The food crisis: how to solve this equation?

First: Short term help (not a solution): Those that are benefitting the most from the current high prices (big oil, including privately held Middle Eastern - Saudi - oil companies) need to finance emergency food relief. The World Food Program of the UN is asking for $500M. How much profit is coming into oil-rich nations every day, where the cost to pump a barrel of oil is less than $10, and is sold for over $100? Answer - billions of dollars per day. UN needs 1/2 of one of those billion.

Add to that if each of us who actually cares, would contribute $1 per week or $50 per year to similar programs, there would be relief for those in the deepest need. But profit-making enterprises, who are part of the energy-related causes to the food crisis, MUST take the lead, MUST show responsibility. I suspect that they will not, and prove once again that greed is stronger than compassion for those who get rich on the backs of the rest of the population...

Educated Opinion: Food-crop-based bio fuels are foolish wastes of food, energy, and farmland. They are another bad dream from the Bush "Wreckanomics" agenda, poorly thought out, and just a method for providing government subsidy money to industries which should be self-financing.

Longer term solutions: For biofuels, cellulosic ethanol and oils are part of a renewable mix. Saw grass ethanol multiplies input energy by a factor of 5 (500%), while corn-based ethanol multiplies input energy by only 25% at best. Eventually, we need to wean ourselves from using COMBUSTION as a common form of energy. Most of our needs for energy can skip this completely, relying on nuclear, solar, and wind to produce high quality electricity (50/60Hz), as well as conversion of water into transportable H2+O2 for fuel cells.

There are too many people on this planet, for there to be some future where each accounts for one or more tons of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. Right now, this number stands at over 4 tonnes for every person on the planet. This must be reduced to less than 0.5 tonnes per person, with our population peaking at no more than 8 billions. The only way to get there is to literally force industry and consumers off of the "carbon standard", over the course of the next 40 years... That is long enough to be a gradual process, and can be relatively painless both physically and economically.

PS - Nuclear "true costs" are still very much lower than coal-fired generation's "true costs". A single 500MW power plant will burn one million tons of coal in a year, and emit tons of radioactive gases and solids directly into the atmosphere - radon, uranium (including U235), thorium, etc. Nuclear power plants contain all of their radioactive emissions, which can be reprocessed for further use, and the remaining waste SAFELY contained in stable and insoluble glasses for the required thousands of years.

There are plenty of solutions - but we have grown fat and complacent with irresponsible usage of cheap energy. It is time to leave behind 19th century energy technologies, and fully embrace 21st century energy production and usage. This will solve a multitude of our existing problems.

Be sure, that as with any new technology, it will have its own set of problems, but that set will pale in comparison to what we face if we continue to bury our heads in the sand about this absolutely critical issue.

There is no food crisis

The world produces more than enough food

It is what happens to it that causes the crisis.

More than Half is diverted for the production of Ethanol.

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1223/...

And this is the main reason for social unrest and the rising food prices,This is only the beginning

http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/159936/1/7263

This is a political issue and the reasons are profits.

so the profits will win the day.

Not the poor Poor.

Famines are allowed to happen ,as part of a depopulation strategy.

my answer the 13th one down check the links

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AkR.4...

The problems originate from the control so there is no solution

the production of ethanol produces more carbon emissions than all of the motor cars and industry in the world

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Auyum...

And still it continues and grows.

Global solutions are NOT the agenda Global control IS

we should be looking at Starwars modes of transport

and kill the internal combustion engine ,but those who lead us also own this industry (both the petrol and the cars)and as yet there is plenty of money to made with it

Everyone dances around these questions (about energy, food, global warming, pollution, inequity) which are all similar because they have a root cause.

I’m afraid that all these problems really are intractable and have no solution as long as the population problem is not addressed.

We will hear from the cornucopian economists about how mankind has solved these problems in the past and will solve them again. Nothing was ever solved with pessimism.

I agree to a point, but the situation is fundamentally different this time.

There is a limit to available resources. This is just common sense.

There is a limit to the biospheres ability to absorb our waste. This is less obvious but no less true.

