The Malthusians were right after all. But only because they grabbed control. Mass starvation in this modern era is a miracle which is only possible through government intervention.
The Scotsman:
UN moves to head off food riots
THE United Nations' secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, yesterday said he was setting up a task force to tackle the global food crisis, in an attempt to avert "social unrest on an unprecedented scale".
"The immediate priority is that we feed the hungry," Mr Ban said after a meeting with UN agency heads and other leading international officials in the Swiss capital, Berne.... In a statement, the UN said that the dramatic escalation in food prices worldwide has evolved into a challenge "of global proportions".
Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, told a joint news conference: "Though we have seen wheat prices fall over the past few days, rice and corn prices are likely to remain high, and wheat relatively so." ... Concern about soaring food costs and limited supplies has toppled Haiti's government and caused riots in parts of Africa.
Mark Steyn, who was charged as a criminal in Canada for writing a book:
In Haiti, Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis was removed from office April 12. Insofar as history will recall him at all, he may have the distinction of being the first head of government to fall victim to "global warming" – or, at any rate, the "war on global warming" that Time magazine is gung-ho for. At least five people have been killed in food riots in Port-au-Prince. Prices have risen 40 percent since last summer and, as columnist Deroy Murdock reported, some citizens are now subsisting on biscuits made from salt, vegetable oil and (mmmm) dirt. Dirt cookies: Nutritious, tasty and affordable? Well, one out of three ain't bad.
Unlike "global warming," food rioting is a planetwide phenomenon, from Indonesia to Pakistan to Ivory Coast to the tortilla rampages in Mexico and even pasta protests in Italy.
So what happened?
Well, Western governments listened to the ecowarriors and introduced some of the "wartime measures" they've been urging. The EU decreed that 5.75 percent of petrol and diesel must come from "biofuels" by 2010, rising to 10 percent by 2020. The United States added to its 51 cent-per-gallon ethanol subsidy by mandating a fivefold increase in "biofuels" production by 2022.
The result is that big government accomplished at a stroke what the free market could never have done: They turned the food supply into a subsidiary of the energy industry. When you divert 28 percent of U.S. grain into fuel production, and when you artificially make its value as fuel higher than its value as food, why be surprised that you've suddenly got less to eat? Or, to be more precise, it's not "you" who's got less to eat but those starving peasants in distant lands you claim to care so much about.
Hey, but at least we feel good about the environment. Al Gore was very proud to have cast the 1994 tie-breaking vote in the Senate mandating ethanol use. "The more we can make this home-grown fuel a successful, widely-used product, the better-off our farmers and our environment will be." The time for debate was, if I recall, over. As usual. Senator Paul Simon (of whom I was once a huge fan) argued: "The price of corn flakes isn't going to go up by one penny."
And understanding of simple economics is in short supply in Congress. Less corn, higher costs. What's so hard?
Answer: The need to feel good would be sacrificed.
Have a dirt cookie, Al.
Under rules from 1992 designed to prevent overproduction and to preserve habitats, all farmers (in Italy) are barred from planting on 10 percent of their total crop field holdings.
link
There's a natural price floor now, linked to the price of fuel so if laws like this were eliminated, supply could rise to match some of the demand without an increase in price.
Also, while biofuels are a large factor in the price increase, an increase in the price of oil and an increase in world demand as China begins increasing its meat consumption are also issues.
I could see biofuels as being contributing factors to price increases, of course, but not only factors.
Fuel, which is used to produce pesticides as well as being crucial in... well, just about anything, has increased dramatically in price. That would inevitably lead to inflation of grain prices.
Could we at least agree that purchasing of foreign fuel tends to have a political cost, propping up regimes that would not otherwise be powers (Russia, various mideast nations) because anything other than mining their natural resources requires too much cooperation and rule of law for them to manage?
Raising prices on crops (which can be produced by any country, unlike oil, and sold in exchange for the capital needed for industrialization) does not seem like an entirely bad thing for developing countries in the long run. Like the industrial revolution, things like this might be bad in the short term, and it probably is a problem that the plan was implemented so abruptly. My question is whether this is a permanent outcome or whether the markets will adjust themselves.
And given our current course, wouldn't oil shortages happen quite soon, regardless? It's hard to figure out what the 'true' cost of oil is since we only mine it and don't actually produce it. So eventually we will have to switch to some other fuel which is more expensive.
I do sympathize with Bush's push for more nuclear power plants, at least as a short term solution. My biggest frustration with the 'alternative energy' movement is that they reject nuclear, even as a temporary measure till something better is developed.
An increase in the price of food should increase the amount of land used for farming. People who are concerned about global warming might be concerned about what land is converted to this purpose since clearing rain forest would create a carbon debt and all. But if I recall, that wasn't something that you were concerned about. And it's possible to increase the production of biofuels without cutting down rain forest.
http://www.ap-foodtechnology.com/news/ng.asp?id=72984-biofuels-corn-ethanol
an increase in world demand as China begins increasing its meat consumption are also issues.
