Barack Obama doesn’t have a long career in the United States Senate, but while he has been there he has been a consistent supporter of subsidies and mandates for ethanol (his home state of Illinois is a major corn producer). To this day, it is still a key element in his ‘green jobs‘ platform.
So how have Obama’s ethanol policies been effecting the rest of the world. The New York Times reports:
A United Nations food agency called on Tuesday for a review of biofuel subsidies and policies, noting that they had contributed significantly to rising food prices and the hunger in poor countries.
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In a devastating assessment released this summer, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded that government support of biofuel production in member countries was hugely expensive and that it “had a limited impact on reducing greenhouse gases and improving energy security.” It did have “a significant impact on world crop prices” by helping to raise them.“National governments should cease to create new mandates for biofuels and investigate ways to phase them out,” the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded in its report. The organization includes European countries, the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia.
So to recap: ethanol mandates and subsidies do nothing to stop global warming but they do help cause world hunger by driving up food prices. Sounds like everyone is a loser under this policy except Illinois farmers and Obama’s political career.
But the nightmare the environmental left wishes to inflict on the world does not end their. A new report by the Food Climate Research Network advocates government ration’s people diets “to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change.“
