Dear Friend,

Each day, 820 million people in the developing world do not have enough food to eat1. Food prices around the world are shooting up, sparking food riots from Mexico2 to Morocco3. And the World Food Program warned last week that rapidly rising costs are endangering emergency food supplies for the world's worst-off4.

How are the wealthiest countries responding? They're burning food.

Specifically, they're using more and more biofuels--alcohol made from plant products, used in place of petrol to fuel cars. Biofuels are billed as a way to slow down climate change. But in reality, because so much land is being cleared to grow them, most biofuels today are causing more global warming emissions than they prevent5, even as they push the price of corn, wheat, and other foods out of reach for millions of people6.

Not all biofuels are bad--but without tough global standards, the biofuels boom will further undermine food security and worsen global warming. Click here to use our simple tool to send a message to your head of state before this weekend's global summit on climate change in Chiba, Japan, and help build a global call for biofuels regulation:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/biofuel_standards_...php?cl=60205496

Sometimes the trade-off is stark: filling the tank of an SUV with ethanol requires enough corn to feed a person for a year7. But not all biofuels are bad; making ethanol from Brazilian sugar cane is vastly more efficient than US-grown corn, for example, and green technology for making fuel from waste is improving rapidly.

The problem is that the EU and the US have set targets for increasing the use of biofuels without sorting the good from the bad. As a result, rainforests are being cleared in Indonesia to grow palm oil for European biodiesel refineries, and global grain reserves are running dangerously low. Meanwhile, rich-country politicians can look "green" without asking their citizens to conserve energy, and agribusiness giants are cashing in. And if nothing changes, the situation will only get worse.

What's needed are strong global standards that encourage better biofuels and shut down the trade in bad ones. Such standards are under development by a number of coalitions8, but they will only become mandatory if there's a big enough public outcry. It's time to move: this Friday through Saturday, the twenty countries with the biggest economies, responsible for more than 75% of the world's carbon emissions9, will meet in Chiba, Japan to begin the G8's climate change discussions. Before the summit, let's raise a global cry for change on biofuels:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/biofuel_standards_...php?cl=60205496

A call for change before this week's summit won't end the food crisis, or stop global warming. But it's a critical first step. By confronting false solutions and demanding real ones, we can show our leaders that we want to do the right thing, not the easy thing.

As Kate, an Avaaz member in Colorado, wrote about biofuels, "Turning food into oil when people are already starving? My car isn't more important than someone's hungry child."

It's time to put the life of our fellow people, and our planet, above the politics and profits that too often drive international decision-making. This will be a long fight. But it's one that we join eagerly--because the stakes are too high to do anything else.

With hope,

Ben, Ricken, Iain, Galit, Paul, Graziela, Pascal, Esra'a, Milena -- the Avaaz.org team

SOURCES:

[1] World Food Programme. "Hunger Facts." Accessed 10 March 2008. http://www.wfp.org/aboutwfp/facts/hunger_facts.asp

[2] The Sunday Herald (Scotland). "2008: The year of global food crisis." 9 March 2008. http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnew...food_crisis.php

[3] The Australian: "Biofuels threaten 'billions of lives'" 28 February, 2008. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...0-11949,00.html

[4] AFP: "WFP chief warns EU about biofuels." 7 March 2008. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hpCFf3...uILK5JFV-6NL1Dg

[5] New York Times: "Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat." 8 February 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/...8wbiofuels.html

[6] The Times: "Rush for biofuels threatens starvation on a global scale." 7 March 2008. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle3500954.ece ... also see BBC: "In graphics: World warned on food price spiral." 10 March 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7284196.stm

[7] The Economist: "The end of cheap food." 6 December 2007. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayst...ory_id=10252015

[8] See http://www.globalbioenergy.org, http://cgse.epfl.ch/page70341.html, and http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle3489640.ece.

[9] Government of Japan. "Percentage of global carbon dioxide emissions (FY 2003) contributed by G20 nations." http://www.env.go.jp/earth/g8/en/g20/index_popup.html


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ABOUT AVAAZ
Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means "voice" in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Paris, Washington DC, and Geneva.

Finally! SOMEBODY mentions that not all ethanol comes from corn.

