Here is an answer I gave to an email from a thermista in the Canadian Civil Service.
Why "in the name of humanity"? Because, although the noisy preachers from the media pulpits have found it expedient not to say so, there have been food riots all round the world as the biofuel scam whipped up by the High Priests of your religion takes vast tracts of agricultural land out of food production. Millions are now starving because the price of food has doubled in little more than a year. A leaked report by the World Bank says that fully three-quarters of that doubling has occurred as a direct result of the biofuel scam. So your religion is causing mass starvation in faraway countries, and is even causing hardship to the poorest in your own country. Can you, in conscience, look away from the sufferings that your beliefs are inflicting upon the poorest and most helpless people in the world?
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I found more info. It was a leaked April draft report. It was leaked 0n July 4th by the Guardian newspaper. The final report was finished in late July. The conclusions remained basically the same. “Most of the remaining 70-75 percent increase in food commodities prices was due to biofuels.” Another person from the World Bank, Robert Zoelick, does not agree with the report.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/09/05/bad-juice-iii-biofuels-really-are-bad-for-food-prices-world-bank-says/
Bush himself appointed the bank's current director, Robert Zoelick. President Bush supports crop-based fuels. The USDA claims that "biofuels account for only 3 percent of recent food price hikes." The Renewable Fuels Foundation, National Corn Growers Association, American Soybean Association, and United Soybean Board, the National Biodiesel Board, [and] the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association had two studies done, both of which concur with the USDA's assessment that the biofuel boom has virtually nothing to do with higher food prices." A separate "Kraft-funded study found that the ethanol boom has pushed up food prices by 25-35 percent."
Apparently, "World Bank staffers don't answer directly to people with a specific agenda on the biofuel question."
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/7/4/163717/0989
[note, this source quotes many sources]
Which of the many reports is most credible? It seems the jury is still out.
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