Biofuels & Population

I had one of those moments yesterday where I just freaked out. I am re-reading Daniel Quinn's book Ishmael and it gives a lot of ink to the relationship between population and food production.

In the last few weeks I've read several articles on the impact of biofuels, and by a great stroke of fortune, I actually even met a cattle rancher a few weeks ago who verified what I had read.

Okay, here is the scoop: Among other things, biofuels are going to soak up world surpluses of grain. Farmers in the U.S. really don't care about world famine — they simply sell their crops at the highest price possible, and if a biofuel distillery offers them more money than some foreign entity, then so be it.

So, what freaked me out is that author Daniel Quinn was already talking about the food-population relationship in his 1992 novel. His writings seem to suggest that population is related to food production. In other words, we humans will just keep breeding to the limit of our food supply, just like any other species. We are NOT above the laws of nature, even though we think we are — this is a key point in Quinn's books.

What this means is as the biofuel industry grows, food will become more expensive for everyone but it's going to especially impact the Third World poor. In the long-term, it would be a good for our Planet, but starvation is a miserable thing and I don't wish it on anyone.

The bottom line is that I wish all people had the common sense and maturity to self-regulate their reproduction. For the U.S. and other countries, it will come down to either achieving more energy security or feeding the Third World's skyrocketing population. It will be interesting, and probably unpleasant, to watch this scenario play out.

From an article by Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute:

The competition for grain between the world's 800 million motorists who want to maintain their mobility and its 2 billion poorest people who are simply trying to survive is emerging as an epic issue. Soaring food prices could lead to urban food riots in scores of lower-income countries that rely on grain imports, such as Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, and Mexico. The resulting political instability could in turn disrupt global economic progress, directly affecting all countries. It is not only food prices that are at stake, but trends in the Nikkei Index and the Dow Jones 500 as well.

The Enemy Within Our Gas Tank

It is with great sadness that the Yellow Canary must write about the beheading of a second American citizen, Paul Johnson. While I support the War on Terrorism (but not the Iraqi war), I continue to feel that force alone is not the answer. As always, I ask people to look at the background conditions that provides the incubator for terrorism. I think we have to, and we'd better do it fast because sooner or later someone is going to detonate a nuclear device.

A few things to ponder:

• President Bush wants us to promote Democracy in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy.
• Saudi Arabia has a fertility rate of 2.9, one of the highest in the world. The Bush Administration continues to cut or limit U.S. family planning aid. (Source: Population Reference Bureau)
• Saudi Arabia's population is now 24.1 million. It is projected to be 74.2 million by 2050. Expect more terrorists!
• Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals. They were mostly from wealthy families. Where did the families get their money?
• Saudi Arabia is the number one supplier of oil to the U.S.
• Americans love to drive big SUVs.
• The U.S. could CONSERVE oil by raising mile per gallon requirements for auto manufacturers. The car makers pay lobbyists big bucks to keep this from happening.
• Oil people and conservatives in Congress want to rape the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the LAST PRISTINE WILDERNESS in the U.S., so they can get more oil for SUVs.
• The United States has 5 percent of the world's population, but uses 20 percent of its resources.
• Paul Johnson was a civilian contractor who worked on Apache attack helicopters. What are those deadly helicopters trying to protect?

So, what is the picture I'm painting here? An ugly one. I can hardly wait for Michael Moore's new documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11 , which comes out June 25. This will shed even more light on the dysfunctional situation I outlined above.

From Michael Moore's website, June 19:

A Republican PR firm has formed a fake grassroots front group called "Move America Forward" to harass and intimidate theater owners into not showing "Fahrenheit 9/11." These are the same people who successfully badgered CBS into canceling the Reagan mini-series a few months ago. And they are spending a ton of money this week to threaten movie theaters who even think about showing our movie.