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Disaster/drought relief would be one possibility as long as it's capped, not issued indefinitely or on a limitless per-hectare basis.
I agree. Like I said, I want to see all subsidies eliminated. Now maybe on occasion, someone can show me one that has merit, but I can't think of any at the moment.
Disaster/drought relief would be one possibility as long as it's capped, not issued indefinitely or on a limitless per-hectare basis.
I will agree that any claim those deaths would be reduced are silly. We cannot feed the world. However, we need to stop subsidizing fuel and energy and let the true costs come to market.
Do you have the sources for the number 330 million people?
I quickly searched and find this figuers that I found was intersting. (Yes it's Wikipedia but is seeem to be based on reliable sources).
That on one acre of land you get 263 lb useable proteins from soyabeans but only 15,6 lb useable protein from beef.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edible_protein_per_unit_area_of_land
So even if you figure of 330 millions is correct the question is what it mean and what the land will be used for. That even that the land can be used for soya production that could have feed 330 millions the land could maybee instead have been used for meat production that would have been able to feed a lot less people.
It’s not that there isn’t enough food. A new study by the Earth Policy Institute shows that the grain grown by US farmers in 2009 to make biofuels was enough to feed 330 million people at average world consumption rates.
You appear to be correct about the number of people who starve to death. What I found from the World Food Programme:
- Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That's about one in nine people on earth.
- Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year.
- One out of six children -- roughly 100 million -- in developing countries is underweight.
- One in four of the world's children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three.
Other sources I checked seemed to support this. While malnutrition is common actual death by starvation is uncommon, and much of the time it affects children.
Much of the famine in the developing world is due to poor governance rather than a lack of affordable food. Just $3 billion in aid to these countries would solve this problem if the leaders were not so inclined to divert said aid into Swiss bank accounts, and so on. And then you have people starving in Venezuela just because of Maduro's stupid-assed latin-socialist pride, his refusal to accept foreign aid.
Nevertheless, it seems likely that the cost of basic food grains has a lot to do with people not getting enough to eat.
Most likely Tim the Plumber's point still stands even if his number is off. The fact that 1 in 9 people in the world are malnourished is pretty huge.
I should point out that as grim as the "1 people in 9 are malnourished" might be, it is a big improvement over the situation in the world only 47 years ago, when over a billion were malnourished, and the world's population was 3.7 billion.
Biofuel should be derived primarily, perhaps exclusively, from waste. In some places it is so.
It's impossible to discuss this topic while being accused of murdering hundreds of millions of people. Sorry.
We have researched algae-diesel fuels, ethanol, etc. since the Carter days. No success yet. But every 10-15 years or so some midwest farmers get congress to give them grants to build ethanol plants that have yet to generate more than a few gallons of useable fuel. Brazil does a good job, though. Better climate, more water, more arable land, great access to sugar cane crop wastes, etc. Not having a lot of access to oil helps to motivate them as well.
The biofuel mess is a classic example of activism leading to unintended consequences.
Convinced by environmentalist groups to view carbon based energy as the personification of evil, they sought to believe energy could be planted by seed and harvested infinitum.
I applaud you for placing the spotlight on this issue so many are desperate to deny.
Why aren't conservatives, in general? :roll: The biggest beneficiaries of most if not all agricultural subsidies are the companies and individuals which own the most land. Handing over vast sums of money to the already-rich is not and never has been a 'liberal' agenda - least of all when it often comes at the expense of potential livelihoods of third world farmers. The primary (and perhaps only) popular justification of such practices is a nationalist 'America first' mentality horrified at the prospect of other countries out-competing one's own.
Farm Subsidies That Kill - The New York Times (2002)
The U.S., Europe and Japan spend $350 billion each year on agricultural subsidies (seven times as much as global aid to poor countries), and this money creates gluts that lower commodity prices and erode the living standard of the world's poorest people.
''These subsidies are crippling Africa's chance to export its way out of poverty,'' said James Wolfensohn, the World Bank president, in a speech last month.
Mark Malloch Brown, the head of the United Nations Development Program, estimates that these farm subsidies cost poor countries about $50 billion a year in lost agricultural exports. By coincidence, that's about the same as the total of rich countries' aid to poor countries, so we take back with our left hand every cent we give with our right.
''It's holding down the prosperity of very poor people in Africa and elsewhere for very narrow, selfish interests of their own,'' Mr. Malloch Brown says of the rich world's agricultural policy.
