Food crisis will take hold before climate change, warns chief scientist

[bijou]

Food security and the rapid rise in food prices make up the "elephant in the room" that politicians must face up to quickly, according to the government's new chief scientific adviser.

In his first major speech since taking over, Professor John Beddington said the global rush to grow biofuels was compounding the problem, and cutting down rainforest to produce biofuel crops was "profoundly stupid".

He told the Govnet Sustainable Development UK Conference in Westminster: "There is progress on climate change. But out there is another major problem. It is very hard to imagine how we can see a world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous increase in the demand for food which is quite properly going to happen as we alleviate poverty."

He predicted that price rises in staples such as rice, maize and wheat would continue because of increased demand caused by population growth and increasing wealth in developing nations. He also said that climate change would lead to pressure on food supplies because of decreased rainfall in many areas and crop failures related to climate. "The agriculture industry needs to double its food production, using less water than today," he said. The food crisis would bite more quickly than climate change, he added.

But he reserved some of his most scathing comments for the biofuel industry, which he said had delivered a "major shock" to world food prices. "In terms of biofuels there has been, quite properly, a reaction against it," he said. "There are real problems with unsustainability."

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/mar/07/scienceofclimatechange.food

Can we just sit back and watch the left fight itself to a standstill?

[Chris_]

Geez....how I love unintended consequences.....we can now watch "the rattlesnakes committing suicide......"

doc

[Lauri]

I heard an ethanol guy on Medved yesterday say: Ethanol cannot be delivered in the pipeline system with water to push it. Water and ethonal either mix or dont mix, and makes it a useless delivery system. So it has to be trucked to wherever it needs to go.

Any 'savings' is pretty much wiped out because

a. the govt has to subsidize it cause its so expensive to produce and refine
b. the cost of trucking it makes it all a wash.



does anyone know if this is true? I wouldnt even know how to look it up online.

as for food prices, now that I am actively watching them, yes, they are indeed going up here. But our gas is just pennies away from being at an all time high. So, that affects costs for pretty much everything.