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.
Doing nothing about our addiction to oil will kill far more people than ethanol – because hunger is more an issue of the inability to afford distribution of food than it is about food production in far-away USA (BTW – there is no scarcity of US corn exports). Isn’t it ironic that people (mostly urbanites) blame farmers for lack of food when it is clearly the price spike of oil that is causing shortages!
You are either for the status quo oil addiction or for biofuels – there is no middle ground.
Ethanol is helping to provide a way to make fuel cheaper and cleaner. The fact that it is now made from principally from non-edible corn (maize) in the U.S. is besides the point – especially considering that 30% of the maize kernels byproduct (600 lbs./ton) produce a high protein feed for livestock called distiller dried grains (DDGs). I am the biggest cellulosic biofuels supporter I know (see my blogs) but I appreciate any alternative to oil, including sugar and maize ethanol, that provides a large scale alternative to reduce the oil addiction.
Food vs. fuel is a myth perpetrated by those in favor of the status quo. Don’t buy into their propaganda.
Septic Matthew
April 19, 2011 at 12:41 pm
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And furthermore, I most certainly was not defending the WHO article that is being discussed. I am pretty sure I indicated that I thought it was so embedded within a Marxist world view as to be irrelevant. If 200mphs several dissertations had a whiff of socialism, the WHO study reeked of it so bad I had to hold my nose. I will not tolerate nonsense even if it seems to lend support for my political views. Such support is illusionary, like everything Marxist thought produces.
Bioblogger makes money advising others to use ethanol. So his comment above is pretty self-serving, no?
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Bioblogger says:
April 19, 2011 at 2:56 pm
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If growing corn for ethanol is such a great idea, then it does not need subsidies to be a viable business.
Bioblogger says:
April 19, 2011 at 2:56 pm
“Doing nothing about our addiction to oil will kill far more people than ethanol – ”
You lost me when you said “addiction to oil”.
Thanks, Anthony, it’s about time that this public health aspect has reared its ugly head!
No argument there. However, they should amend this report to mention “food-based” biofuels. There are legitimate biofuels that are not harmful to the environment that can be generated, particularly from waste materials.
I worked with Kraft Foods years ago to develop their cheese-whey-permeate to fuel ethanol distillation process, works like a champ. It converts a high-strength pollutant into a viable gasoline additive. However, you can scrap the corn-to-ethanol stuff anytime you want. Same for rice, sorghum etc.
The lefties, in their zeal to save the earth, are contributing to the eventual extinction of the orangutan in Indonesia (palm oil plantations), destruction of habitat in Brazil (sugar cane ethanol), and other environmental catastrophes. They don’t care much for human life it appears, but you think they’d catch on eventually.
PS if you don,t know who are the water melon people they are the tree huggers green on the outside RED on the inside
Finally! I found a biofuel that does not displace a food crop, nor would there be a demand for growing more of the feedstock solely to use it for making fuel, that starts with a “waste product” that is neither left on nor returned to the soil the feedstock grew from. And it really does come from what nearly everyone considers garbage.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf802487s
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Spent Coffee Grounds as a Versatile Source of Green Energy
Narasimharao Kondamudi, Susanta K. Mohapatra and Mano Misra
Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Nevada, 1664 North Virginia, MS 388, Reno, Nevada 89557
Abstract:
This was described in a New York Times article. A researcher looked at some day-old coffee and noticed the oil film on top. Standard chemistry techniques are used for oil extraction from the grounds, the oil becomes biodiesel. They estimated production costs of a dollar a gallon.
Now, I am quite willing to help produce the starting material, as I have for decades. This sounds like a good use for it, as opposed to dumping it in a landfill. Unfortunately, this is far from displacing significant amounts of fossil fuels.
Still, every cup helps.
This work was originally published at the end of 2008. I wonder how it’s progressed. Heck, I wonder if I should be saving my coffee grounds. I could be throwing away valuable fuel!
Dirk H, Please understand subsidies are not needed. They are used to redistribute wealth to those who get them (Think). In the USA who gets them?
Thank you Orchestra, somebody who gets it.
name a food crop that oil palm displaces?
Name mass food crops that are displaced by sugar cane?
Who profited from the Jatropha scam, yep Pachuri. It was only about the money, not the farmers. Lesson dont let Bankers or IPCC heads near your Policy or wallet.
So direct the policy at farmers, marginal land, needs, jobs and you have a viable crop and income earners.
