Sunday, March 21, 2010

Opinion

The Growing Oil and Food Crisis

April 21, 2008 03:06 PM ET | Bonnie Erbe | Permanent Link | Print

Reader Comments

Food/energy crisis

The developed world has had a higher standard of living that has been heavily dependent on fossil fuel/nuclear energy.This dependency is endangering the fragile ecosystems of the planet by the rapid increase in co2 emissions and the long-term dangers of radioactivity.Biofuels are an option but they should not be at the expense of the natural rainforests or use acreage that would normally grow food crops.

Surely the answer is sustainable and enviromentally considerate economies rather than a world trade system that encourages governments that seem keen to maximise economic growth whilst at the same time centralising their power and promoting the oil and nuclear industries .Wind,solar and tidal energy are clean and limitless and can be harnessed by technology that is increasingly efficient and enviromentally harmless. Organic farming is good for the enviroment and good for our health and does not rely on the chemical industy for artificial fertilisers and pesticides.

There is plenty of space for the people of this world to live peacefully with limitless and almost free energy. The powerful oil and nuclear lobbies can either use their considerable resources to invest in renewables or else stand aside whilst people decide to become energy self-sufficient on resources that cannot be controlled by governments or corporations.

EVERYTHING WE NEED

WE ALL NEED TO GET ON OUR KNEES AND PRAY TO GOD AND THANK HIM FOR EVERYTHING HE HAS GIVEN US. WE NEED TO MAKE HIM FIRST IN EVERYTHING WE DO IN OUR LIVES. I THINK WE LET THIS WORLD AND OUR BUSINESS TAKE OVER AND WE FORGET WHAT WE ARE TRULY HERE FOR.GOD WILL PROVIDE IF WE LET HIM. WE CAN'T GO ON WITHOUT HIM. HE GAVE US EVERYTHING WE COULD POSSIBLY NEED AND WE ARE DISTROYING IT .HE SIMPLIFIED IT FOR US AND WE JUST DON'T GET IT. WE ARE SO CONSUMED IN OUR OWN LIVES INSTEAD OF HELPING EVERYONE AND DOING FOR OTHERS!! LET US ALL REACH OUT TO HIM AND PUT IT IN GODS HANDS AND BECOME ONE NATION UNDER GOD AGAIN!!! I TRULY BELIEVE WITH ALL MY HEART THAT IS WHAT WE NEED! THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME

Economic reality behind developing world births.

People in developign nations have children for secuirty in old age, they have to have 4 or more children to have a "chance' one of them will survive into adulthood, have the economic capacity to care for them when they are old and the willignness to do so. Too few children means doom when a person ages in many parts of the world. It's a horrible reality peopel in developed nations can barely fathom but all too true. Governments and societies have to completely reform to change those unsustainable but drastically need policies for those involved. Birth control will not save them in old age.

Food VS Fuel

I agree that people should stop having so many babies, and that the more important thing for people in India, Africa and other 3rd world coutries is to have a method of birth control and then so many of these children would not be subjected to the horror of AIDS, HIV, hunger and so many of the other horrors that are inflicated on the most innocent of all.

Food vs biofuels

It would be better if people would just stop having so many children. We can't go on finding more and more everything for ever, so now is as good a time as ever to stop thinking babies are lovely. They are not; in their current exponential numbers they are an act of pure selfishness and death for the planet.

Food vs biofuels

"...and the dash to produce biofuels for motoring at the expense of food crops," reports the Guardian.

Poly-cropping is the most likely solution. You can intercrop beans with corn, african palm, jatropha, sugar cane etc, and have both; the biofuels and an abundance of food. Planting beans around biofuel producing plants (beans grow low) puts nitrogen into the ground as well. Corn, for example, vastly depletes the soil from nitrogen.

Should be an international requirement to require food intercrop with biofuel crops.

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About Bonnie Erbe

Bonnie Erbe is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report and hosts PBS's weekly news analysis program, To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe. She also writes a weekly syndicated newspaper column for Scripps Howard News Service.

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