Farmers urge Obama to suspend ethanol requirements due to drought’s ‘imminent food crisis’ | The Raw Story
Demand for corn ethanol was seen as a key driver of the 2007 and 2008 global food crisis.
About 40% of America’s corn crop went for ethanol last year – although the refineries then sell on “distillers’ grain” as animal feed.
But with expectations for a smaller harvest this year, there are fears ethanol will consume an even bigger share of the crop.
That will price corn out of reach of livestock producers
as well as countries which rely heavily on imported grains, food security experts say.
Ethanol producers have already reduced production by more than 15% this year, and many refineries across the mid-west have closed because of high corn prices.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...bal+Warming%29
Although regional precipitations patterns are difficult to forecast, researchers in this report said that climate models are underestimating the extent and severity of drought, compared to actual observations.
They say the situation will continue to worsen, and that 80 of the 95 years from 2006 to 2100 will have precipitation levels as low as, or lower than, this "turn of the century" drought from 2000-04.
"Towards the latter half of the 21st century the precipitation regime associated with the turn of the century drought will represent an outlier of extreme wetness," the scientists wrote in this study.
These long-term trends are consistent with a 21st century "megadrought," they said.
RuhRo....
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So where is the "plastic bags into fuel" lobby? If we didn't have incompetent and corrupt leadership we would have a lot of plastic being recycled into fuel...so we could get the pollution into the atmosphere NOW rather than gradually over time?
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I'm BIG and I like BIG STUFF.
