Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
I have a new paper — Could Biofuel Policies Increase Death and Disease in Developing Countries? — which suggests that global warming policies may be helping kill more people than it saves. It was published last month in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Access to the paper is free.
Part of the PR notice put out by the journal is reproduced below:
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Biofuels Policy May Kill 200,000 Per Year in the Third World
TUCSON, Ariz., March 28, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — U.S. and European policy to increase production of ethanol and other biofuels to displace fossil fuels is supposed to help human health by reducing “global warming.” Instead it has added to the global burden of death and disease.
Increased production of biofuels increases the price of food worldwide by diverting crops and cropland from feeding people to feeding motor vehicles. Higher food prices, in turn, condemn more people to chronic hunger and “absolute poverty” (defined as income less than $1.25 per day). But hunger and poverty are leading causes of premature death and excess disease worldwide. Therefore, higher biofuel production would increase death and disease.
Research by the World Bank indicates that the increase in biofuels production over 2004 levels would push more than 35 million additional people into absolute poverty in 2010 in developing countries. Using statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Indur Goklany estimates that this would lead to at least 192,000 excess deaths per year, plus disease resulting in the loss of 6.7 million disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) per year. These exceed the estimated annual toll of 141,000 deaths and 5.4 million lost DALYs that the World Health Organization attributes to global warming. Thus, developed world policies intended to mitigate global warming probably have increased death and disease in developing countries rather than reducing them. Goklany also notes that death and disease from poverty are a fact, whereas death and disease from global warming are hypothetical.
Thus, the biofuel remedy for global warming may be worse than the disease it purports to alleviate.
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The paper also shows that based on the World Health Organization’s latest estimates of death and disease from global warming and 23 other global health risk factors (for the year 2004), global warming should be ranked last or second last, depending on whether the criterion used is the burden of disease or death.
Policies that subsidize or mandate biofuels benefit neither Mother Earth nor humanity.
“Policies that subsidize or mandate biofuels benefit neither Mother Earth nor humanity.”
There it is! The truth is not pretty. If we could only recognize the difference between “green” and “greed” we’d be so much better off. The UN is discussing the idea of making the Earth (and all plants and animals thereon –regardless of size) a Legal entity. Hummmmmm…. OK! Who gains? The Earth? Don’t believe it for a second.
Observation – the biggest issues facing human beings are not about “green” but “greed”. The only lifeform in danger from man is man himself. AGW is NOT about science, it is about money, politics, power. And, I’m sorry to say, making the World better for mankind isn’t about making it better for all mankind, it’s about making it better of the right kind of mankind; and most of us are NOT in that number.
which suggests that global warming policies may be helping kill more people than it saves.
Even if not Malthusian in design, the end result will be the same.
220mph
April 19, 2011 at 8:04 am
I have not read all of your rants yet; I am at work. But you seem to make some interesting points. My main concern is that you appear to be talking from a socialist world view. Though in truth, it is difficult to talk about this type of subject without doing so, as the socialists have been very busy insuring that they are the ones defining the vocabulary. Be that as it may …
What role do you think the distortion of the food market by government policies such as subsidies have on hunger?
What role do you think humanitarian food distribution has on local food production?
Would increased food prices result in local farmers being able to realize greater profitability in producing food crops, thus enabling them to farm?
Have you read “The Plight and Promise of Arid Land Agriculture”? Can’t remember the authors names right now.
BTW, I think that the paper you are dissecting only really makes sense in a Marxist context. It ignores second and third order effects. The problem in analyzing stuff written by socialists is ferreting out all of the invalid equivalencies.
Any politician that continues, in the face of the known consequences of ethanol subsidies, to continue to advocate for such subsidies is, in my opinion, guilty of crimes against humanity. I can find no positive aspect of ethanol subsidies. Even the primary justification of such subsidies, to reduce CO2 emissions and dependence on imported oil, is a failure and had any thought been given to it they would have realized this before the first ethanol plant was ever built.
In summary: They take our tax money (actually borrowed from China), to pay for ethanol to be made from corn, which results in gasoline with lower fuel value and a higher price, that makes it necessary to transport huge quantities of extremely flammable and corrosive liquid over highways and in railcars, that drives up the cost of corn and all commodities, puts more land under cultivation, uses more water in parts of the country where water is scarce, makes food more expensive and therefore less available to the world’s poor resulting in needless death due to starvation, inflates food prices in developed countries resulting in less money available for other things which then slows the overall economy putting people out of work, and in the end reduces imports of oil insignificantly. A pogram worthy of Lenin himself.
