Converting the world's poor into biofuel

Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket

(CNN) -- Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world's attention, the head of an agency focused on global development said Monday.

"This is the world's big story," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute. "The finance ministers were in shock, almost in panic this weekend," he said on CNN's "American Morning," in a reference to top economic officials who gathered in Washington. "There are riots all over the world in the poor countries ... and, of course, our own poor are feeling it in the United States."

World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said the surging costs could mean "seven lost years" in the fight against worldwide poverty.

"While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day," Zoellick said late last week in a speech opening meetings with finance ministers.

Biofuels - the hope of Americans, along with free trade capitalism, is a global scam that is turning the life blood of the world's poor into gasoline to fuel American SUVs. Whoever tells you that America can achieve energy independence using corn is either ignorant or a liar. The U.S. corn crop in 2007 was projected at 13.1 billion bushels. That's enough to make about 34 billion gallons of ethanol. Of course a gallon of ethanol has 1/3 less energy than a gallon of gasoline and takes considerable energy to produce considering the energy requirements of growing corn. National Geographic put the energy balance for corn ethanol production at 1.3. That is, for every 4 gallons of ethanol, it takes 3 gallons to produce it. Or of that 34 billion gallons of alcohol you could produce from the entire corn crop, you would use 26 billion gallons of it growing the corn and turning it into alcohol - leaving only 8 billion gallons. But that is trivial considering the American appetite for gasoline. The U.S. consumes about 207 billion gallons of motor fuel per year. Here is the bottom line: if you took ALL the U.S. corn crop, leaving nothing for animal feed or human food, you could replace about 2.5% of the motor fuels with corn based alcohol. 2.5%!

In a global free trade market, governments are unable to protect the poor from the avarice of rich foreign consumers. When the price of grain is driven up in the Unites States by the demand for alcohol fuel production, the price worldwide rises, along with the price of tortillas in Mexico, and rice in Bangladesh. So while Willie Nelson's BioWillie BioDiesel may save a few gallons of the world's black sludge, it does so at the expense of the poor of the world. How many miles per tortilla does a bus get anyway? God instituted government to restrain evil, not subsidize it! Something that President Bush and his successors would do well to ponder.

Sure, high grain prices are good for farmers - and good for politicians courting the farm vote, but how many lives is a vote worth. And make no mistake about it, that is what we are talking about - human lives. Men, women, and children are going to die in order that you and I can continue to drive pickup trucks and SUVs to the grocery store and church.

We need to understand that corporate capitalism is nothing but institutionalized greed. And free trade is all about removing what little fetters hold the giant trans-nationals in check. People are bound by the Law of God that says: "Thou shall not kill, thou shall not covet your neighbors possessions, thou shall love thy neighbor as yourself." But corporations are bound only by their duty to maximize their shareholders earnings. They are completely amoral. What is worse? Immorality, or amorality? Is it not amorality, which denies even a responsibility to do right? Capitalism (which is not about private property, but about the accumulation of wealth and the means of production) works because it is fueled not by oil, but by something far more common and available - GREED and SELFISHNESS.

Can you remember when health care was not an industry? When almost all hospitals were not-for-profit? Is there not something particularly evil about profiting on an industrial scale of the suffering and death of others? Does the name I.G Farben ring any bells? (I.G. Farben manufactured the Zyclon B pellets that the Nazis used to exterminate Jews)

Remember, there was a time when kidnapping and slavery were considered a legitimate business in America. Questions about the morality of slavery and humanity of Africans was not a fit subject for polite conversation. Will Americans be equally tone death to the cries of the world's poor and hungry while they stand filling their new FLEX-FUEL GM SUVs at the E-85 pump?

	Giving new meaning to burning the poor 2008 Chevrolet Suburban Flex-Fuel 28/40 miles per bushel city/highway The Nazis did it for ideology. Will the Americans for fuel? Shades of Soylet Green!

Does the Bible have anything to say about this?

And when He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, "Come." And I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard as it were a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine." (Revelation 6:5,6 NAS) [a denarius was a hired man's daily wage]

I never read a very satisfying explanation of this passage, then one day a year or two ago it clicked: oil and wine = oil and alcohol: biofuels. If the poor have to compete with the rich over food for food or food for fuel, the poor are going to lose. The proponents of globalization have concocted a poisonous stew that is already beginning to usher in global famine. Not because there is not enough food, but because most of the world will not be able to afford to buy it after the rich bid the price up.

Look at Mexico. The reason Mexicans are crossing the border is because our minimum wage is 5x what they can make in Mexico - if they can find a job. And under American tutelage, Mexico no longer subsidizes tortillas, rice, and beans for the poor. As the price of corn goes through the roof, and tortillas with it, what kind of fence can they build that will keep the millions of starving poor south of the Rio Grande? And Mexico is relatively well off!

How deep does Christianity run in America? Deep enough that Americans will forego their big cars to help reduce the global cost of food? Not likely. The perfect storm is already visible on the horizon. Soon there will be no doubt that the Four Horsemen (Rev. chapter 6) have been unleashed.

Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.