Sorry, I'm not sure that's wrong, but it smells suspicious. A bit Malthusian. Supporting evidence?
"The West" greatly increased protein consumption over the centuries, and it didn't lead to starvation or food scarcity. China's population density is 138 people per km^2, Europe is 112 -- so I don't see why China has to do that much worse.
I could see biofuels as being contributing factors to price increases, of course, but not only factors.
I could agree. But I found the idea that we were plowing 28% of our grain into fuel stunning, to say the least. I don't see how that could fail to make that policy a major cost contributor. It's like taking 1/3 of our grain and burning it. (And increasing our total energy needs, too, since I hear ethanol consumes more energy than it delivers.)
Fuel, which is used to produce pesticides as well as being crucial in... well, just about anything, has increased dramatically in price. That would inevitably lead to inflation of grain prices.
I agree it certainly wouldn't help. Fuel is also used to transport and process the grain. But if we go this way, and ask why we have high fuel prices, we're against staring at the same claque as those who generally pushed for turning food into ethanol.
Could we at least agree that purchasing of foreign fuel tends to have a political cost, propping up regimes that would not otherwise be powers (Russia, various mideast nations) because anything other than mining their natural resources requires too much cooperation and rule of law for them to manage?
1. There's no real way I can think of, aside from developing coal (dirty) and nuclear (clean) to avoid "purchasing of foreign fuel". Fuel is a commodity (mostly) -- oil tends to look all the same (mostly). So it doesn't (mostly) matter who you buy from -- yourself or a nasty dictator -- that purchase has the same effect on world oil prices. So the issue is total oil consumption and availability.
(The exception is Venezuela, which produces a type of heavy oil which the US is uniquely qualified to process. In that case, Chavez would truly find it harder, in the short term, to unload Venezuelan oil.)
2. It's not clear to me that such nations are even good at exploiting their oil resources. As usual, Venezuelan oil production is dropping precipitously (5% a year? stunning), Iran by about 10%, Iraq was also in bad straits, oil-wise, before the US. (Russia is declining, also, as Putin cracks down.)
Nonetheless, I agree that high-priced oil tends to prop up those who can't do much else (and can't even do that well), but I can't help but imagine the effect would be markedly less so if energy were cheaper.
Raising prices on crops (which can be produced by any country, unlike oil, and sold in exchange for the capital needed for industrialization) does not seem like an entirely bad thing for developing countries in the long run. Like the industrial revolution, things like this might be bad in the short term...
So we should kill some people, for sure, right now on the theory that the same policy might, possibly, end up saving some lives in the long run? And if so, how?
And given our current course, wouldn't oil shortages happen quite soon, regardless?
Why? Reserves seem to be up, as usual. It seems to me we live in a universe rich in energy. As with food, energy starvation seems to be something our governments and policies have helped create artificially.
Again, look at nuclear: cheap electricity would find a whole host of applications, including (undoubtedly) many filled now by oil. The pace of innovation could also be increased by decreasing the number of lawsuits, and lowering tax rates to reward and encourage investment in new inventions and industries.
Likewise, the barriers to extensive benefit from nuclear energy are also artificial, not natural. And similarly, we could have a lot cheaper oil if it weren't for opposition to exploration, refineries, and drilling. We're sitting on one of the largest reserves in the world in ANWAR. (And perhaps others, if that is accurate.) As with food, for decades people have predicted shortages right around the corner (Jimmah Carter, we remember) -- and yet reserves go up and up.
Of course, it's possible we might eventually, some day, run out of oil -- or perhaps not, since even "empty" fields seem to be refilling. And even if not...
So eventually we will have to switch to some other fuel which is more expensive.
Says who? I'm sure we once thought we were running out of whales and whale oil, so we'd soon have to switch to some fuel which was "more expensive". Of course, long before we ran out of whales, we discovered petroleum, which was cheaper. So who is to say that in 20 or 50 years, even "cheap oil", as it stands today, won't seem like a ridiculously expensive source of energy, having been replaced by something even far cheaper? Will technological progress suddenly stop? That's what the dominant media/left narrative today assumes, of course. (Those people who dub themselves "progressives", without irony.)
My biggest frustration with the 'alternative energy' movement is that they reject nuclear, even as a temporary measure till something better is developed.
I agree entirely. It used to baffle me too, Ryan, as I was making my transition from more liberal to more conservative. (Eventually, I just concluded that the same people were opposed to pretty much every notion of "progress", and every effective policy I learned about -- so I never have understood what's at the root, but at least I see there's a consistency.)
