Sugar around the world →
THE BURGEONING REALITY OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE, rooted in a century of over-consumption of fossil fuels, is merging with another crisis with the same basic root cause—the looming depletion of inexpensive oil and gas supplies (“peak oil”).
Combined, they bring the world to an unprecedented and profoundly dangerous moment that threatens global environmental and social crises on an epic scale. These crises potentially include a breakdown of the most basic operating structures of our society, even industrialism itself, at least at its present scale. Long distance transportation, industrial food systems, complex urban and suburban systems, and many commodities basic to our present way of life—autos, plastics, chemicals, pesticides, refrigeration, et al.—are all rooted in the basic assumption of ever-increasing inexpensive energy supplies. (See Manifesto on Global Economic Transitions, published by IFG).
IT IS A RARE OCCURRENCE when President Bush, major environmental organizations, the agriculture community, various federal and state politicians, and even some “peak oil”1 educators, appear to agree on an issue.
The recent expansion of ethanol from corn production is just such an issue.2 It is a very attractive idea to think that we can satisfy our voracious appetite for inexpensive liquid fuel from a renewable resource such as corn.
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