220mph says:
Hey, hasn’t anyone told you that science is only supposed to be digested in small media and eco-friendly sound bites? No one is supposed to read the actual papers and try to understand them. That’s not science. Science is about scaring people with all sorts of made up what ifs and coulds and potentially mights. How dare you try to understand something that someone in a lab coat said! I’m so shocked and appalled that I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish my soylent green…
Seriously, how anyone can take this paper any more seriously than any of the other garbage being misconstrued as true science today is beyond me. As soon as I see the first “might” or “could” I know I do not have to read any more. I BELIEVE he is right inthat it makes sense to me that using more land for biofuels is not a good idea, but I don’t need made up possibilities to convince me. One simple question is all that is needed – Does the biofuel cost more or less to produce than traditional (“fossil fuel” misnomer intentionally left out) sources of energy? That’s it. CO2 is a good thing. Cheap abundant energy is too. Let’s use it all as long as people get to choose which they want and can afford. No mandates, subsidies, or other “we know better than you” government intrusion is necessary.
@Jessie
At which of the 5 people you mention in your comment are your enigmatic ramblings directed at?
Pointman
The facts indicate Biofuels do not significantly reduce CO2, do significantly increase the cost of food for everyone on the planet and hence the number of people in poverty, and do significantly increase the cost of energy.
The well f0unded “Green” movement appears to be fact independent. It is difficult to change ones mind when the primary objective is a propaganda war.
The “Green Leaches” continue to take advantage of the well meaning but ignorant greenees.
How long before the biofuel boondoggle is ended?
You really have to look at biofuels on a region by region basis. In some areas there is plenty of room for growing fuel. In other areas, not so much. For example, the US still has a surplus in corn every year. I think many of the same reasons for looking a climate on a regional basis apply to biofuels.
I have to agree with 220mph that this paper is very poor. It is certainly not up the standards we’ve seen previously from Indur. I would not want to argue my case based on this poorly researched paper.
Stacey says:
Lets re-brand coal.
Lets call it ecoal?
Eco-li(e)?
DER SPIEGEL MAGAZINE
Even Germanys premier left wing magazine recognises the folly of Biofuels, and the German public are mad as hell about it!
E10 Debacle Puts the Brakes on Biofuels
An attempt to introduce the biofuel mixture E10 in Germany has been a disaster, after motorists refused to buy the supposed green gasoline. Carmakers, oil companies and politicians have all tried to blame each other for the mess. Even environmentalists oppose the new fuel.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,757812,00.html#ref=nlint
Charlie Foxtrot says:
April 19, 2011 at 9:25 am
Any politician that continues, in the face of the known consequences of ethanol subsidies, to continue to advocate for such subsidies is, in my opinion, guilty of crimes against humanity. I can find no positive aspect of ethanol subsidies. Even the primary justification of such subsidies, to reduce CO2 emissions and dependence on imported oil, is a failure and had any thought been given to it they would have realized this before the first ethanol plant was ever built.
In summary: They take our tax money (actually borrowed from China), to pay for ethanol to be made from corn, which results in gasoline with lower fuel value and a higher price, that makes it necessary to transport huge quantities of extremely flammable and corrosive liquid over highways and in railcars, that drives up the cost of corn and all commodities, puts more land under cultivation, uses more water in parts of the country where water is scarce, makes food more expensive and therefore less available to the world’s poor resulting in needless death due to starvation, inflates food prices in developed countries resulting in less money available for other things which then slows the overall economy putting people out of work, and in the end reduces imports of oil insignificantly. A pogram worthy of Lenin himself.
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A couple of things if you please…
1. In my opinion you named yourself well, because your post is a Charlie Foxtrot.
2. Crimes against humanity? Really, what does it take to be accused of that these days… You and James Hansen are on the same page. Unfortunately for you, it is the barking mad page.
