Column of the Day: Steyn on Biofuel Madness
As usual, read the whole thing (bolds are mine; internal link added by me):
The biofuels debacle is global warm-mongering in a nutshell: The first victims of poseur environmentalism will always be developing countries. In order for you to put biofuel in your Prius and feel good about yourself for no reason, real actual people in faraway places have to starve to death. On April 15, the Independent, the impeccably progressive British newspaper, editorialized:
“The production of biofuel is devastating huge swaths of the world’s environment. So why on Earth is the government forcing us to use more of it?”
You want the short answer? Because the government made the mistake of listening to fellows like you. Here’s the self-same Independent in November 2005:
“At last, some refreshing signs of intelligent thinking on climate change are coming out of Whitehall. The Environment minister, Elliot Morley, reveals today in an interview with this newspaper that the Government is drawing up plans to impose a ‘biofuel obligation’ on oil companies … . This has the potential to be the biggest green innovation in the British petrol market since the introduction of unleaded petrol.”
Etc. It’s not the environmental movement’s chickenfeedhawks who’ll have to reap what they demand must be sown, but we should be in no doubt about where to place the blame – on the bullying activists and their media cheerleaders and weather-vane politicians who insist that the “science” is “settled” and that those who question whether there’s any crisis are (in the designation of the strikingly nonemaciated Al Gore) “denialists.”
….. Whether there’s very slight global cooling or very slight global warming, there’s no need for a “war” on either, no rationale for loosing a plague of eco-locusts on the food supply. So why be surprised that totalitarian solutions to mythical problems wind up causing real devastation? As for Time’s (infamous Iwo Jima) tree, by all means put it up: It helps block out the view of starving peasants on the far horizon.
On Aug. 4, 1994, Al Gore cast the crucial vote which set the United States on the road to taking food out of the mouths of millions, by using food for fuel.
….. Four years after the vote, Gore was still boasting about his central role in perpetrating the ethanol craze.
The inconvenient truth is that a fake crisis may be leading to a really serious one.
It takes 111,000 BTUs of fossil fuel energy to produce one gallon of “moonshine” that only gives us 66,000 BTUs of energy. This is a 70% deficit at the outset!
Ethanol gives fewer miles per gallon, produces less power, costs more and pollutes the atmosphere more than Gasoline.
Millions of tons of fertilizer {derived from petroleum} are used to grow the corn to maturity. Billions of gallons of prescious water are used to irrigate the corn and distill the “moonshine.” This water mixes with the fertilizer and runs off into our waterways and pollutes them.
This insane B.S. is going to cause a World food crisis of Epic proportions!
Al Gore should be arrested and charged with felony FRAUD!
Comment by Tom Burnside — April 28, 2008 @ 9:17 am
Didn’t the same bunch also say, “even if it’s not true, why take chances, what’s the harm in pursuing green intiatives?” What’s the harm? Millions of poor will be on the brink of starvation because they can’t afford to eat.
The Greenies were whining about the rising standard of living for over 2 billion people in India and China using ever more energy. But what’s the harm? I guess this is their way of culling the world population before these (2 billion or other third) also want to have the same standard of living.
Comment by dscott — April 28, 2008 @ 11:54 am
How many times do these hoaxster alarmists have to be proven wrong before people quit listening to them?! Between DDT and this, how many innocents are they going to kill? From “Silent Spring” to “The Population Bomb” to “Global Warming” with all the other fake crises in-between - global cooling, saccharin, alar, Hong Kong flu, SARS, and many others - they are ALWAYS wrong and it costs children’s lives and costs me money. Oh, and btw, the one REAL crisis they missed until it was too late - HIV/AIDS.
Comment by Joe C. — April 28, 2008 @ 2:37 pm