Some very interesting simple bioengineering will produce mass conversion of cellulose into sugars. Much as we have used yeasts to convert sugars to alcohols for thousands of years.
DirkH says:
April 19, 2011 at 2:33 pm
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.
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I’m not a defender of bioethanol as a long term solution, but next generation technologies are looking really good. In fact, any VC investing in biofuels right now assumes no subsidies. I posted this link further up the board, I guarantee that if you read this in detail, you can learn something:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/guest-post-vinod-khosla-on-what-matters-in-biofuels/
The subsidies were required because unlike, for example, the biotech/biopharma industries, where VCs could embrace the extremely high margins available from new drugs and invest, the margins and ROIs on bioethanol were so low (or negative) that they couldn’t evolve the industry without the subsidies. The technologies were just way more pedestrian – essentially medieval brewing technology.
So for better, or for worse, there’s lots of plant and infrastructure to use as a springboard for the next generation of biofuels, outlined in the Vinod Khosla article.
I probably didn’t fully answer your question, but I definitely provided a link where you can learn something, with that something being about technologies that are capitalized based on the assumption that there will be no subsidies.
Thinkers here
Who is behind the demonisation of Oil Palm?
None other than the Soya bean industry
What is stopping the mass growth of hemp on marginal lands in the USA, Policy
Who cranks out the fake energy data on biofuels?
Somebody mentioned transport and infrastructure costs relating to biofuels
So oil is transported vast distances in free pipelines and supertankers.!!!!!!!!!!
In fact most biofuels can be grown and processed just where they are needed. See my New Zealand example above.
From just 136 trees per hectare, oil palm plantations can produce up to 40 tonnes per annum, year in year out for 20 years before they need to be replanted.
In fact, I see the USA as being in gross breach of WTO rules by imposing duties on imported biofuels whilst paying subsidies to American processors. This is the core problem, not biofuels.
Thank you all for all your comments – including those who disagree.
First, I am the first person who’ll tell you that the entire estimate – note the word, “estimate” – is contingent on the results of the WHO and World Bank researchers. Whether one cares for their methodologies or not — I have, for instance, a critique of the WHO methodology for global warming at http://www.jpands.org/vol14no3/goklany.pdf — they are the numbers everyone cites for poverty and deaths from global warming. This includes governments, researchers, think tanks and – yes — even the IPCC.
As an analyst, I view my task as developing estimates based on the (best) information available. Sometimes this means making lemonade out of lemons. The important thing, then, is not to portray it as a mango shake. That is why I use the word “estimate” liberally in the paper, and explicitly note that “this exploratory analysis develops order of magnitude estimates”.
Second, some commenters don’t like my use of “could”, “might”, “may”, etc.
Sorry, with the information available I can’t do better than that. If I was more definitive, I’d be selling it as mango shake rather than the lemonade that it is. The important thing is to recognize this and not forget this when one makes conclusions. Because of this, my conclusion is relatively modest.
Based on could-might-may, I don’t ask that the economy be restructured (as warmists are wont to do), or we tax biofuels, or even a reduction/elimination of subsidies and mandates for biofuels. The last sentence of the paper merely states, “There can be no honest analysis of the costs and benefits of biofuel policies if they do not consider their effects on death and disease in developing countries.” That is, all I do is ask that we do better analysis of the costs-and-benefits of biofuel policies and “consider” the impacts on global death and disease.
The idea is to shine a light on a missing consideration, which could potentially be quite large (relatively speaking). Of course, I recognize that that would make biofuels subsidies/mandates less attractive. If that’s the case, then they would be victims to better analysis, not my personal biases. That’s just the way it is.
All that said, I personally am not against biofuels, so long as it is not subsidized or mandated – and yes, I am against subsidies for fossil fuels as well (and wind and solar, etc.). If they can’t pay for themselves, then so be it. [As an aside, as a lapsed electrical engineer whose thesis and post-doc was partly in solid state physics, I feel confident that the future belongs to solar. But the future isn’t here yet. And I wouldn’t mandate solar subsidies based on my predilections and biases.]
I will re-emphasize that poverty is the cause of death and disease is a more robust finding than that global warming causes death and disease. And, if the WHO’s numbers are even approximately right, global warming’s impact on public health is trivial compared to the other poverty-related risk factors.
To keep this response to a manageable length, I will address 220 mph’s concerns separately.
