Food or Fuel? We Americans Aren't Making Friends

Show your support.
Buzz this article up.

• Share
• Print View
• Comments

You think invading two Muslim countries has made the U.S. a tad unpopular?

Well, be prepared, because America's about to become a much more hated place than ever. And it won't take a single bombing, no napalm, nor even a division of Marines. All we gotta do is keep on buying, and driving big cars, and pretending food from plastic is natural. The first figurative glove across the bloated American cheek was swung by the Indian Finance Minister. He said it is outrageous that developed countries, and America is always cited as the MOST developed, are turning food into fuel. He claims 20% of America's corn is now used for ethanol to keep our cars running to the air conditioned malls.

Here's a highlight from the Reuters report:

"Delivering a lecture in Singapore, Indian Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that using corn and other crops for fuel was a sign of 'lopsided priorities.'

He said that such an 'uncaring' policy had to be strongly condemned.

The minister went on to say food prices have doubled since 2004. He did criticize the greed of oil producing nations in his speech. And we thought Saudi Arabia was a hotbed of rabid humanitarianism, reforming sheiks spreading good will and enlightenment across the desert? You wouldn't expect an Indian leader to speak kindly of oil nations. They have a long, bitter relationship with Muslim Pakistan next door. Pakistan gets heavy support from Saudi Arabia using its American gasoline profits.

Recently an Associated Press story outlined the many places on earth where food's no longer affordable.

What are the factors contributing to higher food prices and how useful is it to foreign politicians to blame the U.S.?

1) Population growth. Let's get over this madness that everything tomorrow has to be bigger than it was yesterday. More is NOT better.

2) Fuel costs. Gasoline and crude oil prices have skyrocketed since the Iraq invasion. Anti-American oil nations like Venezuela, Iran and Russia can only laugh as they count their cash.

3) Food surpluses were long a staple of the American political diet. Let 'em eat our subsidized corn, or soybeans, we'd say. And then send 'em another shipload. No more.

4) Biofuel. We subsidize our corn growers. We are creating a dead zone in Gulf of Mexico with the toxic run-off. Europe accuses American scammers of getting U.S. subsidies after shipping biofuel twice across the Atlantic.

5) Let 'em eat cake. We're becoming the Marie Antoinette of starvation. We're the most obese major nation per capita. We ship food in from all over despite having the most productive agricultural land and industry on earth, and in history. I gotta have white grapes in January. Even in the U.S. food prices rose 4% last year.

7) U.S. research in energy tech and agriculture is still premiere. My favorite green tech story: there are energy efficient windows being made and sold in northern Europe. An inert gas sealed between two panes. Several times more efficient than the R-2-rated double panes you can buy in the U.S. After decades lag, those windows are going to be made by a U.S. firm. Care to guess where the process was first developed? MIT, of course.

Americans want tech research into alternative fuels, not more oil or more guns.

Any wonder 81% of Americans think this country's headed in the wrong direction?

We don't have to be the bloated, hated, mistrusted bully. We could conserve. Our great-grandparents did it during World War Two. We don't have to elect profligate leaders to power. Do we really think we need a military that is the most expensive, destructive, deadly on earth? Tell me what dividends we reaped from military spending and borrowing? We Americans don't have to drive the biggest cars on earth. We don't have to eat too much, throw away too much, wrap our entire existence in six layers of non-biodegradable plastic. We might start valuing our technology and science more than our arrogance and credit cards. Perhaps once in a while saving is better than spending? Perhaps the lovers of the market place are not 100% correct and greed does need to be curbed? That lesson has been relearned repeatedly through history. Can you really tell W from Nero? Can we try to learn the greed lesson again, or do we lead the rush to planetary self-destruction?

Comments

[sheila]

Not just cars - we are killing off huge swathes of wilderness for new "renewable" power plants, too, in order to feed the rapacious McMansions and their plasma TVs, and calling that "green" as well. Insanity, thy name is greenwashing excessive consumption.

