Why are we having food riots all over the world, with the dismal prospect than hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of the world’s poor will starve to death? Food is an international commodity, and wheat, corn, and other grains have doubled in price, or more, in the last year alone. This is caused by high energy prices which the Environmentalists have caused with their political influence and resulting prohibition of exploration, use of coal and other hydrocarbon sources of energy.
Neither price controls, nor subsidies for food will solve this problem although the world’s advanced countries have a moral obligation to take action to do something about it. But, there is no short term action we can take which will return the price of agricultural commodities to an affordable level. The issue is that the supply of food is insufficient for the world’s poor population because the developed world has bid the price up for agricultural commodities to an unsupportable level for the world’s poor. Many countries are stopping exports because they want their citizens to have foodstuffs which would otherwise be exported. This will exacerbate the problems for countries that are not self-sufficient in food and cause a bidding contest which will raise food prices even higher.
And, even in the US, the increases in cereal prices are driving poultry, hog and cattle suppliers to cut production or even go out of business. And, even the subsidized ethanol producers are losing money because their economics depend on corn prices at a fraction of Today’s market prices. The root cause is the cost of petroleum, and hydrocarbon, based energy, but global cooling trends have been a short term factor in reducing crops as well. Farmers use fertilizers produced from petrochemicals and agricultural machines use a lot of energy. Energy costs are a component of virtually everything we consume.
These are the driving forces for energy costs:
1. Limited supply outstripped by demand in the developed world, and restrictions on exploration and development. .
2. Substantially increased demand from China, India, and other developing economies
3. Increased use of petrochemical feed stocks for a large variety of industries.
4. Diversion of food stuffs to make ethanol.
5. Political problems in Nigeria, Venezuela, and market uncertainties in the Middle East because of political factors generating speculative excesses.
All of these factors are exacerbated by Environmentalists’ and the Green’s world-wide influence and constant legal actions to block all energy development projects, except for a few renewable sources, which cannot begin to satisfy current demand and produce no petrochemicals. In the US, this has resulted in the Democrats’ alignment with this politically influential movement over many years, and now, we must pay for it by lowering our standard of living, and the world’s poor population may pay for it with their lives.
Supply shortages cannot be solved without exploration and development of alternative hydrocarbon power sources, and demand will inexorably increase with world-wide population growth. Ethanol production will fall of its own weight because food demand will cause ethanol to be uneconomic against petroleum sources as prices for corn go up, even with subsidies. Food will take a higher priority, and we may see political pressure to increase subsidies which will be unpopular.
This is a world-wide problem. Germany is shutting down its entire nuclear power industry. Virtually every European country is investing in renewable power and is raising its costs for electricity substantially. The renewable sources produce electricity which is of such poor reliability and variability that the infrastructure costs cause renewable power to cost three to four times the cost of traditional power.
In the meantime, the US, Canada, Europe, and China have immense proven sources for oil-sands, and coal which could supply hundreds of years of energy, and by then, renewable sources will be more useful. But, these sources cannot be used because of the intransigence of the Environmentalists and Green’s lobbies, and the boogeyman of global warming, which increasingly seems to be untrue. The Chinese stopped their ethanol program years ago because of increased food prices and they have large coal liquefaction projects underway.
But, note that it is the official policy of the UN, all European countries, and the policy of the 157 signatories of the Kyoto protocols, and many American states like California, that it is essential to raise the costs of carbon-based energy to a level where the usage is reduced by a minimum of 25%, and as much as 80%. No renewable sources can possibly fill that gap. And, it is obvious that energy demand is not very elastic, so cuts of that magnitude will require unimaginable price increases, and cause a world-wide depression.
This cannot possibly happen, and if laws making such draconian cuts are enforced, we will see business closures and food riots in the US, Europe and the rest of the world, and millions of the world’s poor will die of starvation. The electorate will remove politicians who think one degree of warming in one hundred years is more important than jobs and food.
The Environmentalists indirectly caused the deaths of 30 million people when they lobbied incessantly to ban DDT, even when it was known to be the only effective treatment against malaria, and it took the World Health Organization many years to stand up to the Environmentalists and rescind the ban. The Environmentalists don’t care and a frequent response to the DDT issue is “after all, it was effective population control!”
We must change our public policy away from the radical Environmentalist’s manifesto to one of energy production to meet human needs as its prime objective. Otherwise, our children and certainly their children will live in scarcity and a level of quality of life far inferior to ours. But, the manifesto calls for precisely that result – let’s not let it happen.
The world needs to reject carbon controls, Kyoto like programs, restrictions on energy development, and the entire Environmentalists and anarchists anti-globalization communistic manifesto.