The root cause is population. It doesn’t matter if population stabilizes at nine billion. The earth can’t handle the six we have now.

Due to the increasing scarcity of resources, which follows logically if we have an increasing population, the first thing that will happen is that everything, and I mean absolutely everything needed just to live your life, is going to become fantastically expensive; and then unobtainable entirely.

One of the resources which we take for granted is an unpolluted environment, this being necessary for producing the things we need like uncontaminated food and potable water. Or, possibly, in the case of carbon pollution, the ability to grow food or get water at all.

Plan accordingly.

I’m sorry I don’t have an answer to your question. I post here to try to raise this issue and provide a counterpoint to the denial. And I don’t mean AGW denial, I mean the general denial about man’s effect on the environment.

I've been a vegetarian for over 25 years, and in the last 10 have been acutely aware that one day meat will become a luxury item because of the resources required to bring it to the table. This will happen gradually, but will be driven by economics and the marketplace. It is a long term solution, one that will evolve in response to health concerns and the desire to keep up with demand.

I was researching an aspect of global climate recently, and came across the concept of floating greenhouses. Our food future looks like it's going to have a lot of changes in store for future generations. But unfortunately, I don't see any immediate relief in sight.

Which question do you want people to answer? I mean you asked what three?

1.None of this is fair to the poor. So do you think people in the rich world care

Well, the tax payers in the US, give over Half of all monies given to buy food for starving nations, you can look this up on NPR, if you doubt it, so 1 nation out of 192 feeds half the starving people, are we rich? well look at the mid east, Saudi Arabia, and the rest how many do they feed? Not even themselves.

2. Food prices will continue to rise due to global warming.

Has absolutely nothing to do with it. that is an out right miss leading statement. Please do some research on that matter.

3.if you don't have anything else to say than that we should continue to use gasoline.)

Do you have an alternative to run the 150,000,000 cars in the us today?

or how about the million of trucks, trains and ships, that move everything in this country?

Do you expect the average person to go in debt 60,000 for a new hybrid to save money on gas? or do you expect everything to just come to a stand still?

Given enough time, this problem solves itself.

The problem isn't the rich...it's the poor. They live in an area incapable of sustaining them with their current level of technology. There are four options man can take to solve this problem:

1) You can relocate the starving. This option is unfeasible because no one wants to take in refugees, and the people themselves do not wish to leave their homeland.

2) You can find renewable food sources/farming techniques capable of thriving in the area. After decades of research, I'm sure this would've been implemented by now if it were possible.

3) You can open factories in the area, employing the locals so they may generate income to pay for imported food.

4) You can do nothing and let the problem solve itself.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

I think that feeding us all, is going to be a problem in the future. No, the rich do not care. Otherwise 33% of the world would not be hungry. On the other hand, it is not thier responsiblity to oversee the poor. That is a Kingdom, not a lot of choices for anyone in the Kingdom but the one running the Kingdom. We need to visualize as a people what we want, as a people. Have you sent a package of food, dry goods, over to the poor lately. It is an interesting thing to do. Get a name and send a package, or two names. It does work if want it to.

Global warming is a major problem. But not the reason for the high price of food! The price of oil is the reason for food prices rising.

Producing crops uses oil, fertilizers, fuel, etc. Just shipping food cost so much now! Global warming is an issue that will kill the world, but the cost of energy will do it in before we reach that point.

Actually studies have shown that most biofuels create higher emissions than fossil fuels because they require land use change.

The solution is to switch to electric cars, renewable energy, become more energy efficient, and travel less in general.

I don't see a problem in those stories, I see a problem being solved. Humans are the cause of the environmental problems we now face. If you eliminate the cause, the problem goes away.

So what do you want to do? Help a few people and harm the environment, or help the environment and harm a few people? I don't see how it's possible to do both with current or near future technology.

I'm reminded of this relevant quote:

"What to do when a ship carrying a hundred passengers has suddenly capsized, and only one lifeboat for ten people has been got on water? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life would try to pull more people on it and drown them all. Those who love and respect life, will take the ship's axe and cut the too many hands clinging to the sides of the boat."