Sugar is so cheap it's effectively free. It doesn't deplete the soil nearly as badly as corn does. It can be grown in areas where corn won't grow. And in the case of the United States, it would bring a badly needed cash crop to areas that are more or less permanently depressed (the Gulf Coast states). A sharp increase in demand for sugar would raise the price until it's profitable to grow cane.

And it's not speculative. As the post points out, Brazil has been running its entire internal-combustion economy on sugar ethanol for a couple of decades.

I want a sugar-ethanol fuelled Air Car!

Me too! And I want in now, damnit!

I'll buy an Air Car the minute they come on the market. In addition to being environmentally friendly and laughably cheap to operate, there's some damned smart engineering in those things.

Which sugar source are you talking about?
Cane? Beets? Switch Grass? Milk? Nearly every growing thing in it possess sugar of one sort or other.
The issue is that some things produce more than others while some also are cheaper to produce while others require less agerage per unit. Corn is clearly NOT a good energy source as it's lower yield per acre, not that easy to refine, and corn for fuel competes in several ways with corn for food, making it ultimately quite a bit more expensive. Unfortunately, telling all this to TJ's constituency is a tough sell.

Did that help?

Apparently you can use just about any plant that has high sugar levels.

Yep! I did miss it. Sorry.

Ya know, we could extract the sugar energy out of everything organic that is still being dumped in landfills!

canne provides only half of our sugar production in the US...
Beets provide the other half, and that indusry has been quietly pushing for geneticly modified (mostly in the northwest - OR in paricular) beets, resistant to "DOW chemical's" round-up...

does the benefit of GMO's and Round up overpower the environmental needs to reduce petroleum usage?

I haven't done enough research to voice an opinion, but the questions linger on the back burner, while the question of rising food prices are damn near close to causing greenhouse gasses on the front...

I think we need to embrace organic agricultural practices first, and embrace local purchasing before the fuel shift, otherwise I think we'll all be worse off in the end.

I have a problem.

As long as people around the world go hungry and even starve to death,
how can we morally justify turning food into energy?
Or using space that could grow food to grow an energy product?

I don't have much of a hard time creating in my mind an image of some brown immigrants working for less than minimum wage to grow and harvest an energy product so that Joe Schmo white upper middle class American can be the only occupant in a Hummer driving to work.

Um, sky,
as long as people around the world go hungry,
how can we morally justify growing rhododendrons instead of apple trees?
how can we morally justify anything?

Raising the price of food is actually good for poor farmers; they can save and invest more and be less vulnerable when a famine hits their region.

Just a year or so I was hearing how terrible it was that NAFTA was driving down corn prices. Now corn prices are going up, and I hear how terrible it is.

Um, happy.


Statistically I can show that there is enough food available to feed everyone on the planet.
Which means we have room to grow energy without impacting food supplies.

And yet, we still have people starving to death while America worries about it's standard of living!



edit to add....


I'm not saying don't seek alternative energy.
I'm saying food for fuel while people starve to death, something isn't right.

Good point.
We don't actually need cars for our survival even though our economies are structured so that transport is often necessary for our participation in those economies.



Many Rhododendrons farms in Washington State Hap?



How so? It's not poor farmers who dictate food prices, it's the market .
Poor farmers don't increase prices in order to line their own pockets and save for a rainy day (I'm pretty sure it rains regularly on them).
Now, rich framers on the other hand.....

Shitloads of them, actually, but that's not what I meant. But yeah, because of all the mcmansions ornamental nurseries are booming.



But the rain falls on the rich and poor alike. Stagnant food prices mean that poor farmers will never get ahead. But when the market dictates higher prices, they might end up getting to keep or invest some of that money.

I agree. Let's drill ANWR.

Their are alternatives that don't require burning something to release it's energy!

As long as it's nothing that could possibly be eaten, or uses land that could be used for growing food. Coz that would be immoral.

While I'm not altogether sure that the poorer farmers profit from higher food prices, I'll concede... Specially about the rhodies.

edit to add: Where have your beautiful cucumber flowers gone? All I've seen fr a while now is a blank box where they used to be!

Cucumber flowers?

Sounds lovely.

As for the G8, I've been curious, in a touristy sort of way, about the venues selected for this meeting, and the security that goes with it.

I don't think these meetings are set up with Free Speech Zones, ...

