New York's billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has slammed a new US energy law that he says will raise global food prices and spread death through starvation.
"People literally will starve to death in parts of the world, it always happens when food prices go up," Bloomberg told reporters after addressing a U.N. General Assembly debate on climate change.
The new U.S. law, which came into force late last year, increased fivefold the required amount of blending of biofuels like corn ethanol -- creating higher demand for the grain that will push up corn prices.
America subsidizes its own corn ethanol production while levying duties on imported ethanol from sugar cane. Bloomberg also attacked the efficiency of corn ethanol production which uses about the same amount of energy to produce, transport and distribute as it yields.
Bloomberg didn't pull any punches in his assessment of the dangers of global warming. "Terrorists kill people, weapons of mass destruction have the potential to kill enormous numbers of people, global warming has the potential to kill everybody."
And the Liberals want to double the amount of corn and soy-based ethanol in Canadian fuel above the amount already being aimed for by the Conservatives. This is one of their policies that's dead wrong.
ReplyDelete