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Fuel tanks versus people's lives

With global grain prices surging, corn ethanol looking dumber than ever

And right on the heels of Russia's wheat shortage, the USDA has just released a surprisingly frank report documenting that the current U.S. corn stocks are shockingly low, in fact the lowest in 15 years. The reason? I'll let the Washington Post explain:


The U.S. Agriculture Department's latest forecast said corn supplies are expected to total 675 million bushels as of late August when this year's harvest begins. That would be the lowest surplus level since 1996.


The government said supplies have dwindled over the past month because of improving demand, largely from ethanol producers.


Ah, ethanol. How we do love you.


All eyes are now on the 2011 corn harvest. As one analyst said, to avoid a price spike, it needs to be "huge." And it's still early, but here's hoping that the vicious winter weather out in the corn belt doesn't presage a wild and wacky spring. That could really spell trouble in the global south, where even more upward pressure on grain prices would be devastating.


The good news is that the fuel vs. food debate is for sissies. I know because Monsanto told me.

Fuel versus food? Which would you choose? Seems like an easy choice - so why are we making the wrong one so many times?

Chomsky on Green

Noam Chomsky has a big ol' brain, and over the years, he's devoted it to revolutionizing linguistics, pushing the boundaries of analytic philosophy, formulating trenchant political theory, and pissing off establishment figures. Whether or not you agree with his politics, there's no denying that he's a sharp fella. Which is why it's well worth watching his take on why the United States has thus far failed to tackle climate change:

Watch it all...

.... it could serve as a crash course on the roots of climate denial.

Peak Oil Right Now

Image via WikipediaSaudi Arabia's Oil Overestimated by 40%, Wikileaks Reveals

Looks like peak oil might be even closer than we thought -- the most recent Wikileaks cable released by the Guardian has revealed that US diplomats are convinced that Saudi Arabia has overestimated its vaunted oil reserves by a stunning 40%. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil supplier, and is widely believed to be sitting atop the largest supply of the stuff in the world. But this revelation shows that the country may not have enough oil to keep prices from rising drastically over the next couple years.


By the Saudi geologist's estimation, that means that the world may hit peak oil next year. This won't surprise many peak oilers who've long suggested we surpassed peak oil already, or those who've been predicting the event to occur this decade. Even the US military has openly predicted that the world may see severe oil shortages as soon as 2015.


But hitting peak oil as soon as next year would have a momentous impact on the global economy, which is still extremely dependent on oil. As we speak, oil prices are creeping above the $100 a barrel mark. As usual, analysts have counted on the Middle Eastern nation to pump additional oil if the prices rise high enough, and threaten to choke off demand, as the Guardian notes. But this cable suggests the era when Saudi Arabia can stabilize oil demand is well past its twilight.

This is a big "Oh Crap!" We all knew it was here. We all know what the future may look like. Now we won't have to wait for the crap to hit the fan.

And so many people condemn Wikileaks.  They are doing us a service in getting the truth out.

Related articles

• WikiLeaks Says Peak Oil Could Be Coming Soon (ecocentric.blogs.time.com)
• Wikileaks on Peak Oil (theoildrum.com)

More deaths to report

Dead Fish in Florida

Thousands of dead fish washed ashore a Florida state park beach on Friday, WPBF 25 News reports. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologists believe a lack of oxygen resulted in the deaths of thousands of menhaden fish at Sebastian Inlet State Park. The officials say this type of fish is especially prone to dying from a lack of oxygen when they swim closer to shore in such large numbers.

In the week prior, around 500 drum fish were found dead in the Arkansas River, in the same location where 83,000 dead fish were discovered a month earlier on December 29th, AP reports.

After the major fish kill at the end of 2010, and the deaths of thousands of birds also reported nearby in Arkansas days later on New Years Eve, news of mass animal deaths from around the world began receiving prominent coverage, though officials have attested that the events are not connected. More birds were reported to fall from the sky across the U.S. and around the world, while similar mass fish kills were also reported worldwide.

Wildlife officials have suggested everything from extremely harsh weather to fireworks andindigestion as being responsible for the various mass animal deaths, while the USDA has taken responsibility for some of the U.S. bird deaths. According to the AP, mass animal deaths are not that uncommon.