220mph
First, regarding my “arbitrary” selection of risk factors that are related primarily to poverty, if you read the paper (pages 11 and 12), you would have known that this was based on an underlying methodology. Under this methodology, I estimated the disease rate for each of the 24 health risk factors for different income groups. If the disease rate for a specific risk factor for the lower income group was more than 5 times that of the next lowest income group (“lower middle income”) then I classified it as a poverty-related health risk. Based on that, I identified 6 risk factors — global warming; underweight (largely synonymous with chronic hunger); zinc deficiency; Vitamin A deficiency; unsafe sex; and unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene – as being poverty related.
Because of this “arbitrary” choice of 5, I excluded a number of risk factors that many (perhaps, most) would consider as poverty-related (see, e.g., reference 43 in the paper, which cites Gro Harlem Brundtland). Among the risk factors that I excluded – unmet contraceptive needs, indoor smoke from solid fuels, sub-optimal breast feeding and iron deficiency. I did this, because I intended to make a conservative estimate (see top of page 12).
Also, BTW, for the 6 risk factors that I classified (“arbitrarily”) as poverty-related, 99.3% of deaths occurred in developing countries (page 11 of paper).
So let me ask you, 220mph, which of the 6 risk factors that I have identified do you believe do not qualify as poverty-related?
Do you think I included all poverty-related risk factors?
BTW, had I included the 4 additional risk factors noted above as poverty-related, then my estimate for deaths due to “additional” biofuel production in 2010 would have been 47% higher. That is, instead of 192,000, it would have been around 280,000.
There is nothing in the above that isn’t in the paper on pages 11-12.
Second, 220mph complains about my adjusting the World Bank’s poverty estimate for 2004. Well this was dictated by inexorable logic.
I had WHO health data for 2004. Therefore, to calculate the “Coefficients of Proportionality between Poverty, and Death and Disease from Poverty-Related Health Risks”, I necessarily had to obtain poverty estimates for 2004. [2003 or 2005 would not do, because poverty levels have been dropping rapidly from year-to-year, thanks to economic growth in the third world.]
On the other hand, the incremental poverty estimate (due to incremental biofuel production) for 2010 that I had was based on a different (newer) methodology and newer data than the 2004 poverty estimate. So I had to re-estimate what the World Bank’s 2004 poverty numbers would have been using the World Bank’s newer methodology/data.
Based on Chen and Ravallion’s papers (references 44 & 45), I estimated that the newer methodology/data increased the poverty numbers by 1.48-1.5 for 2002 and 2005. Note that World Bank’s estimates are based on Chen and Ravallion’s analyses. [Both work for the World Bank.] Hence, the 1.5 multiplicative factor that was applied to the 2004 estimate (that was based on the older methodology/data).
Had I not used this multiplicative factor, the estimate of incremental deaths would have been:
(a) Wrong, and
(b) 48-50% higher.
That is, instead of 192,000 deaths, the estimate would have come in at around 285,000-288,000. If you care to, you can work out why as homework.
Incidentally, all this is written out on page 12.
Third, you have complained about the 14% upward adjustment to the estimate from De Hoyos and Medvedev (DHM, for short). As noted on page 12,
It seems in your haste, typing at 220mph, you skipped this bit, like you seem to have skipped all the other explanations.
Fourth, you state that, “The authors (sic) claim of 192,000 poverty related deaths caused by biofuel production increases specifically INCLUDES deaths caused by global warming – in fact they represent the largest portion of these 192,000 deaths according to the authors own chart and claims.”
NO, 220mph, you are really showing that you didn’t understand the calculations. Global warming’s share of the 192,000 is equal to its pro-rated share of deaths from the 6 risk factors. That is, 141,000/7.7 million. You really should go through the paper and understand it before you comment.
The short term future belongs to geothermal, cheap simple plentiful and clean.
Poverty needs to be defined, is a subsistence farmer who has all his needs “poor” But perhaps a well paid banker who finds it difficult to meet all his obligations is “poor”
Public health depnds on some factors.
Good water
Good sanitation
and good nutrition.
The author has the basic premise right, its the policy that kills not the biofuels.
Truth is capital chases the easy kill, subsidy and controlled outputs, not hard work and profit.
Windmills aka bird grinders are a classic case in point.
Dr Indur M. Goklany; I wouldn’t waste too much effort on 220mphs’ concerns. As 220 did not use much effort in study on your post. 220mph is a high speed troll that wastes all our time reading comments that yield no enlightenment.
