Unintended consequences...

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Strangely enough I don't have much to do today...so I'm reading articles and came across this - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/14/ccview114.xml
Here are the first two sentences of the article: "We drive, they starve. The mass diversion of the North American grain harvest into ethanol plants for fuel is reaching its political and moral limits."

I seriously think I could write an entire essay about all that is written and implied in this article. It is a very, very interesting article about the sudden, massive reduction in food supplies all over the world. The author points towards the huge increase in grain consumption for bio-fuels.
I just find a certain amount of tragic irony in Al Gore, etc., demanding the shift away from fossil fuels to bio-fuels and other alternatives (because it is a moral imperitive) in order to save the planet only to have their 'cure' wipe out millions and cause riots around the world because of starvation. The irony is only increased when you read that countries (including those that encompass the world's rain forests) are actually looking at developing more areas for farming to combat the food shortage.

It is all such a huge mess but I do know three things for sure - 1) Some way, some how the United States is to blame, 2) the rest of the world will demand that we pay for it, and 3) there will be some massive government program created to handle it.