The Rising Price of Food reaching its Political and Moral Limits.

We've decided that the price of oil is much too high.....we blame the greedy Arabs or the greedy corporations or uncaring governments.

We're not going to cut down on our driving.The idea that you can live and work in the same city is obviously an alien concept to a lot of folks.You say there's no good paying job close to your home? So, rather than move closer to work you drive 20, 25 or 30 miles one way every day.
The price of gasoline isn't going to go down. So, why not use ethanol to take the place of gas? We can grew corn.

This may have sounded like a great idea, but it has caused the price of grain to skyrocket.
Cereal grain prices are higher. It costs more to feed humans and livestock.

From AsiaNews.it;
"More than 100 million people in poor countries risk falling back into misery, on account of the rapid rise in staple food prices. Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, is raising the alarm and proposing immediate intervention and a long-term plan to foster agricultural production.

According to official data, from March of 2007 to March of 2008 the price of wheat increased by 130%, soya by 87%, rice by 74%, and maize by 31%. The causes indicated include the rise in demand, bad weather conditions in many countries, and greater use of arable land for the production of plants for biofuels. The rise in food prices in general has been 83% over three years.

These increases have caused popular protests in many countries, including Egypt, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and it is feared that these can only increase and become more violent, since the run-up in prices does not appear to be stopping. In recent months, large rice exporters (India, China, Vietnam, and Egypt) have stopped their sales abroad, to the harm of the major importers like Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Afghanistan."

From telegraph.co.uk ;
The mass diversion of the North American grain harvest into ethanol plants for fuel is reaching its political and moral limits.
'The reality is that people are dying already,' said Jacques Diouf, of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 'Naturally people won't be sitting dying of starvation, they will react,' he said.

The Philippines - a country with ample foreign reserves of $36bn (Britain has $27bn) - last week had to enlist its embassies to hunt for grain supplies after China withheld shipments. Washington stepped in, pledging "absolutely" to cover Philippine grain needs. A new Cold War is taking shape, around energy and food.
The world intelligentsia has been asleep at the wheel. While we rage over global warming, global hunger has swept in under the radar screen."

We'll be forced by circumstances to alter our current lifestyle. The cost of driving will be too high. There will be high unemployment and there will be nothing Clinton or Obama or McCain will be able to do to stop it.


It's going to happen and in the mean time, poor people will starve while we cling to this way of life.