The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) might not be familiar to many, but its reports and analyses are used by nations across the globe to set policy.
Unfortunately, American media only cover papers and announcements from this organization when its findings support a liberal agenda.
For instance, when the OECD presented its new paper, "Biofuels: Is the Curse Worse Than the Disease?" at Tuesday's Paris meeting, American media ignored it, likely due to conclusions which go counter to soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore's views concerning the need to expand ethanol usage in order to solve manmade global warming.
As the Financial Times reported Monday, the OECD believes "the current rush to support alternative energy sources will lead to surging food prices and the potential destruction of natural habitats" (emphasis added throughout, h/t Benny Peiser):
Governments need to scrap subsidies for biofuels, as the current rush to support alternative energy sources will lead to surging food prices and the potential destruction of natural habitats, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will warn on Tuesday.
Understand why American media ignored this? But there's more:
The OECD will say in a report to be discussed by ministers on Tuesday that politicians are rigging the market in favour of an untried technology that will have only limited impact on climate change.
"The current push to expand the use of biofuels is creating unsustainable tensions that will disrupt markets without generating significant environmental benefits," say the authors of the study, a copy of which has been obtained by the Financial Times.
To be sure, as nations around the world have aggressively moved towards biofuels this decade, grains prices have skyrocketed. In fact, for the first time in history, wheat crossed $9 on the Chicago Board of Trade Wednesday, a seriously ominous event.
Yet, also being hidden from the public by the media's decision to not report the release of this paper is the OECD's contention that biofuels aren't the panacea global warming alarmists avow:
The survey says biofuels would cut energy-related emissions by 3 per cent at most. This benefit would come at a huge cost, which would swiftly make them unpopular among taxpayers.
The study estimates the US alone spends $7bn (€5bn) a year helping make ethanol, with each tonne of carbon dioxide avoided costing more than $500. In the EU, it can be almost 10 times that.
It says biofuels could lead to some damage to the environment. "As long as environmental values are not adequately priced in the market, there will be powerful incentives to replace natural eco-systems such as forests, wetlands and pasture with dedicated bio-energy crops," it says.
Adding it all up, as NewsBusters has reported many times in the past, biofuels are not what is being advertised by folks on the left and in the media who have an agenda to advance regardless of the economic and environmental consequences.
In fact, the boycott of this paper by American media is another shameful example of how our press are manipulating the dissemination of information concerning global warming.
This is being accomplished by reporting only studies which support the alarmists' views regarding this matter, and boycotting papers like this that challenge the "consensus" position.
As such, if this OECD analysis made assertions and conclusions in lockstep with Al Gore, it likely would have been widely reported by all mainstream press outlets.
What a disgrace.
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
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Comments Policy
All of this biofuel
September 12, 2007 - 12:18 ET by dscottAll of this biofuel nonsense is to the exclusion of the real means to deal with the energy crisis. Yes, IMO an energy crisis. If we are to promote stability around the world, the West must diversity out of oil based fuel for transportation. The MSM knows full well that the simplistic feel good solution of biofuels leads to a deadend because of the scope of consumption. The solution is the electric car and nuclear power plants to produce the electricity to charge them up. The technology is here with the lithium ion battery however, any attempt to mass produce the electric car without nuclear power only transfers the tail pipe emissions to the power generating plant and worse yet will cause a doubling or tripling of current electric rates. Imagine your $150/month bill jumping to $300 or $450 A MONTH! While the capacity is there to switch to electric as far as the grid is concerned because most people will charge up at night, the problem is what fuel generates extra capacity over the current baseline at night. No matter how clean Natural gas is, there simply isn't enough of it to both heat our homes and produce electricity on the scale needed.
So is the MSM prepared to swallow their pride and drop the simplistic propaganda against nuclear power or not? Otherwise you are forced to build lots of LNG receiving terminals to supply that natural gas from foreign sources like the Middle East. From a national security perspective, this does nothing for us, we must end petrodollar terrorism and the only way to do that is nuclear power.
dscott's postulate: The degree to which someone exaggerates or deceives is inversely proportional to the merit of the advocated position.
More Ignored Facts
September 12, 2007 - 12:31 ET by mattm"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge:" - Hosea 4:6
Here's some more knowledge that the MSM and the Education Establishment ignore.
How's this for irony, Noel?
September 12, 2007 - 12:42 ET by RJEthanol producers, faced with rising costs that they have created, are planning to ask for an increase in subsidys.
Duh
September 12, 2007 - 12:50 ET by QueasyI was calling this when the ethanol mandate was first being discussed. You can't take a food crop and start using it for for fuel production without expecting other affects like increased prices for that food crop, for products are down the supply line for that food crop, and for other food crops that may be cut back to generate more of the food crop used for fuel.
