Yale Environment 360(Yale Forestry&EnviroStudies Publication) reports Ethanol and Rising Food Prices contributing to Horn of Africa Crisis

e360 digest

16 Aug 2011: Rising Food Costs Compounding
East African Famine, World Bank Says

The volatility of global food prices has contributed to the growing humanitarian tragedy in the Horn of Africa and will continue to keep the world’s poorest populations on the edge of starvation, according to a new report by the World Bank. While the emergency was triggered by prolonged drought conditions, near-record prices for staple crops such as maize, sugar, and wheat have compounded the situation, the Food Price Watch report says. According to the report, global food prices overall are nearing the record levels of 2008 and remain 33 percent higher than last summer, with the price of maize 84 percent higher, and wheat prices up 62 percent. “Persistently high food prices and low food stocks indicate that we’re still in the danger zone, with the most vulnerable people the least able to cope,” World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick said in a statement. About 29,000 children under the age of five have died in Somalia in the last three months, and 600,000 more children across the region remain at risk. Contributing to the rising prices, the report warns, is the extensive use of agricultural lands for biofuel production, specifically the U.S.’s corn ethanol sector.

http://e360.yale.edu/digest/rising_food_costs_compounding_east_african_famine_world_bank_says/3085/

Oxfam "Short-sighted biofuels strategies play a part too—taking food off of people's plates and putting it into car tanks."

Oxfam International has an interactive map of the global food crisis. Biofuels are listed as a cause of food price increases. See quote from Oxfam website below.....

"What causes food price spikes?

Failed crops—often caused by our changing climate—hit food prices hard. So does the rising cost of oil—used to grow, fertilize and transport food.

Short-sighted biofuels strategies play a part too—taking food off of people's plates and putting it into car tanks. "

http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/food-price-volatility-map

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/the-global-food-crisis-mapped/

Scientific American: Intoxicated on Independence: Is Domestically Produced Ethanol Worth the Cost?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ethanol-domestic-fuel-supply-or-environmental-boondoggle&page=3

"The CBO estimated that ethanol contributes as much as 15 percent to the recent rises in food costs. And that's not just the case in the U.S. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization noted in a 2008 report during the last food crisis that the increase in demand for sugar and corn for biofuels was "one of the leading factors behind the increase in their prices in world markets which, in turn, has led to higher food prices." In fact, the International Food Policy Research Institute has called biofuel subsidies in rich countries the equivalent of a tax on food"

"And then there are the environmental impacts, both direct and indirect. For example, fertilizer runoff from Midwestern corn fields promote algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico that, in turn, create vast oxygen-deprived "dead zones". "

Ed Rendell's "future of Pennsylvania energy" Clearfield Ethanol Plant in bankruptcy and shut down.

Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's Press Release "The Future of Energy is Here   Clearfield Ethanol Plant to Be One of the Nation's Largest"

http://www.cglg-australia.org/news_files/News%20Release%20-%20PA%20-%20Clearfield%20Ethanol%20plant%20to%20be%20one%20of%20nations%20largest%20-%20March%2013%202008.pdf

News report of Clearfield Ethanol Plant in bankruptcy and shut down. http://www.theprogressnews.com/default.asp?read=27593

Govenor Ed Rendell wrote his fax number on my "Stop Ethanol" sign at a Kerry rally in Lancaster Pennsylvania and said "Fax me something. " So for several years I faxed Ed Rendell reports and articles warning of the dangers of ethanol, as well as petitions against an ethanol plant in Lancaster County, PA. The only response I ever got was phone calls and emails from the Governor's office staff asking me to stop sending faxes. Here is one:

"Your fax to the Governor's Office on ethanol have been received several times.  If you have additional information, please mail to

Governor's Office, 225 Main Capitol, Harrisburg, PA  17120   in order to avoid tying up the Governor's fax line. 

Thank you. "

I would always respond that the Governot told me to fax him something about ethanol and that is what I do. I fax the Governor information on ethanol so he understands the problems.

I suspect the taxpayers of Pennsylvania wish someone would have read all those ethanol faxes and we would have saved at least that $17.4 million  wasted on the Clearfield ethanol plant, and who knows how much to clean up the plant once it becomes another brown field.

Enchanting Ethanol

Enchanting Ethanol is all about a community finding out that green is not always green. Veronica and Nick buy a dilapidated cottage in an enchanting Chesapeake Bay community. They imagine spending their weekends hanging on the beach with their two little kids, watching wildlife and drinking beer. But their dream is interrupted when a phony green investor, in cahoots with the local trash mafia, sees the community as an easy target for an ethanol plant.

The phony environmentalists envision collecting green government subsidies when the local bumpkins greet the ethanol plant with open arms, but they are surprised. In a comedic series of town hall meetings, the proud local stewards of the environmentally fragile Chesapeake Bay area are tough and resourceful. This is not some preachy documentary. This is kid-centered adventure that features Veronica and Nick’s young family. Things become dangerous when their boy, enthralled with a bottle picturing a one-eyed man he believes to be a pirate, takes a beer bottle that contains stolen cellulose-eating beetles. The gun-totting trash mafia who own the stolen beetles, they hope to use to produce ethanol, hunt down the family while they are hiking. As the family runs the tension builds each time the bottle which is in the boys backpack is bumped, for if the beetles escape all the Bay woodlands and marshes could be eaten by the bugs. The quirky locals rescue the family and, to protect the Chesapeake Bay, expose the ethanol scam.

Cellulosic Ethanol and Unicorns

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303406104576445752787189310.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

As ethanol's ravages grow, phony 'reform' emerges

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/07/ethanols-ravages-grow-phony-reform-emerges