel use.... - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/11/world_bank_biofuel_kicking/
The Fury of the Poor

...On the roof of the former prison, enterprising women prepare something that looks like biscuits and is even called by that name. The key ingredient, yellow clay, is trucked in from the nearby mountains. The clay is combined with salt and vegetable fat to make dough, which is then dried in the sun.

For many Haitians, the mud biscuits are their only food. They taste of fat, suck the moisture out of the mouth and leave behind an aftertaste of dirt. They often cause diarrhea, but they help to numb the pangs of hunger. "I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these," Marie Noël, who survives with her seven children on the dirt cakes, told the Associated Press.... - http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,547198,00.html

Happy Times
04-14-08, 05:57 PM
Im also critical of this biofuel scam but this exsample from Haiti is very odd.
Im sure there is fish in the ocean and something running around on ground?
They are eating clay..:doh: Either the reporter is making this story up (wouldnt be the first) or those people are really stupid.

Trex
04-14-08, 06:33 PM
Thanks Biofuel.

The problem is that people are lumping things together. It's like sex - sex includes loving, it includes fun and, sadly, it includes rape and serial killers. To diss sex because of the one end of the spectrum would be silly, although I'm sure my Baptist grandmother might have tried.

'Biofuel' covers a wide spectrum of alternatives. At present, the most common one is indeed sucking food from the hungry. The arguments constantly being brought forward against 'biofuel' apply only to this one. Such argument do not in any way count against all biofuel options, many of which have absolutely no impact on food crops.

SUBMAN1
04-14-08, 06:39 PM
The problem is that people are lumping things together. It's like sex - sex includes loving, it includes fun and, sadly, it includes rape and serial killers. To diss sex because of the one end of the spectrum would be silly, although I'm sure my Baptist grandmother might have tried.

'Biofuel' covers a wide spectrum of alternatives. At present, the most common one is indeed sucking food from the hungry. The arguments constantly being brought forward against 'biofuel' apply only to this one. Such argument do not in any way count against all biofuel options, many of which have absolutely no impact on food crops.Well, I've heard of the carcass to oil from the chicken farms, but the big push comes from like corn crops in the US. Corn that would normally have been fed to people, now goes to fuel at a higher cost. Other grain foods must step in and take up the slack, so their price goes up too. What it turns out is to be one big snowball and the poor mouths of the world suffer for it. This is not acceptable.

-S

Trex
04-14-08, 07:26 PM
Taking food from hungry people to make fuel is not acceptable. Fully agreed. That does not negate the entire concept however. There are other options that would not divert food crops. Those are the only biofuel options that can be supported, just on a humanitarian basis.

SUBMAN1
04-15-08, 03:52 PM
US food under that worst inflation in 17 years - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24127314/

-S