I seem to remember there was one in Glen Eagles, Scotland a year or two ago... I'm thinking security was pretty tight!!! Oh, hang on, that could have been an EU thing..? Sometimes I wonder about me!


Happy had the most beautiful avatar you've ever seen.... cucumber flowers!

I'm going to look for some cucumber flowers next.

Last time G8 visited the States, they took over a private island, near Jekyll Island, Georgia (the birthplace of the Federal Reserve System). Hmmmm. What's the name of that island? I've been there. You can drive around on it, but you can't get to a beach unless you own or rent one of those mammoth guest houses. If I write long enough, maybe I'll remember the name of it ... It's not Sea Island, or is it?

Anyhow, to get to the beach, you can rent a room in that swell hotel at the entrance, where I think the G8 meeting was held.

SEA ISLAND, GEORGIA

In 1924, Howard Coffin, founder of the Hudson Motor Company, purchased the “Isle of Palms,” now known around the world as Sea Island. Here, he built The Cloister, an intimate resort that offered good food, relaxation and exercise. From the beginning, Sea Island sought to attract a special clientele. The resort identified its target market as businessmen burdened by heavy responsibilities for whom a visit to Sea Island would rejuvenate the body, mind and spirit. Early ads appealed to visitors to “find a wealth of romance and history to charm your mind while nature mends jaded nerves.” Soon after its opening, The Cloister attracted Calvin Coolidge, John D. Rockefeller, Edsel Ford, Thomas Dewey, Eugene O’Neill and other great personages of the early and mid-twentieth century. In 2004, President George W. Bush hosted the G8 Summit on the island. Today, many of the world’s wealthiest and most prominent people come to Sea Island to relax and socialize.

link

By golly, I remembered it. I think it's a fascinating collection along the coast there, in Georgia: St. Simons, Jekyll, Sea Island, all with a specific personality. JohnJohn Kennedy was married at another island, that's supposed to be a wild life refuge, and I don't remember the name of that one.

But, as for the three I started with ...

St. Simon's Island is for the average joe, where you see locals casting out nets for blue crab.

Jekyll Island is for the middle class, who can get a room at a Holiday Inn

and

Sea Island is for the power elite, who can do whatever they want.

What's your point Jubal. Sans sarcasm, is there one?
My point was, right now food costs more in THIS country, and part of the reason is the biofuel issue.
How does this impact the starving people of the world? And do you not recognize the irony?
We can feed the SUV while people starve to death?

Biofuel alternatives is not a long term solution. Most energy scientists agree. Short term though it's better than imported oil.

Ya know, for a smart guy, sometimes you aren't very bright.
Wouldn't it be a better thing to discuss what you disagree with instead of being a putz?
Or is it just too difficult for you to talk at the level of my diminished capacity?

Given your track record, you're not in a good position to ask that question, or make the implied criticism.

You are making assumptions based on opinion.

Other than that, are you saying that you are inclined to make decisions about how you will conduct yourself based on the actions of others?
Here I had assumed you have much more charactor than that!


Be your own self and live by your own rules.
You consider me to be an ass, then you should be one too?

(Hi, Sky and Jubal)

I just found an okra bloom that's lovely.

Thank you Kate.
Your peace offering is gratefully accepted.

Hi, Sky

I honestly had that okra pic, and wanted to share it.

I tell you what, I don't really like okra, but it sure has a beautiful flower.

Beautiful pic's Kate!!! Stunning!
Had to go off-site to see the okra bloom for some reason, but it was worth it!

Very nice. Thank you.

Don't mind Sky and me. We cordially ignore each other most of the time, bash each other with rocks every now and then. Every once in a great while talk like civilized beings. It's all in good fun.

you might have a hard time finding the cucke pics... they're wild cuke pics, totally different. They're named as such because of their root that tastes like a cucumber - where's greenguy when you need him?

Actually I rather like Jubal and have defended him on more than a few occasions!

Found one! Not as nice a shot as Hap's avatar, but still pretty.

On the subject of my newish teenager, he would have been more interested in the manroot aspects of the wild cucumber.

I found a bunch of specimens, once the word got out that it was a wild cucumber bloom we were looking for.

Now, I can't find my list of jpg urls.