Looks like we'll have to choose, not only between food and fuel but between biofuel and warming. As noted below, schemes to convert to bio fuels not only raise food costs, they increase the release of greenhouse gases. Industry groups disagree, of course, but the guy who did the reasearch says, "The comparison with fossil fuels is going to be adverse for virtually all biofuels on cropland."
My interest in this, by the way, is somewhat personal, since my family actually owns some cropland, here in Michigan, some of which is currently and very unprofitably being used to raise standard food grain crops -- corn and soybeans. Time may come when I have to make a decision about my tenant and what he's growing. I'm thinking white truffles ...
Friday, February 8, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
News you can use
Just a few things gleaned from the corners of this week's news (which is to say, the news not about the Super Bowl and Super Tuesday.)
The Pope was invited to speak at some event at a Roman University (University of Rome La Sapienza), but cancelled after there were protests from faculty and other academics, based on comments Il Papa made 17 years ago about how the church was right to criticize (and prosecute) Galileo -- 394 years ago.
So tempest in a teakettle, right? Turns out not. 200,000 Italians turned out to protest the protest, and looks as though His Holiness will be back on the agenda. Some of the anti-Papal protesters are facing consequences, too, such as, in one case, withdrawal of a job offer. Forza Italia -- the people of Italy come through when it counts, successfully defending their title as the EU's nuttiest nation.
You will still hear, as part of the obesity epidemic discussion, that "food costs are lower," supposedly leading people to eat more. In fact, food costs, especially for grains, are up all over the world, due to oil prices (takes oil to grow food), population increases, and pressure on available growing land. There will almost certainly not be any big increases in farm land (especially since food production now competes with wild-eyed schemes to grow fuel,) which means that yields need to go up, and we've achieved only marginal improvements in yield over the last decades -- about a percent less then we'd need to achieve per year over the next 40 years. And of course, it's the underdeveloped world that's under the most pressure, since they have the biggest population increases, the least ability to increase acreage and yield, and the largest number of poor folks to feed. None of this will be good for us, but it will be bad, bad, bad for Africa and south Asia.
You probably knew that doctors who perform abortions get death threats. Did you know that people's lives are threatened for doing vaccinations? A small group of truly insane people believes that vaccines "cause" autism, and the fringies from that group are behaving just like PETA members or Klansmen. And the resistance to vaccinations isn't just a fringe-group thing -- entire African governments have halted programs in deference to traditional medicine (i.e., witch doctor) beliefs. Guess what happens, of course, when vaccinations are stopped or slowed? Why, the diseases they would have prevented spike. Meanwhile, Disney's Eli Stone is perpetuating the myth with a story line about vaccinations and autism. At least the protagonist appears to be a loony (disclaimer: I haven't seen this thing and almost certainly won't commit the time to doing so. I'm just parroting the American Academy of Pediatrics, here.)
Wachovia Bank honeys up to telemarketers who defraud the elderly, then charges them for each complaint. Fascinating. You just have to read this one for yourself -- when was the last time you saw the phrase, "Double Yikes! in an internal email message? I'm speechless with amazement.
Seen anything interesting yourself, hidden among the Eli Manning / McCain-Romney slush piles?
The Pope was invited to speak at some event at a Roman University (University of Rome La Sapienza), but cancelled after there were protests from faculty and other academics, based on comments Il Papa made 17 years ago about how the church was right to criticize (and prosecute) Galileo -- 394 years ago.
So tempest in a teakettle, right? Turns out not. 200,000 Italians turned out to protest the protest, and looks as though His Holiness will be back on the agenda. Some of the anti-Papal protesters are facing consequences, too, such as, in one case, withdrawal of a job offer. Forza Italia -- the people of Italy come through when it counts, successfully defending their title as the EU's nuttiest nation.
You will still hear, as part of the obesity epidemic discussion, that "food costs are lower," supposedly leading people to eat more. In fact, food costs, especially for grains, are up all over the world, due to oil prices (takes oil to grow food), population increases, and pressure on available growing land. There will almost certainly not be any big increases in farm land (especially since food production now competes with wild-eyed schemes to grow fuel,) which means that yields need to go up, and we've achieved only marginal improvements in yield over the last decades -- about a percent less then we'd need to achieve per year over the next 40 years. And of course, it's the underdeveloped world that's under the most pressure, since they have the biggest population increases, the least ability to increase acreage and yield, and the largest number of poor folks to feed. None of this will be good for us, but it will be bad, bad, bad for Africa and south Asia.
You probably knew that doctors who perform abortions get death threats. Did you know that people's lives are threatened for doing vaccinations? A small group of truly insane people believes that vaccines "cause" autism, and the fringies from that group are behaving just like PETA members or Klansmen. And the resistance to vaccinations isn't just a fringe-group thing -- entire African governments have halted programs in deference to traditional medicine (i.e., witch doctor) beliefs. Guess what happens, of course, when vaccinations are stopped or slowed? Why, the diseases they would have prevented spike. Meanwhile, Disney's Eli Stone is perpetuating the myth with a story line about vaccinations and autism. At least the protagonist appears to be a loony (disclaimer: I haven't seen this thing and almost certainly won't commit the time to doing so. I'm just parroting the American Academy of Pediatrics, here.)
Wachovia Bank honeys up to telemarketers who defraud the elderly, then charges them for each complaint. Fascinating. You just have to read this one for yourself -- when was the last time you saw the phrase, "Double Yikes! in an internal email message? I'm speechless with amazement.
Seen anything interesting yourself, hidden among the Eli Manning / McCain-Romney slush piles?
Monday, February 4, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Theology won't stop 'em
Anybody else noticed a trend lately in which news stories use "canon" when they mean "cannon?" Apparently the Chadean rebels are using " pickup trucks mounted with canon and machine guns," according to a Reuters story. This seems like a bad idea to me, in any armed conflict, unless the Vatican is somehow involved.
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