The Tycoon Report

Going Green: And Starving The World While Where At It!

We should be really proud of our selves. We have created a global movement against global warming and we are saving the environment! Now that is awesome. Even better America and Europe have made the move to produce ethanol as an alternative source of energy to environmentally damaging oil. This is going to be great. Ethanol (corn) will replace oil with clean air for all! For all those still breathing.

If you didn’t know in the world today there is a food crisis ongoing and building. Serious cutbacks in food have already begun. We are seeing riots and demonstrations in the poorest countries around the world.

“Last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16%. These were some of the sharpest rises in food prices ever. But this year the speed of change has accelerated. Since January, rice prices have soared 141%”, The Economist explains.

Rising oil prices and growing demand from China and India for food are major players in the cause. Another major factor is the transformation of corn into Ethanol.

The Economist reports food prices are rising so sharply because “China and India are eating more grain and meat as they grow rich and the sudden, voracious appetites of western bio-fuels programmes”.

Ethanol comes from corn (maze). This is a staple food like rice and wheat for the worlds poor. Maze crops are being diverted to ethanol production (which is only going to increase) and driving the price of maze and all foods for that matter, through the roof.

As the West sest dates for certain levels of ethanol production to be reached, this crisis will only increase.

The total US crop of maze (corn) can only produce less then10% of the energy we would need in the US. Because we need to eat some of this crop, more 90+% has to come from other countries.

If you are a farmer in Mexico and you can sell your crops for significantly more money to ethanol producers would you? Of course you would. Hence the tortilla (made from corn) is rising rapidly in Mexico. The consensus is the pressure from ethanol production is the driving force in rising tortilla prices.

Corn is also used in feed for our livestock and specifically for pigs, the staple food of the Chinese. With roughly 300 million people living on less then a dollar a day, rising prices are having devastating effects.

Don’t shrug this off, the quest for ethanol is diverting the world’s food crops. The liberal green movement in general is one of the driving forces in gas prices today. What do I mean? Let me explain.

Everyday I here one of my liberal buddies (I live in NY everyone’s a liberal) complaining about the price of gas. I quickly add, “you’re positions are the reason the price is so high. And matter of fact as a liberal don’t you want higher gas prices?”

He looked at me?

He gives me the look of ignorance and then gives me the “yeah right” with a chuckle, then the “what do you mean?”

“Well if you are for going green, you are for less usage of gas. The cheaper gas is, the more people consume. The more expensive it is, the less people will consume. The less people consume the better it is for the environment.

He just looks at me….

The same look he gave me when we found out we were getting an extra tax rebate this year. I said, “Hey, what charity are you sending your $800 check (between him and his wife) too?” He literally busted out laughing. When he saw I wasn’t laughing with him, he said, “Are you serious?”

It’s funny cause that is my reaction when he tells me he is in favor of higher taxes, “are you serious?”

I say, “but you’re against the tax cuts. You want to give more of your money and mine for that matter to help with social programs and things of that nature. So you should give your rebate to charity because its is inline with your position”.

He looked at me……

Back to gas;

He then gives me the, “its not my fault gas is high they should have alternative sources of energy by now.” “Very good”, I said “but are your positions against alternative sources of energy?”

“No, I am all for getting off gas and dependence on foreign oil.” “Oh yeah, me too, But if you are, how come for the past thirty years every initiative to produce nuclear energy (widely used in Europe’s libertarian societies) were diverted? How come you fought oil drilling in Alaska, California, and Florida?

“Now these OPEC countries are tightening supplies as China and India began consuming more oil driving gas up on us! What exactly do you support?”

“Well, I am for ethanol”, he says

I go through my whole bit about Ethanol,

He looks at me...

He doesn’t believe me people are starving. He goes to the Internet for about 15 minutes comes back and says, “Oh my god, I can not believe this! What about the catastrophic events Al Gore Showed us in the inconvenient truth?” he shouts.

After the inconvenient truth was released, the English school system distributed the Documentary for student learning. The school system was sued in a more liberal leaning court then we have in the US.

The judge found nine instances of material misrepresentations and ordered the films out of the schools. The misrepresentations made up the majority of the films substance, leaving not much left.

He’s looking at me again; he is just so bewildered by me!

The real consensus for global warming is; the earth’s temperature has risen 1 ½ percent over the past 150 years. Now we are going green starving millions and they give Al Gore a Noble Prize.

It’s a little like when the Grammies gave the rap group “Three Six Mafia” a Grammy for best song in a movie titled, “its hard out here for a pimp” (seriously can that organization show less class, it’s a little degrading to woman if you ask me, but hey that’s just me).

Never forget one thing about politics, self preservation is rule #1 for a politician, if you can not be elected you are no longer relevant. When you leave office and want to remain in politics, rule #1 becomes maintaining relevance. Lying, misrepresenting, and manipulating the public are wrong; only after one is elected or relevant.

Al Gores number one mission is relevance, not helping the public. Look at Jimmy Carter and his desperate grab for relevance. I have to listen to Al Gore tell me about conserving energy when he produces a year in omissions what ill produce in a life time. If anyone needs to doing any changing for the betterment of the environment its Al Gore.

Yeah, I know, he buys carbon credits.

Iain Murray clearly lay’s out in his book, The Really Inconvenient Truth, “Gore gets his offsets from a company called Generation Investment Management. That company was founded by and part owned by none other then Al Gore. So Gore buys his offsets from himself? No, that –unusual as it sounds –is not as strange as what really happens. He gets his offsets as part of his benefits package from the company. Gore therefore doesn’t even pay for his offsets, he gets them free because he persuades others they need to buy offsets”.

The funniest part about all of this, the public believes the whole global warming theory even though there is no real scientific material to back it up. Everyone just takes Al Gores word for it.

My advice, forget those with an agenda and look at more scientific and moderate sources for your information. You never know, you just might end up starving people in order to fight a politician’s manipulations.

Anyway, if feeding people is less important to you then going green, you have other problems. For those off us who want a cleaner environment but not at the expense of starving people, then look into this and make your own opinions.

If going green is starving people today, is it worth it for what may happen tomorrow?

The Angry New Yorker

John Micheline