Opinion: Time for a Biofuel Ban?

Currently western governments are experimenting with bio-fuels as a way to cushion their economies from the impact of rising oil prices.  Prices of a gallon of fuel continue to rise sharply showing that the emergence of a bio-fuel craze has done little to reduce global dependence on oil.  But the bio-fuel craze has seemed to raise a new specter that may be much worse than global warming: sudden mass starvation hitting much of the third world.

The current global food crisis is as sudden as it is alarming.  It is a mixture of a number of root causes: neglected inflation that governments have hidden for decades in changing statistics, weak economy, global climate change, rising fuel costs and bio-fuels.  Of these only 2 have short term solutions.  Oil prices are rising in large part because the United States is slowly reducing Iraq to chaos and a step down from American arrogance could do much to take the pressure off, but rising demand will continue to cause fuel costs for farmers to go up.  Bio-fuel programs could be ended tomorrow.

Blogged with Flock