3. Has anyone thought about why the cost of food has actually gone up? It is not Bio-fuels! (insert a name calling spittle filled rant here) It is the cost of ENERGY stupid! I can’t believe that no one has pointed this out. Fact. You get about 50lbs of corn meal from a bushel of corn. Farmer Brown is getting US $7.59 for a bushel of corn on the open market. Farmer Brown is smart. So now he can also use his bushel of corn to get around: 2.5 gallons of ethanol + 15.5 lbs of livestock feed + a liter of corn oil. The actual cost of the food has gone up yes, but MOST of the cost increases are due to increases in Energy costs. Not ethanol production. Furthermore Farmer Brown now knows that the price of his corn now has a floor. In years past a bumper crop was just as bad as a poor harvest because the price for his corn dropped to his costs or even below his costs. Now he has more options, and better margins on his bumper crop, and an incentive to plant more…
4. Dude, ummm we transport oil all over the world, why not complain about that?
5. I think that we can both agree that Govt. intervention in the free market is stupid, but I don’t hear you complaining about the current energy policy that is actually responsible for the high prices.
6. The reasons behind the worlds poor is that their governments are doing a horrible job. Not ethanol.
7. If you don’t like CO2 hold your breath and stop emitting, problem solved for everyone. Otherwise, increasing CO2 leads to increased crop yields which would make more food available to the worlds poor. Talk about a win/win.
Indur Goklany is one of my favorite people because he cares about the actual health and longevity of people. Here, he has written a sound article.
It did make me angry, because it understates the case so badly and ignores the horror of parents watching their children suffer. That is what sparked all the Arab riots. Those people are not fighting for freedom; their slogan is “Freedom go to hell.” They want food.
Goklany is also too polite in tamely accepting the UN estimates of deaths due to global warming. The Norse do not refer to Heaven as “the winterlands.” Farmers do not find a mere 12 degrees C ideal for growing crops. Room temperature is 22C–considerably warmer than the present 12C average. And while temperatures rose slightly during the 20th century (we think–some papers put the hottest year as 1934), life expectancy skyrocketed. Saying that rising temperatures are causing deaths in the teeth of skyrocketing health and longevity is almost beyond words. We can try preposterous, illogical, murderous, and damnable for starters.
Being so nice about the UN estimates ignores the fact that these are utterly made up with almost no empirical observations behind them. Letting them get away with that allows them to solve Goklany’s findings the easy way–just make up higher numbers for “global warming.”
If only there was a naturally occurring biofuel, that uses plant material that has accumulated over time. And what if these naturally occurring biofuels could be matured into usable fuel using the natural heat of the earth.
If only these naturally occurring biofuels were just lying in layers of the earth, and one needed only to drill down and access these bounties of nature!
Oh wait…
For those who think that Engery costs do not affect poor people’s food supply:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080604-mexico-food.html
Note that it is not some denialist right wing rag….
yes dated, but it is still happening if not worse…
The bread that we buy in our local supermarket here in Germany has gone from
euros 0.65 cents in October 2010 to euros 1.99 cents today, but this is the home of the greens, and talking to a German is like talking to yourself !
You’re right, Indur, and the WHO is inventing numbers.
(“These exceed the estimated annual toll of 141,000 deaths and 5.4 million lost DALYs that the World Health Organization attributes to global warming. “)
Subsidizing Biofuel is mass murder. If anyone wants to turn corn into Ethanol because he feels like it that’s fine with me, but we should not reward people doing it. Logically, without subsidies, corn would be used for food not fuel. Rigging the market via subsidies proves desastrous IMHO.
Ziiex Zeburz says:
April 19, 2011 at 12:05 pm
“…and talking to a German is like talking to yourself !”
I’m German, but i can relate. 😉
DesertYote wrote: I have not read all of your [addressing 220mph] rants yet; I am at work. But you seem to make some interesting points. My main concern is that you appear to be talking from a socialist world view. Though in truth, it is difficult to talk about this type of subject without doing so, as the socialists have been very busy insuring that they are the ones defining the vocabulary. Be that as it may …
Those were not rants. Everything that he wrote has been published in respectable places and documented by respectable analysts. His presentation could be enhanced by citations and links, but it is all solid. It has nothing to do with any “socialist world view.”
The greatest contribution to the increase in world food prices in recent years has been the purchase and importation of vastly increased amounts of grain by China. They have the purchasing power to outbid just about anybody but the oil empires. The purchasing power of hundreds of millions of Chinese has increased so dramatically, that they have increased their consumption of meats, and they have dramatically increased the worldwide diversion of grains from humans to livestock.
That is the big thing in increasing world food prices. Diversion of human foodstuffs to fuel is a much smaller factor.
Pay attention to the “mights”, “coulds” and so forth in the quoted article, and its own lack of substantial citation. As 220mph noted, it’s the same language as has appeared in AGW promotions. Doubting AGW is no good reason to impugn biofuels.