Not that uncommon? Come on now. Don't they wonder what is happening? Face it - we are in trouble.

Job opening

Buckingham Palace Seeking Environmentally Savvy Gardener

Are you a green-minded person with a green thumb? You might want to check out the job listings at Buckingham Palace. "The £15,000-a-year post entails maintaining the 42-acre garden 'to the highest standards' and recycling 99 per cent of the waste - even from the Royal Mews stables. The successful applicant must also be able to maintain shrub, herbaceous and rose borders in line with 'good organic horticultural practices' and 'to assist in the development of the wildlife in the gardens'," reports The Telegraph, which lists has the details.

Wonder if they'd pay relocation fees?

Food Prices Going Up

World Food Prices Hit Record Highs

Enduring the economic crunch isn't getting any easier, especially with world food prices at all time highs. From political flare ups to very strange weather, the costs of some of our favorite foods could be nearly out of reach.


According to Breibart, food prices have incited violence and unrest across the globe. Some of the hardest hit countries are Egypt and Tunisia amongst others on the brink of flaring up.


"The new figures clearly show that the upward pressure on world food prices is not abating. These high prices are likely to persist in the months to come," FAO economist and grains expert Abdolreza Abbassian said in a statement.


Here are some of the hardest hit food categories:

• Chocolate 
• Sugar
• Ice Cream
• Meat 

Being a vegetarian I am not concerned about meat prices.  chocolate - not a huge fan - can take it or leave it.  Sugar - just need it for my kombucha.  but ice cream!  Now that is a problem,

The Gateway Drug

Why Bacon Evokes a Carnivorous Moment for Vegetarians

To start, this isn't the first time I've heard this. I'm mostly a vegetarian, minus a piece of fish once in a while, but my friend is an austere vegetarian who admits that even she can't resist stealing a piece of bacon once in a while. Last week NPR explored bacon as a gateway drug. Why is this the meat that even hardcore meat haters find pleasure in? Scientifically speaking, it may be more our noses than anything else.


According to SHOTS, NPR's health blog, the sizzling, salty, and downright decadent smell of bacon arouses our predatory instincts. Hardcore vegetarians even admit to carnivorous cravings for bacon.


Johan Lundstrom, a scientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center says it's more than just the taste that arouses a vegetarian:


There's an intimate connection between odor and emotion, and odor and memory. When you pair that with the social atmosphere of weekend breakfast and hunger, bacon is in the perfect position to take advantage of how the brain is wired.


Lundstrom says that it's bacon's protein makeup and high fat content that swoon us as well. And the intoxicating smell of bacon is what in the end temps our taste buds because 90 percent of what we taste is a food's smell.

Totally agree. The smell does drive me crazy and close to consuming that little small piece of pork.  Damn that smell!.

Farts are Criminal?

Malawi Government Proposes Fart Ban

In Malawi, a new bill in the country is trying to make it against the law to fart in public.


As the BBC is reporting, just whether or not the new bill criminalizes flatulence is being hotly debated among two of the African nation's most senior officials. The Local Courts Bill, to be introduced next week, reads: "Any person who vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious to the public to the health of persons in general dwelling or carrying on business in the neighbourhood or passing along a public way shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."


Justice Minister George Chaponda certainly believes passing gas should be included among the various offenses. "Just go to the toilet when you feel like farting," he told local radio, before noting that local chiefs would deal with any offenders. According to the Afrik News site, the bill will also attempt to deal with citizens who hinder the burial of dead bodies as well as people who pretend to be fortune tellers.


Solicitor General Anthony Kamanga begged to differ, arguing that the "fouling the air" reference only directly meant air pollution. "How any reasonable or sensible person can construe the provision to criminalizing farting in public is beyond me," he said. Another Malawian is quoted as saying, ""How can this government criminalize the release of intestinal gases ... Everyone does that, even if it's in public or it has an accompanying sound which is boring, making it criminal is a joke of democracy."

This article is not a joke - though will lead to many. Letterman, Stewart and Conan will have a field day with this one!