Opposition to nuclear, in my lifetime, came from the media's hysterical and dishonest reporting on the Three Mile Island glitch (in which basically nothing happened), Hollywood's dishonest portrayal of the dangers of nuclear power in "The China Syndrome" (even SNL mirrored the hysteria, with "The Pepsi Syndrome"), and the later dishonest equivocation between Chernobyl reactor design and our own. (And accompanying exaggeration of deaths due to Chernobyl -- with a failure to compare that to the much greater death toll, even in one year, of, say, coal.)
Again, I don't claim to know why this all happened, but it's the same bunch each time. (And again check the numbers here regarding the more effective policies: research into alternatives, exploration and drilling, and nuclear. R, R, R and R. And current opposition to nuclear is couched as opposition to "disposal" -- never mind that Yucca is safe and breeder reactors would obviate the need for such.) I'm not trying to be blatantly partisan, but it's quite the opposite picture from what we're told.
An increase in the price of food should increase the amount of land used for farming.
Every time the government distorts prices, it creates shortages and/or gluts -- misallocations of scarce resources, at the cost of other similarly pressing needs.
Let's play this through, then, okay? First, it's not food prices which will increase land used for food, but rather food profits. If we tax food to make it higher priced, the farmer won't see any more profits, and people won't leave other industries to become farmers.
So we'll pay US farmers more money for their crops than consumers normally would. And who is this coming from? It's coming from the taxpayers, and generally going into the pockets of wealthy corporate farm companies. So we have a direct upward transfer from taxpayers to wealthy corporations. How nice.
In the mean time, food prices in the US will decline slightly, and the poor (here) will have an easier time getting food. But that same effect could have been achieved more effectively by just giving them more food money. Meanwhile, people are putting more money into taxes, and less into other activities which would generate wealth.
And how about internationally?
Critics of agricultural subsidies argue further that they promote poverty in developing countries by artificially driving down world crop prices.[5] Agriculture is one of the few areas where developing countries have a comparative advantage. This makes developing countries into dependent buyers of food from wealthy countries, causing local farmers to lose their land rather than allowing them to develop their own agriculture and therefore self-sufficiency. [Wikipedia]
(More here.) To get this glut of grain to the third world, we'd have to also pay to export it there, at our own cost, while simultaneously decimating their own agricultural capacity and increasing corruption. We'd take away their fishing poles to give them a fish. Maybe.
Or the grain might just rot -- that's the beauty of government price controls: they can create BOTH gluts and shortages at the same time.
During the American gasoline "crisis" of 1973-74, when oil prices were kept artificially low by the federal government, there were long lines of automobiles waiting at filling stations... but there was in fact more gas sold in 1973 and 1974 tahn there was in any of the previous years... As with housing and other price-controlled goods, shortages and physical scarcities are two different things. (Sowell, Basic Economics, pp 49-50)
I'm reminded of FDR plowing under edible crops while people starved -- there were simultaneously grain surpluses AND scarcity.
People who are concerned about global warming might be concerned about what land is converted to this purpose since clearing rain forest would create a carbon debt and all.
It ain't what ya don't know that hurts, so much as what ya know that ain't so.
Conventional wisdom has long held that tropical rainforests act as a sink for carbon dioxide, cleansing the atmosphere of a major greenhouse gas. However, biologists studying the forests of Costa Rica are finding that rising temperatures are causing trees to grow less and to pump out more carbon dioxide, adding to an accelerating pattern of global warming. [source]
Another familiar claim of the environmentalist community is that the Amazon constitutes the "lungs of the Earth," supplying one-fifth of the world's oxygen. But, according to the Institute for Research in Amazonia and other eco-scientists, the Amazon consumes as much oxygen as it produces, and Stott says it actually may be a net user of oxygen. "In fact, because the trees fall down and decay, rain forests actually take in slightly more oxygen than they give out," says Stott. "The idea of them soaking up carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen is a myth. It's only fast-growing young trees that actually take up carbon dioxide." [source]
My understanding is that the North American forests are much more of a CO2 sink than the Amazon. (I'm opposed to clear-cutting more on grounds of aesthetics and biodiversity.) And, yes, burning releases CO2, I agree, but I just wanted to point out what I'd heard from a guy who spent most his life studying the Amazon: the "lungs of the world" bit is a myth.
If I can be totally blasphemous, it may even be that life on earth would benefit from more CO2, rather than be harmed by it. I heard the question raised recently by Roy Spencer, a former NASA Senior Scientist for Climate Studies, and wonder if he might have a valid point.
If we were serious about this we would remove tarrifs on biofuel production.
If we were serious about this, we'd remove all tarriffs and subsidies, including those we already have. You want us to pay farmers more than their crops are worth? We already do that. How 'bout we drop cotton subsidies, let the Africans grow that, and then we might have more land for food crops which might naturally replace it. And we'd get cheaper clothes, too.
Less corn, higher costs. What's so hard?
Do we still limit corn production via subsidies? If so, does this produce enough energy to be a viable alternative?
Posted by: Ryan W. on May 2, 2008 02:40 PM