Robert M says:
April 19, 2011 at 11:17 am
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Thanks Robert M. I’ve been meaning to construct a similar post and now I don’t have to.
…. especially your point number 6, which I will reiterate:
“6. The reasons behind the worlds poor is that their governments are doing a horrible job. Not ethanol.”
Charlie Foxtrot wrote: Any politician that continues, in the face of the known consequences of ethanol subsidies, to continue to advocate for such subsidies is, in my opinion, guilty of crimes against humanity. I can find no positive aspect of ethanol subsidies. Even the primary justification of such subsidies, to reduce CO2 emissions and dependence on imported oil, is a failure and had any thought been given to it they would have realized this before the first ethanol plant was ever built.
At best and at worst corn ethanol is a third-rate fuel. It is a step in the direction of more fuel from all biomass, including biobutanol from corn stover, and it leads to a modest reduction in oil imports. With the international price of oil exceeding $100/barrel, a reduction in imports saves America money directly and slightly reduces the world price. In the U.S., however, production of ethanol from corn has had little effect on the total production of food. It is no more a crime against humanity than is feeding corn to porkers.
I have tried to compare how robust Dr. Indur Goklany’s claim of 200,000 deaths a year from biofuels is compared with the WHO’s claim of 141,000 from AGW. The conclusion is that Goklany’s claim is far more robust.
Goklany relies on a simple relationship. The poorest in the world – those on less than $1.25 a day – are often underfed. As incomes rise they consume more calories, and become less reliant on local farming. A rise in food prices dramatically reverses the virtuous development process.
WHO’s death count is far more circuitous. If not all the recent warming is anthropogenic; or if there less weather variability than the alarmists claim; or if there if less extra disease attributable to warming; or if folks adapt to changing conditions, then the deaths are overstated. But if all factors are overstated, then the 141,000 deaths rapidly tends towards zero.
Further, as Goklany points out, if you read the original 2002 WHO report, climate change is far less important in premature deaths than many other factors, such as lack clean water and sanitation, inadequate diet, lack of access to basic healthcare, lack of exercise, air pollution and so on. Most of these factors can be dramatically reduced by economic development. Combating climate change will curtail that development – so the biofuels issue may be a small policy cost compared with constraining CO2 directly.
See my blog posting
http://manicbeancounter.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/biofuels-%e2%80%93-a-policy-that-is-killing-the-poor/
Interested people should compare Goklany’s paper with the 2002 WHO Report. Chapter 4 “QUANTIFYING SELECTED MAJOR RISKS TO HEALTH” is from page 49, with the climate change section on page 72. 2.4MB pdf at http://www.who.int/whr/2002/en/whr02_en.pdf
Martin Brumby (April 19, 2011 at 12:21 am)
‘the “War on Global Warming” is actually a war on’ mankind.
Septic Matthew
April 19, 2011 at 12:41 pm
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I probably should have said Wall of Words instead of rant, but even so, I was not accusing 220mph of being a socialist, but stating that at first scan, the writing had a bit of a socialist odor to it, and that, I ascribe more to the constraints of having to use vocabulary designed by socialist in order to communicate, then anything else. Read what I wrote. I know that is hard as their are a lot of thoughtful posts to read, but when I comment on something that I have not had the time to read properly, I mention it. As 220mph seems to have a clue to what is being discussed, I thought to pose some questions to get his take.
I for one tend to think that Governmental distortion of the market has more to do with poverty then anything else, and raising food prices could enable poor farmers to keep farming, but I keep my eyes open to other possibilities.
Grey lensman correctly points out that the use of marginal land can provide ample fuel without compromising food supply. What we need to do is to move beyond ethanol production from food crops and utilize waste lignocellulosics grown on waste land to produce better fuels such as methane (yes! it’s a great fuel) and butanol. These second generation biofuels are being investigated in labs around the world, and I expect the technology will be economic when needed. We believe we can do it now with our technology. At present, however, the rush to food-based fuels aided and abetted by poor government policy and subsidies, is a disaster and an impediment to the development of better technologies. Mobocracy can be a bad thing.
The defenders of biofuel on this thread should explain why subsidies are needed, if it’s such a great thing to do. Maybe i can learn something.
In the EU, the largest consumer of biofuels by a wide margin is Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel_in_the_European_Union
You know the typical German is arch-green, arch-warmist and an archetypical bonehead. Does it still look like a good idea now?