Hi The Vet; Re: "Ethanol Fuel from Corn Faulted as ‘Unsustainable Subsidized Food Burning’ by David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert.";
(1) David Pimentel is not an "agricultural expert". He is faculty in entomology and ecology. Here is his website:
vivo.cornell.edu
Pimentel's claim is not that ethanol is "unsustainable", it's that *all* factory farming is unsustainable, whether it's for food or fuel. He's a "deep environmentalist", not exactly the person you want to be listening to for advice on sustainability. His big fixation is Malthusian overpopulation. Of course they've been going on about this for 200+ years. And since Pimentel is now retired, he has accumulated a lot of crap predictions about the soon to be coming starvation. He says that the US can only support between 100 and 200 million people.
He's been saying this crap for at least 30 years. In 1984 he edited an hilarious book on overpopulation. The chapters he wrote are the best. That's 30 years ago, the joke is that we're still producing more food than the world population can eat despite his crap reasoning:
CURRENT WORLD FOOD PRODUCTION
In the 1970s we have witnessed a plateauing and, in some instances, a decline in the worldwide production levels of grains and cereals and beef, as well as fishery products. Until then, yearly production levels showed substantial increases and it was difficult to imagine that there might be a time when production would not always increase.
A. Grain Production
Since 1970, the rate of increase in per capita grain production slowed, reached a high in 1978, and then started a slow decline (Table III). In part, the reduction in soil quality caused by increased rates of soil erosion was responsible for the decline (Brown and Shaw, 1982). At the same time, shortages of oil and other fossil energy reserves resulted in increased prices for fertilizers, pesticides, and other fossil-based inputs commonly used in agricultural production. This has meant that many farmers, especially those with small farms, could no longer afford the fertilizer and pesticide that formerly had assured a high yield.
...
amazon.com
As you can see above, his table shows that the peak in productivity was 1978 and his claim is that it's going to dive. It didn't. It's been growing more slowly since then but so much grain is produced that it's become economic to turn some of it into fuel. The reason the curve for grain per capita is approximately stable is pretty simple. There's no reason to make more food than the human population can eat, LOL. And there's been no dive. And now, 30 years on, their predictions for the future are unchanged.
We'll be talking about the global warming crap predictions this same way in another 10 or 15 years. The food crisis fools started earlier and so their predictions failed earlier. The weather is a matter of nature and chance and it was kind to the alarmists for a decade or two. Now it's not so good.
-- Carl
P.S. A nice blog post on the subject of food production per capita is here:
suyts.wordpress.com |