To those that comment that Maize or American corn is inedible, I should point out that a lot of people around the world consider it to be a basic food source.
I have been involved in creation of food and fuels for nearly 60 years, the subsidies to create fuel from food is stupid! and counter productive. On again, off again, government involvement just screws up real progress and lines the pockets of the well connected. pg
P.G.Sharrow said
Quote
To those that comment that Maize or American corn is inedible, I should point out that a lot of people around the world consider it to be a basic food source.
Unquote
Classic, I believe 95% of the corn grown in America is
inedible”, the dent variety. It is designed that way to ensure a consistent corporate crop of “feedstock”. This, as with any other feedstock,is chemically treated to produce “food”.
That explains why so many obese Americans suffer from malnutrition.
The simple family farmer is far more productive and far more resistant to disaster though his diversity and risk taking than the Corporate farmer. Dent proveds a uniform consistent feedstock product that the corporate farmer can run through his refineries and produce consistent profit, sorry food.
Same applies to fuels, biofuels add vitally needed diversity into the energy supply equation. They do not sit well with corporations thus there need for subsidy.
The biofuels myth explodes.
Independent inquiry concludes that the production of biofuels to meet UK and European directives violates human rights and damages the environment.
Biofuels transport targets are unethical, inquiry finds.
Targets for biofuels had driven a rapid expansion, in parts of the world with lower ethical standards, the researchers said. They cited the destruction of rainforest in Malaysia to produce palm oil, forcing people off their land and endangering orangutans, and a 2008 report by Amnesty International which found conditions near slavery for workers in some sugarcane plantations.
An international certification scheme, like the Fairtrade scheme for food, must be introduced, the NCB inquiry concluded. It would guarantee that the production of biofuels met the five ethical conditions identified by the NCB: observing human rights, environmentally sustainable, reduced carbon emissions, fairly traded and equitably distributed cost and benefits.
Prof Joyce Tait, at Edinburgh University, who chaired the 18-month inquiry by the independent Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCB) said “Biofuels are one of the only renewable alternatives we have for transport fuels, but current policies and targets that encourage their uptake have backfired badly. The rapid expansion of biofuels production in the developing world has led to problems such as deforestation and the displacement of indigenous people. An international certification scheme will not add to red tape, it will simplify it with one overarching standard.”
Under the European Union’s renewable energy directive, 10% of transport fuel must come from renewable sources such as biofuel by 2020. The legal requirement to put biofuels in petrol and diesel sold in the UK and Europe is unethical because their production violates human rights and damages the environment. The need to meet rising biofuel targets has also led to exploitation of workers, the loss of wildlife and higher food prices, the inquiry found.
Alena Buyx, assistant director at the NCB, said: “If you look at food prices and they go up and incomes do not, then more people will probably die from hunger, and biofuels are one contributing factor to those price rises. Biofuels also contribute to poor harvests, commodity speculation and high oil prices which raise the cost of fertilisers and transport. We should slow down [the targets] if it is not possible to meet ethical standards. But we think it is possible to do that [meet such standards] if enough pressure is applied. The EU says each member country should make their own voluntary scheme – that is madness.”
Prof Ottoline Leyserof Cambridge University, and another member of the NBC working party said “But doing nothing is also immoral. There is a clear need to replace liquid fossil fuels to limit climate change and if a new biofuel technology meets ethical conditions, there is a duty to develop it”. But future generations of biofuel, made from agricultural waste such as straw, fast-growing perennials such as willow or miscanthus grass, or even algae grown in tanks, could avoid many of the problems by not competing directly with food. “These are very exciting technologies,” said Leyserof. “The potential is huge.”
In the UK, 5% of transport fuel must come from renewable sources by 2013. Today, 3% of the UK’s petrol and diesel comes from biofuel, mostly produced in Argentina, Brazil and other European countries. But in January, it was revealed that two-thirds of the biofuel being used in the UK today failed to meet environmental standards. Government cuts to the budget of the Carbon Trust also saw a flagship algal biofuels project cancelled.
The Department of Transport is currently consulting on changes to the UK’s biofuels regulations. Transport minister Norman Baker said: “It has already been agreed that no biofuel will count towards European renewable energy targets unless it meets certain sustainability requirements. But we are pushing the European commission to go further. Be in no doubt, we consider the sustainability of biofuels to be paramount.”
The inquiry found positive examples too, such as small-scale biofuels initiatives that provide energy, income and livelihoods in fuel-poor areas, such as in rural Mali.