We have Mars Rover, unmanned spy planes and quasi-miraculous advances in mobile phone technology over the past 15 years. Conservation (not just efficiency) tech is totally, totally feasible, so why aren't any resources being devoted to the Net Zero construction style, or smarter grids (consumer controlled, not utility controlled), or even electrical storage so we can all have solar panels and windmills of our own?

Political will. Contact your rep today and explain that all renewable power is NOT equal, and we demand power that is clean, affordable, and does not kill wilderness or poor people. Why is this so hard to understand?

[Photofarm]

There are more errors in this article than facts that are right. Ethanol is actually lowering the price of gasoline and food, because the cost of energy in food has 3 times the effect of the price of corn.

Reporters need to start looking for all sources of information, and quit telling lies because it makes a good story and fits their template.

[HippieChick]

"Ethanol is actually lowering the price of gasoline and food"

Your statement is completely false. You obviously have an agenda, but people with any reasoning skill don't buy it.

[BBackSoon]

"Ethanol is actually lowering the price of gasoline and food, because the cost of energy in food has 3 times the effect of the price of corn."

Bullshit!!!

It takes more energy than it produces. That is not a good system.

[glitzqueen]

Oh, puh-leeze, go educate yourself.

[glitzqueen]

Yeah, right, let's blame ourselves for the biofuels boondoggle that Shrub introduced out the blue, once his fat cat cronies had scarfed up enough land (displacing Third World farmers) and made their deals to build refineries. Dems didn't dare oppose it, with the Iowa caucus coming up.

Plenty of us saw the handwriting on the wall, back then -- and plenty of us are also suffering from the huge spike in food prices. It may not be long before there are food riots here, too.

And, BTW, the Clintons invested heavily in Brazilian land to participate in this rip-off. For as long as it lasts, it's a marvelous party for some.

[Decipherer]

Perhaps if you and Bill Maher put down your copy of Time magazine, rife with errors about biofuels and corn ethanol in particular, and did a modicum of research your post might have been better. Try www.25x25.org.

[Let's start with the cover of this week's issue. That yellow, delicious-looking ear of corn that's got your shorts in a knot is NOT the corn used to make ethanol. THAT corn is called "feed" corn, its biggest use. This is NOT corn for human consumption, despite what the biofuels deniers say.]

I have no quarrel with your premise that Americans are the most profligate wasters of our precious planet's resources. We are lazy, overfed (with high fructose corn sweeteners, a far larger use of corn than ethanol), and spoiled. All stipulated.

If our fellow countrymen made even modest changes in behaviors (one of mine being bicycle riding for health -- physical and mental -- and for transport), we'd be better citizens of Planet Earth.

Tough nut to crack.

As for corn ethanol, extracting starch from the kernel to convert to sugar and then ferment into ethanol keeps the high-protein material intact for animal and maybe one day human consumption. There is not a world carohydrate shortage, we have a protein distribution shortage.

And, we're approaching the maximum use of this corn for ethanol. Next generation feedstocks and processes will get us "beyond petroleum" with biofuels -- provided we use less energy and use it far more efficiently.

[elpollo]

It's apparently you who has the Time Magazine up your nose. Haven't touched one since the Vietnam War.

So what's the point of there being different varieties of corn. The land will grow all the varieties, and what the farmer chooses is market dependent.

Finally, if it were only protein that was short around the globe, why are we having rice riots everywhere?

[Kungfublood]

Drive a small car unless your big rig is crammed full don't use it. For me it's not the rig, it's the fact that it is so seldom used for more than one person and the rear end is used only for hauling that single empty beer can.
Walk - at least walk across the shopping center instead of driving less than a quarter mile from the super market to the donut shop.
Be careful don't have kids.
Be compassionate and loving help raise other people's kids. I am on my second set, second marriage too.
Ditch satellite and cable in favor of video entertainment and you miss out on most mind control and brain washing techniques.

[mamacat]

Hey youngun, what are you talking about "great-grandparents of WWII?"

Regarding population growth, it seems to me that there is far too little talk about it. Until the world's population stabilises, efforts to end poverty and halt the increase in pollution will be unsuccessful, I believe. A simple statistic or two may help to put the matter into perspective.
In 1950, a world population of LESS than 3 billion.
In 2007, 57 years later, a world population of about 6 1/2 billion.
Does anyone other than a fundamentalist Mormon or the Catholic Pope think that this planet can maintain that kind of growth and not become a cesspool?