Contact him now

FNL seeks CCDN for fun and good times

ENVIRONMENT/TODAY: Global Warming Causing More Snow? Come Again? -- FoxNews.com Deadline: Feb 01, 2011 11:00 PM EST
Former Vice President Al Gore told Bill O'Reilly that: "A rise in global temperature can create all sorts of havoc, ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires and loss of endangered species." We need comments from someone who can point out the ridiculousness of his argument, even if you accept the somewhat-implausible argument. I've been assigned this story just now by Fox News in New York for the science and technology desk. I'm looking for comments. Please send comments via e-mail. Please send your name, title and company you represent. Please send comments by 10 p.m. CST. Contact: Gene Koprowski, [redacted]

Come on. Gene is lonely. Can someone please help him out?
For the uninitiated: FNL=Fox News Lunatic, CCDN=Climate Change Denier Nut.

Love this video

Big Green from Quiet Life on Vimeo.

Who's next?

Peak Oil & Poverty - More Background on the Egyptian Popular Uprising

Another turn in the back story of why the Egyptian people have taken to the streets to oust 30-year dictator Hosni Mubarak: Peak oil--well, nationally peak oil at least. A new article in Le Monde Diplomatique by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed sheds light on how, in addition to food insecurity and political repression, the decline of Egypt's domestic oil reserves have played a powerful supporting role in this drama:


This quote sums it all up well (and not so incidentally applies in the bigger picture to many more nations on the planet as oil peaks across more of the world):
Egypt is particularly vulnerable. Its oil production peaked in 1996, and since then has declined by around 26 per cent. Since the 1960s, Egypt has moved from complete food self-sufficiency to excessive dependence on imports, subsidized by oil revenues. But as Egypt's oil revenues have steadily declined due to increasing domestic consumption of steadily declining oil, so have food subsidies, leading to surging food prices. Simultaneously, Egypt's debt levels are horrendous - about 80.5 percent of its GDP, far higher than most other countries in the region. Inequality is also high, intensifying over the last decade in the wake of neoliberal 'structural adjustment' reforms - widely implemented throughout the region since the 1980s with debilitating effects, including contraction of social welfare, reduction of wages, and lack of infrastructure investment. Consequently, today forty per cent of Egyptians live below the UN poverty line of less than £2 a day.
Due to such vulnerabilities, Egypt, as with many of the MENA countries, now lies on the fault-lines of the convergence of global ecological, energy and economic crises - and thus, on the frontlines of deepening global system failure. The Empire is uncrumbling. The guarded official statements put out by the Obama administration only illustrate the disingenuous impotence of the U.S. position.


It may not seem on the surface of it all that the revolution sweeping the Middle East in the past few weeks only has a tangental green connection, but if you look just beneath the surface--as more people are beginning to do--that connection is right there.

It's more than "democracy" and "liberty" - it is life and equality. So which nation is next? Which continent?  Too many are inb the same boat as Egypt.

Yummy?

Meat grown in lab

 In a small laboratory on an upper floor of the basic science building at the Medical University of South Carolina, Vladimir Mironov, M.D., Ph.D., has been working for a decade to grow meat.

A developmental biologist and tissue engineer, Dr. Mironov, 56, is one of only a few scientists worldwide involved in bioengineering "cultured" meat.

It's a product he believes could help solve future global food crises resulting from shrinking amounts of land available for growing meat the old-fashioned way ... on the hoof.

Growth of "in-vitro" or cultured meat is also under way in the Netherlands, Mironov told Reuters in an interview, but in the United States, it is science in search of funding and demand.

Sounds like something out of Margaret Atwood's novels.
Yummy - I don't think so.

Gore versus O'Reilly

An Answer for Bill O'Reilly

Last week on his show Bill O'Reilly asked, "Why has southern New York turned into the tundra?" and then said he had a call into me. I appreciate the question.


As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming. Here's Clarence Page at the Chicago Tribune:


"In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe. Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture. Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow."


"A rise in global temperature can create all sorts of havoc, ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires and loss of endangered species."

Gore drives, he scores!!!!!