Food vs Cars

Quite ironic, isn't it? For oodles of years environmentalists have told us that we should use public transport and avoid using 1-2 ton vehicles to transport our little bodies from A to (3 min away) B. Well, now we've got food riots on our hands and things will be getting worse on that front. How did that come about? Well, ever more farm lands are being wasted for the production of 'biofuels'. So, again, in order to fuel 1-2 ton vehicles to transport out bodies from A to (3 min away) B, we rather see poor people go to bed hungry then to turn to public transport ourselves. How bizarre can behaviors (and, indeed, public policies)get without us noticing that they are unacceptable? Beats me!

Fuel vs Food - what's more important?

Interesting (if that's the right word) development. Critics of the green movement have long criticised the Green's single-minded pre-occupation with the environment. It seemed highly problematic to expect folks in developing countries to ratchet up their environmental standards if that meant a significant slowing down of economic development (with all the benefits this brings for human advancement in terms of jobs, education and health care).

Well, Australia's THE AGE broadsheet published a very interesting summary of a currently ongoing crisis in that context. Food prices worldwide have gone up at a record rate. It goes without saying that the poor are very much at the receiving end of this development. Part of the reason is that the world's farmers are switching their production to more lucrative products. Not, as you might expect, illicit drugs, but oil replacement products such as ethanol. Prices for staple foods have gone up by a whopping 18% in China, 13% in Pakistan and Indonesia and about 10% in Latin America. Reports THE AGE, 'India, Yemen, Mexico, Burkina Faso and several other countries have had, or been close to, food riots in the past year. Meanwhile, there are shortages of beef, chicken and milk in Venezuela and other countries as governments try to keep a lid on food-price inflation.'

Looks like we're heading for a head-on competition between motorists competing for ethanol fuels for their vehicles, and the much larger number of poor people trying to survive, and being unable to purchase food at affordable prices anylonger.

Scary stuff. Having just made my way to North America, I'm flabbergasted by the ridiculous number of oversized cars with absolutely gigantic engines on the streets everywhere. You know, in the UK or Germany you'd see a 3 litre V6 type car only once in a blue moon, while here it seems to be at the lower end of what people like to drive around in. Not much by way of sympathy for our poorer neighbours then...

Does Africa need cloned animals - or am I missing something?

Calestous Juma argues on the BBC website that Africans need cloned animals to generate their meat products. He claims that cloned animals would be more likely to survive in the harsh African climate. Juma is, and here I quote from the BBC's website, 'Calestous Juma is a professor of international development at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and co-chairs a high-level expert panel of the African Union on modern biotechnology'. A lot of heavy-weight competence and business class airfares, that much is certain. Anyway, I shouldn't bitch too much - have been there, done that (well, the junket trips). Juma's argument strikes me as odd. He acknowledges that cloned animals tend to be more likely to suffer serious health problems (read: die faster, die younger), and that they also happen to be much more expensive than the average local cow that came about by her parents doing ... (well, you get the drift). Everyone knows these days that meat production is hugely inefficient in terms of how much energy we have to invest and how much we eventually get out of it. Many more Africans could be fed by means of local produce if no meat production took place on that continent at all.

Juma can think of another good reason why cloning is so important, namely because African nations could utilise such competence to eventually clone animals from species that are on the verge of extinction. No doubt that is just what Africans would do, at least those Africans that desperately need cloned cows so they can feed themselves. However, in all fairness, he's got a point when he stresses that joint research partnerships between developed and developing countries would increase biotech capacity on the African continent. That indeed is a very worthwhile thing, even if it is probably wasted on trying to clone cows for Sudan.

Please do note that I am not at all making a case for or against utilising sentient animals as a food product. The argument against is overwhelmingly strong, but my doubts about cloning for Africa are unrelated to that case.