If we're addicted to oil, our twelve-step program should begin with admitting that we have a problem. As the price of oil creeps higher, finding new energy sources is more important than ever. But the search for alternatives, combined with environmental disruptions, is putting new pressures on other essentials like food. There are some things that are going well in the world. Right now, the economy is not one of them.
Animation & Design by Chris Weller Directed by Max Joseph Music: "Genesis" by Justice
There's plenty of food for everyone in the world -- even with a global population level much greater than we have currently.
If we didn't waste so much grain in the livestock industry (i.e., let's lessen or eliminate meat consumption), the whole crops-for-fuel paranoia would be a non-issue. Also, giving up large-scale factory farming would greatly improve the environment (waste runoff as well as methane emissions).
Food and fuel concerns can be addressed with political initiative and inter-governmental coordination. It's a matter of proper access and distribution of resources. Enough with the biofuel blaming.
All of rural Africa, for example, could be enjoying "free" electricity and refrigeration (for food and medicine) right now, if there was some will and effort to harness the sunshine-gold daily raining down.
Developing nations like India and China, who alone account for 40% of the human family, are being led down a messy road of economic development based on fossil fuels and nuclear technology. It's a short-sighted, non-sustainable game plan. Biofuels are not the problem, nor are they a panacea. They are merely one part of the solution.
Meanwhile, making as much money as they do, certain folks are just too happy with the status quo. Folks in both energy and agribusiness. Let them eat (yellow) cake.