It also seems a tad hypocritical of us to complain about governance in third-world countries when we allow tiny groups of farmers to hijack billion of dollars out of our taxes.
For example, the U.S. has only 25,000 cotton growers, but they are prosperous (with an average net worth of $800,000) and thus influential. So the U.S. spends $2 billion a year subsidizing them, and American production of cotton has almost doubled over the last 20 years -- even though the U.S. is an inefficient, high-cost producer. The result is a glut that costs African countries $250 million each year, according to a World Bank study published in February.
Yet again, we see how telling it is when certain folk choose to fixate on biofuel crops, rather than the broader issues which have been known and widely discussed for decades.
The funny thing is that you are now actively advocating for higher food prices, which would presumably be the result of unsubsidized prices.
Yet we don't hear Tim whining about how you want to kill 20MM with higher food prices.....because Tim really only cares about his electric bill.
I have no problem with stuff that is not food, that is not fit for human consumption, being used as fuel. Great!
It's the use of food as fuel when there are people dying for lack of food that I see as a crime.
The part of corn they turn into ethanol, is the same part humans and animals consume.Using CHEMISTRY, it is known that plant wastes are a poor source of the materials needed to make fuel. Corn works, but corn stalks do not. And, the process takes a lot of water.
It's impossible to discuss this topic while being accused of murdering hundreds of millions of people. Sorry.
That's what is happening so... well, if you can't face the issue good bye.
Yes, the inability to read with comprehension is also a barrier to meaningful discussion.
20 million people are not killed each year by biofuels. That's a bull**** number you invented. Furthermore, you accused me of being personally complicit in those deaths even though I'm opposed to biofuels.
You're making things worse. When people hear your lies, they just dismiss the entire concern over biofuels. Oh, that's just some whackjob who thinks the world is ending. Not worth discussing.
But if you were able to discuss the topic like an adult, people might listen to you. Perhaps you're complicit in these starvation deaths, because you're muddying the waters with your false information. You're buying cover for the corn lobby to point at and say "look! look how insane our opponents are!"
I want you to stop, so that we can save these starving children. Why are you helping children starve?
:roll:
You made this margin of error up. It's bull****. You base it on absolutely nothing.My figure of 20 million per year is, I guess, accurate to about +/- 5 million.
Why are you bringing the IPCC into a discussion of malnutrition?That is far more accurate than almost all the figures out of the IPCC.
Clearly not the number you pulled out of your ass.How many people do you think will have their lives shortened by more than 5 years out of the 800 million or so who are clinically malnourished by having their food cost 30% to 70% more than it otherwise would?
Six.How many of the next poorest couple of billion do you think will be unable to afford basic health care due to spending all the money they have on food? How many of them would be able to send their kids to school if their food cost a lot less?
You don't get to talk about bad science when you're basing claims on no science.The focus on CO2, which is harming nobody and will cause no significant trouble ever, has resulted in this. The endless hysteria about it diverts attention away from the real world with this sort of result. The responsibility for doing so must be carried by all those who have spread the propaganda of bad science. This is what happens when faith takes over from reason.
How many people do you think will have their lives shortened by more than 5 years out of the 800 million or so who are clinically malnourished by having their food cost 30% to 70% more than it otherwise would?
Clearly not the number you pulled out of your ass.
Six.
I have presented as much evidence for my number as you have of yours.
How often do I need to ask the question to get an answer? [2]
You'll never get a number until you apologize for accusing me of being complicit in murder from biofuels that I actually oppose to begin with. You don't deserve reasonable discussion.
There are a laws in place in Eu member countries requiring a minimum and growing content of biofuel in gasoline and diesel sold. This is to reduce climate gases and warming. The hungry are only collateral damage.
Really? It isn't as though this food was previously destined for the poor and malnourished. Around 40% of the food produced in the U.S. never makes it to market for human consumption largely for aesthetic reasons and the U.S. throws hundreds of millions of metric tons of edible food into the garbage every year but you're complaining about biofuels? Please. :roll:
Really? It isn't as though this food was previously destined for the poor and malnourished. Around 40% of the food produced in the U.S. never makes it to market for human consumption largely for aesthetic reasons and the U.S. throws hundreds of millions of metric tons of edible food into the garbage every year but you're complaining about biofuels? Please. :roll:
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