Biofuels
And Global Hunger
By Fidel Castro
01 April, 2007
CounterPunch
More
than three billion people in the world are being condemend to a premature
death from hunger and thirst. It is not an exaggeration; this is rather
a conservative figure. I have meditated for quite a long time on that
after the meeting held by President Bush with the US automakers.
The sinister idea of turning
foodstuffs into fuel was definitely established as the economic strategy
of the US foreign policy on Monday, March 26th last.
A wire service story issued
by the AP literally reads:
WASHINGTON (AP), March 26
- President Bush touted the benefits of "flexible fuel" vehicles
running on ethanol and biodiesel on Monday, meeting with automakers
to boost support for his energy plans. Bush said a commitment by the
leaders of the domestic auto industry to double their production of
flex-fuel vehicles could help motorists shift away from gasoline and
reduce the nation's reliance on imported oil.
"That's a major technological
breakthrough for the country," Bush said after inspecting three
alternative vehicles. If the nation wants to reduce gasoline use, he
said "the consumer has got to be in a position to make a rational
choice."
The president urged Congress
to "move expeditiously" on legislation the administration
recently proposed to require the use of 35 billion gallons of alternative
fuels by 2017 and seek higher fuel economy standards for automobiles.
Bush met with General Motors
Corp. chairman and chief executive Rick Wagoner, Ford Motor Co. chief
executive Alan Mulally and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group chief
executive Tom LaSorda. They discussed support for flex-fuel vehicles,
attempts to develop ethanol from alternative sources like switchgrass
and wood chips and the administration's proposal to reduce gas consumption
by 20 percent in 10 years.
The discussions came amid
rising gasoline prices. The latest Lundberg Survey found the nationwide
average for gasoline has risen 6 cents per gallon in the past two weeks
to $2.61.
I think that reducing and
recycling all fuel and electricity operated engines is an urgent and
elemental necessity of all humanity. The dilemma is not in the reduction
of energy costs, but in the idea of turning foodstuffs into fuel.
Today we know with accurate
precision that one ton of corn can only render as an average 413 liters
of ethanol (109 gallons), a figure that may vary according to the latter's
density.
The average price of corn
in US ports has reached 167 dollars per ton. The production of 35 billion
gallons of ethanol requires 320 million tons of corn. According to FAO,
US corn production in 2005 reached 280.2 million tons.
Even if the President is
speaking about producing fuel out of switchgrass or wood chips, any
person could understand that these phrases are far from realistic. Listen
well: 35 billion gallons, 35 followed by nine zeros!
Beautiful examples of the
productivity of men per hectare achieved by the experienced and well
organized US farmers will come next: corn will be turned into ethanol;
corn wastes will be turned into animal fodder, with a 26 percent of
proteins; cattle manure will be used as raw material for the production
of gas. Of course, all of this will happen after a great number of investments,
which could only be afforded by the most powerful companies whose operations
are based on the consumption of electricity and fuel. Let this formula
be applied to the Third World countries, and the world will see how
many hungry people on this planet will cease to consume corn. What is
worse, let the poor countries receive some financing to produce ethanol
from corn or any other foodstuff and very soon not a single tree will
be left standing to protect humanity from climate change.
Other rich countries have
planned to use not only corn but also wheat, sunflower seeds, rapeseed
and other foodstuffs to produce fuel. For Europeans, for example, it
would be a good business to import the entire soybean production of
the world to reduce the cost of fuel for their automobiles and feed
their animals with the wastes of that legume, which has a high content
of all kinds of essential amino acids.
In Cuba, alcohol was produced
as a sugar cane by-product, after three extractions of sugarcane juice.
Climate change is already affecting our sugar production. Severe droughts
alternate with record rainfall values, which hardly allow our country
to produce any sugar during a period of 100 days with adequate yields
during our very mild winter. So, in Cuba, we are either producing less
sugar per every ton of sugarcane, or the number of tons of cane per
hectare has been reduced due to the long lasting droughts in the plantation
and harvest seasons.
I understand that Venezuela
would not export alcohol; it will use it to improve the environmental
safety of its own fuel. Therefore, despite the excellent technology
designed by Brazil to produce alcohol, its use in Cuba to produce alcohol
from sugarcane juice is nothing but a dream, the ravings of those who
entertain such ideas. In our country, the land which would otherwise
be devoted solely to the production of alcohol could be better used
to produce foodstuffs for the people and protect the environment.
All countries of the world
without exception, whether rich or poor, could save trillions of dollars
in investments and fuel if they only replace all incandescent bulbs
with fluorescent bulbs, which is what Cuba has done in all the residential
areas of the country. This would be a palliative that will enable us
to cope with climate change without killing the poor people in this
planet with hunger.
As can be seen, I am not
using adjectives to describe either the system or those who have become
the owners of this world. That task will be brilliantly accomplished
by the information experts, the many honest socio-economic and political
scientists in this world who continuously delve into the present and
the future of our species. A computer and the increasing number of Internet
networks will just be enough to do that.
For the first time a truly
globalized economy exists and a dominant power in the economic, political,
and military spheres that is in no way similar to the ancient Rome ruled
by emperors.
Some people may wonder why
I am speaking about hunger and thirst. And I will answer: this is not
about the other side of a coin, but of the many different sides of quite
another object, maybe a six-sided dice or a polyhedron which has many
more sides.
This time I will quote an
official news agency, founded in 1945, which is in general very familiar
with the economic and social problems of the world: TELAM. It literally
said:
Within hardly 18 years, nearly
2 billion people will inhabit countries and regions where water might
seem a far away memory. Two thirds of the world population could live
in places where the lack of water could bring about social and economic
tensions that could lead peoples to go to war over the precious "blue
gold".
In the course of the last
100 years, water consumption has grown at a pace which is more than
twice the population growth rate.
"According to the World
Water Council (WWC), the number of persons affected by this serious
situation will increase to 3.5 billion by the year 2015.
On March 23, the United Nations
Organization observed the World Water Day, urging all member countries
to cope with the international water shortage as of that day, under
the auspices of FAO, with the aim of emphasizing the increasing importance
of water shortage in the world and the need for greater integration
and cooperation to ensure a sustainable and efficient management of
water resources.
"Many regions in this
planet suffer from severe water shortage, where the annual rate of cubic
meters per person is less than 500. Every time there are more and more
regions suffering from a chronic shortage of this vital resource.
"An insufficient amount
of the precious fluid necessary to produce foodstuffs, the impaired
development of industry, urban areas and tourism, and the emergence
of health problems are some of the consequences that derive from water
shortage."
So much for the TELAM wire
service.
I have not mentioned other
important facts, such as the ice that is melting down in Greenland and
the Antartic, the damages caused to the ozone layer and the ever higher
titers of mercury found in many fish species which are part of the regular
people's diet.
Other topics could be addressed,
but in these few lines I simply intend to make some comments about the
meeting held by President Bush with the chief executives of US automakers.
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