Existing certification schemes, such as that run by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels were a good start, the researchers said, but remained entirely voluntary. There was also problem of responsible biofuel producers having to conform to many different standards.
From Grey lensman on April 19, 2011 at 6:59 pm:
Wikipedia-> Environmental impact of palm oil
Much complaining there about the land use changes, deforestation, loss of habitat, etc. Greenpeace is doing a lot of the complaining, but other complainers are WWF, Friends of the Earth, some UN organization(s), even the Center for Science in the Public Interest chimes in. And these are mouthpieces for the soybean industry?
ADM and Cargill want more palm oil? They are not demonizing oil palm? Well then, obviously they’re not part of Big Soy, are they?
😉
Dear kate
That report was by the same people behind the global warming scam. Do we sue the Romans for deforesting northern Europe putting Celts and Gauls in danger of extinction.
Jungle is not suitable for Palm Oil Plantations.
Slave labour, look to factories sweatshops and such around the world.
Certification, yes wonderful another gravy train and means to commit fraud. Wanna buy cheap CO2 certs, avoid VAT
Please stop the nonsense. Growing any crop on land suitable and in a rational way makes simple sense. Oil Palm estates use insect and plant control. They breed barn owls for vermin control. They are protecting riversides and water access for elephants and others.
Yes there are bad eggs, mostly corporations exploiting some local legal loophole. Go for them by all means.
Malaysia is a land covered in Jungle, a wild natural place with Oil Palm plantations making up a small percentage and cites even less. Driving the motorways here is a joy, mile after mile of jungle.
“I too have become quite cynical about the Greens and their errant Malthusian views”
The green movement is not about saving others. It is about removing anything harmful to one’s self. If the rest of the world could be made better, by increasing pollution at home, would this be acceptable to the green movement? why not? the overall benefit is positive.
DesertYote says:
April 19, 2011 at 9:21 am
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 …
I can assure you I’m furthest thing from a socialist there is 😉 … and they were not intended as rants – but rather my thoughts on the report and topic … I’ll point out in effect I “live blogged” my read of the paper – so my comments aren’t intended to be definitive but rather my initial take on the paper and its conclusions
What role do you think the distortion of the food market by government policies such as subsidies have on hunger?
I do not believe the facts – at least regarding the US, which is all I feel knowledgeable enough to comment on, show there is any significant distortion in “food” market caused by government biofuel policies. USDA crop reports for example show little or no support for the claims alleged by biofuel opponents – there is little evidence of any significant impact on food prices due to biofuels.
Many ignore for example that a large part of the corn ethanol subsidies are for production of corn, regardless of the use – food or fuel.
I believe the primary mover on food prices are commodities speculators and the current very high energy prices
What role do you think humanitarian food distribution has on local food production?
You can give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. You can teach a man to fish and they can eat for life. The detrius of years of ever expanding liberal entitlements – food and benefits handouts – are clear for all to see. In America at least OBESITY is a serious problem in the entitlement classes.
I also believe, as hard as it is to say, that we have to have a serious discussion about just what is humanitarian about encouraging and supporting the continued population growth in many of these areas well beyond the ability of the populace and the environment to support them. That is NOT in any way condoning eugenics or any of that ridiculous garbage – but rather to encourage an honest frank assessment of the sustainability of some of these populations.
Would increased food prices result in local farmers being able to realize greater profitability in producing food crops, thus enabling them to farm?
Farmers take all the risks – have since the beginning – and reap a tiny share of the reward. Increased food commodities prices are a benefit to farmers – but even in the best of times a large number never make a dime – just too many variable, sun, heat, cold, wind, rain, flooding, drought etc. I love family farmers and would like to do everything possible within reason to support them. But the simple facts are the massive corporate farming operations are the most efficient and cost effective way to produce our needed crops.
Those who rant about ethanol subsidies and the alleged impacts of biofuel production would very likely scream if farm subsidies were gutted. THAT would cause a quick and real increase in food prices
Have you read “The Plight and Promise of Arid Land Agriculture”? Can’t remember the authors names right now.
Nope – but at least as regards biofuels production marginal lands are the future of feedstock cultivation … switch grass and other cellulosic type feedstock grows just fine on these marginal lands
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.
I think the basic premise of the paper is simple enough – if food prices increase it increases poverty is rational … its all the blind leaps – the “if-then” statements that are not based on data but rather speculation … the ‘we can’t find a real, provable link, so the only thing it could be is this’ mentality … pronouncing allegedly “scientific” judgement despite minimal or no data in support of the conclusions … that is the problem.