[JScott]

At least population growth was mentioned, but we human are still reproducing
at unsustainable rates no matter what the 'green revolution' will bring.

[Novista]

Some of us saw the corn-for-ethanol scam for what it was a long time ago. Cassandras don't have much traction against the farm lobby or the GWCC "do something" cheerleaders.

I hope all those who called me a 'denier' read this:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html

[Henry]

How about Russia permitting Siberia to be homesteaded?

[RadioResearch]

Well, you know, the obesity rate here in the US is so great that all of these people NEED big cars and SUV's to get them to KFC and back.

My old 1962 Volvo 544 still gets 34 mpg and I am now upgrading it with a modern 5 speed - maybe I'll get 40 from it - and a new engine management system. It all takes away from the Vintage aspect but then I'm not using up other resources by buying a new one.

likewise, I find that having been a walker all of these years has kept my heart in good condition which is probably why Europeans have fewer heart problems. More expensive gas is in our future and bio-fuels are mostly a bust. It will catch up with us just as this war is doing now. We could all use some trimming of the waistline, economically as well as physically.

[nomoredead]

HERE HERE....Radio.

[TRYKER]

We must blame Obama's pastor for all of the American malfeasance that has made us so unpopular, not the real pigs. After all in BushAmerica up is down and food into fuel is nobody's business.

[Montanamotor]

In Europe, 40 mpg is the AVERAGE milage for a standard saloon car. Some turbodiesel-driven cars even make 50 mpg - fully equipped with aircondition, airbags, and a full set of digital driver's assistance systems. No fuss.

So long as the US-customers keep buying those gas-guzzling 3-ton-V8-dinosaurs, so long these cars (trucks...?) will stay in production. It's in the customers power to change the system. Each gallon, your new car takes LESS, you don't have to pay for - AND will not pollute the environment, either.

Stop refuelling - start thinking. I like my car run on brains, rather than on fuel.

[yowza1]

Excellent post Mr Fuller. Thank you for summing up a great deal of "the problem', you hit most areas cleanly and without seeming rancor, exaggeration or blame. You emphasize the American zeal for large wasteful vehicles and I concur, just realize that it is marketing and mass acceptance of them as desirable and denial of their shortcomings that perpetuates their presence. The big 3 market them and trumpet antisocial ultimately fear-based personal characteristics such as unprovoked aggressiveness and blind patriotism as putative selling points for their obscene attack machines. They promote divisiveness, more fear and anger by putting vehicles that others can't see past, that splash normal sized cars when they pass by in the snow or rain, that move much more easily over dangerously bumpy, potholed roads that they have inordinately contributed to, that make frightening, disgusting noises especially when they are accelerated by their huge engines. They are retrofitted with after market mufflers that make bellicose, alarming penetrating noises that announce their proximity. They are increasingly manufactured with ineffective and doctored exhaust systems (witness all Jeep models, the "all American vehicle") to aggravate people but get their attention, a "marketing" tool for the auto makers. They apparently will stop at no perfidy, no degrees of in-you- face, misleading, anti-social advertising to finance their bloated salaries and retreat houses where they can avoid the hideous noises that their products create and constantly fil our streets, homes and public places with.

[nomoredead]

Thank you, yo.
I see that too, with the ' 400 Hundred Horses! 300 ft lbs of Torque, and 0 to 60 in 4 Seconds ' type of advertising. Why?

[Absintheforall]

Hmm.. Feed the starving masses so they can live to create even bigger starving masses, then feed them, so they can create...

Where does it stop? When there *are* enough of them to invade us (as they already are)?

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

The energy you don't have to produce is always greener and cheaper that any energy you do produce.The greatest conservation technology would be a carfree city.

[elpollo]

A high tech bike is a wonderful machine and great exercise as well. If we put the money we used to bail out the investment bankster and blow up Iraq into roads that included safe bike lanes, we could cut down on fuel, heart attacks, obesity, and bad sex.