{"id":815,"date":"2009-01-13T10:08:42","date_gmt":"2009-01-13T10:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/?p=815"},"modified":"2017-09-05T17:54:16","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T21:54:16","slug":"biofuels-food-prices-and-deforestation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/biofuels-food-prices-and-deforestation\/","title":{"rendered":"Biofuels, food prices and deforestation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"men-with-money1.jpg\"I came across this article recently<\/a> and I thought it was well worth sharing, despite this article being old hat in media time. The Guardian newspaper had access to a leaked internal report by the World Bank claiming that biofuels may be responsible for up to 75 percent of recent rises in food prices. <\/p>\n

Even environmental groups haven’t gone that far in their estimates. More and more corn is ending up in fuel tanks rather than on plates.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article also quotes World Bank President Robert Zoellick who believes action needs to be taken. <\/p>\n

\n“What we are witnessing is not a natural disaster – a silent tsunami or a perfect storm. It is a man-made catastrophe, and as such must be fixed by people.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It seems that the World Bank’s solution to the problem is simple: stop producing biofuels.<\/p>\n

However, it’s not just food prices that have condemned biofuels. Deforestation is another very undesirable effect of the production of this type of fuel as farmers in developing countries cut down carbon-soaking forests to make way for biofuel monocultures. Besides, some fertilizers used in the production of grains for biofuels release nitrous oxide into the atmosphere, a greenhouse gas that is up to 300 times more harmful than CO2.<\/p>\n

The World Bank tried to play down a bit the message in the report once it had leaked, but I guess a little too late. Since the date of the publication of this report last year, biofuels have come under increasing attack so now it’s a established fact that they are not an option in fighting climate change.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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    I came across this article recently and I thought it was well worth sharing, despite this article being old hat in media time. The Guardian newspaper had access to a leaked internal report by the World Bank claiming that biofuels may be responsible for up to 75 percent of recent rises in food prices. Even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biofuel","category-miscellaneous"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t