As I noted the conclusion of this paper could have AGW, man-made CO2 etc substituted for biofuel induced poverty and alleged deaths … neither are in my opinion based on sound empirical data – but rather in leaps of faith … THT is the problem – as we’ve seen with both AGW and this paper
Dr. Goklany … while I may disagree I do appreciate your response … its late and I don’t have energy to give your response the time in reply it deserves – but I will try to do so tomorrow
I will say, contrary to your assertion, I did not ignore your explanations/reasoning – they are noted several times – I challenge the blanket statements and the leaps to conclusions that IMO are not supported by facts in your paper
I also take exception, although did not bring it up above – with your brushing off the other side of the equation – the clear and real benefits of biofuel production
IMO you did not present a clear, coherent, seemless path – supported with facts and ALL of the calculations involved in getting there – to even remotely prove your claims.
You don’t show the entire “equation” from start to finish, and in fact you change from estimated poverty headcounts (which as you note have been decreasing dramatically) to the 32 million number for increased poverty headcount due to biofuels, while presenting nothing to show how that number was derived – (or why it should be arbitrarily increased 14% when it was created using the new data and methods already).
You should it would seem, include at least an explanation of the basics of the calculations used in the papers [ie DHM] that are integral to your claims … for example how the the 32 million number at the heart of your paper arrived at?
A proper study in my uneducated opinion would show the changes in poverty headcount for the comparison periods, and considering that the poverty headcount has been dropping dramatically how the 32 million number was calculated. It would also show a margin of error/confidence level, and additionally would necessarily address the offsets – which you acknowledge, but gloss over and dismiss – the lives SAVED from the use of biofuels vs fossil fuels.
Even IF your claim is correct – that there is a climate “inertia” which would preclude any immediate benefit from cleaner air, reduced CO2 and the myriad other benefits of biofuel vs fossil fuels use – those benefits would eventually accrue – those deaths would be prevented in future years – and that number can be adjusted to a net present value if necessary.
There are a number of significant long term tangible benefits to reducing use of fossil fuels … renewability, reduced emissions, the geo-political benefit of reduced reliance on foreign energy etc … any discussion of as serious a topic as deaths attributed to biofuels is IMO intellectually dishonest if it does not take these offsets into account and at least make a nominal effort to address them
Without the offsets from benefits of biofuels, including direct benefits leading to fewer deaths along with longer term aspects such as reduced reliance on fossil fuels – the claim that 192,000 might die because of increased biofuels use is – IMO – little more than scaremongering.
I admit your intentions may be perfectly honorable – that you post here and reply is a positive indicator … that said your paper seems weak and incomplete to my uneducated eye – and promotes a claim – a sensational one at that – about increased deaths – that should not it would seem be made so lightly
From Grey lensman on April 19, 2011 at 10:27 pm:
*sigh* Dent corn is edible, and used for human food, but as is the case with all corn it benefits from some processing. Read this. Traditionally maize was treated with alkali-water of some sort, which frees up the bound niacin. Without such treatment, relying on corn as a staple food can result in pellagra, which is caused by niacin deficiency. The process is known as nixtamalization and was used by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Nowadays there’s also an enzymatic version used in industrial settings. The process also has other nutritional benefits that make it even more desirable.
Traditional corn is also deficient in two key amino acids, lysine and tryptophan. To avoid complications, a varied diet which supplies those amino acids is recommended, although high lysine maize has been developed.
While people do eat untreated sweet corn and popcorn, it’s not the best way to have it from a nutritional standpoint, and that “chemical treatment” you lament is needed to make it a better food. And it’s been “chemically treated” for millenia by people who knew that corn was best with such processing. So why gripe about it and blame “corporate farmers”?
Thank you KD, I eat my corn right off the cob, it needs no treatment. Study chemistry, how do you turn crude oil into plastic, same way you turn dent into “food”. Same as is now done with so many factory produced foods, sorry “foods”.
It is the same thinking that says biofuels are bad and killing people.
Its the policies, greed and deception thats killing people, as evidenced so well by the global warming crowd.
Here in Malaysia, in the Highlands, we grow most of our vegitables in a very limited area. One of them is a particularly sweet, sweet corn, whcich clearly you need to try, to rediscover exactly what FOOD is.
Talking of which how is the banking fraud and the mass extinction that is causing coming along.