Biofuels-making some hungry?
Chuck’s Breakpoint commentary today was very intriguing. He was talking about the effect that biofules like ethonol were having on food prices around the world. Consider this:
-In the United States, egg prices are up 35 percent; milk up 23 percent; and bread up 16. For most Americans, who on average spend 10 percent of their income on food, these increases squeeze our budgets.
-In countries like Ethiopia and Bangladesh, people can spend 70 percent of their income on food; so even modest increases in food prices can impair their ability to feed their families. And price increases for the staples they depend on have not been modest: Wheat prices have doubled and corn prices quadrupled in the last year
-It takes 510 pounds of corn to make 13 gallons of ethanol—that amount could “feed a child in Zambia or Mexico for a year,” while it fuels your car only for a week.
How does this affect your thinking on biofules? Do you think that our lifestyles directly affect those around the world? What does your worldview put first, people, economy, environment, or something else?
Comments?
Be sure to read the commentary.
We should be pushing for second generation bio fuels like algae and on consuming less. This is where the rubber meets the road for most within the United States. Our actions as consumers most definitely affect the rest of the world it is time we realized that, and stepped up as Christians to consume less. No matter if it is oil, soybeans, corn, or wheat our world is so woven together that no alternative will be able to sustain our consumption at its current rate.
Have you taken a look at how the world’s use of soy is contributing significantly to the deforestation of the Amazon. That is also interesting, PBS did a whole mini-series on it. A small article linked below http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23885816/
I’m with you. I read that if the rest of the world consumed at the rates we do, we’d need 11 more earths to sustain that consumption!
I’m hoping that Christians will wake up and take the lead instead of lagging behind on most things like we do.
How’s Texas?