It's like all these experts expected the use of corn-based ethanol to operate in a vacum without affecting anything else. We're now getting increased prices in fuel and food because of this half-brained ethanol mandate and nobody in the MSM wants to discuss why.
My wife went shopping at the grocery store last night and milk was getting in the $6 range. With two small kids who drink quite a bit of milk along with me, this is getting to be quite an expensive habit.
Biofuels
September 12, 2007 - 13:03 ET by tymanWhat no one, especially liberals want to discuss is drilling for more oil here in the good ol USA. It's always NIMBY or the environment. We currently do not have the technology to do what many want, battery cars, hydrogen etc. Instead they dream up all these rediculous(SP?) ideas. The bottom line is this, do we set up all gas stations to sell hydrogen or do we make hydrogen cars first? What came first the chicken or the egg? Duh. Lets drill in ANWR THE GULF COAST AND THE EASTERN SEABOARD WHICH HAS BILLIONS OF GALLONS OF GAS TOMORROW.
Drill'em deep; Drill'em
September 12, 2007 - 14:46 ET by dvdaughtryDrill'em deep; Drill'em often!
I had that same philosophy in college, but like the oil drilling today, it never really happend.
I am not for diversity. I am for what works.
A milk habit? May I
September 12, 2007 - 13:05 ET by dscottA milk habit? May I suggest enrolling them in MA...
You are right to an extent. Farmers were receiving a subsidy on their corn crop as price supports. Now that the price of corn is up, the government no longer needs to pay that corn subsidy. Now they pay an ethanol subsidy. I agree though that all subsidies need to end.
dscott's postulate: The degree to which someone exaggerates or deceives is inversely proportional to the merit of the advocated position.
For the IGNORANT on Bio Fuels
September 12, 2007 - 13:36 ET by Lame CherryI personally have had it with all the "experts" posting here who know nothing of farm subsidies nor a thing about bio fuels.
I will repeat what I posted weeks ago:
Corn and Soybeans are NOT TAKEN out of the food supply as such experts above are posting when used for bio fuels. All that is TAKEN OUT IS STARCH AND OIL, the starch is changed to alcohol and the oil is turned int bio diesel. This means the food product is still there for cattle feed, pet food and human uses.
It will be a shock the "experts" ranting about "food" to find out that Round up beans and corn are not usually in the human food chain in the first place. WHITE CORN and not yellow corn ends up in hominy, tortillas an chips. The same is true with soybeans compared to edible soybeans.
This disconnect of not understanding the difference in crops is as surprising to these "experts" that there are dairy cows and beef cattle making 2 different products.
WHAT DRIVES UP PRICES ARE MARKET TRADERS who buy futures on demand of product. This has nothing to do with food prices. I repeat Chicago board traders drive up food prices on speculation just like on oil.
This is the base of food prices going up in oil. The cartel members in banking who do indeed set price levels on commodities just adjusted prices starting last spring in 2006. Oil was about to collapse the farming and trucking industries which meant a great collapse in the banking industry due to the purchasing by farmers and truckers.
For the record, genetic round up corn, beans and canola or rape seed, are produced completely by oil. Fertilizer is oil, herbicides and pesticides are oil and fuel is oil. OIL IS WHAT IS DRIVING UP THE INFLATIONARY PRICE IN FOOD and not bio fuels.
This site has a responsibility to educate and not allow rants by ignorant arm chair "experts" who wouldn't know what a hereford was to yellow dent 3546 as I was looking at this morning. (For the explanation herefords are beef cattle which make steak and 3546 is a genetic hybrid corn.)
As for the extended use of non agricultural lands, that is a bogus charge in the United States as the areas not under cultivation are either too arid or protected, nature wackos can get away with lying, but there is no excuse for it from bloggers on this site.
I will repeat so it hopefully soaks in, bio fuels nor farming drive up prices in food. It is cartel price basing with Chicago traders driving up food prices in speculation and inflation due to oil.
I honestly hope this soaks in to people on this site as it is laughable the ignorance on here in trying to discuss an industry and it's workings when the entire bloggers are clueless.
God bless.........we now return you to McDonalds and grocery stores where food supposedly comes from.
*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS
LC
September 12, 2007 - 14:19 ET by Noel SheppardLC,
With all due respect, as I am a former commodities trader and arbitrageur, I don't agree with your assessment, for such prices are not exclusively at the whim of traders. Factors such as supply and demand at the retail level do indeed impact prices at the wholesale level.
As such, there have been many international reports of edible crop farmland being specifically changed to biofuel farmland thereby reducing the available supply of such edible crops. Many of the previous articles I've written on this subject included links to studies on the matter.
With that in mind, are you suggesting the OECD and others making such assertions are errant? Could you provide evidence with links to support your contention? ns
"Is the CURE worse than the disease" -- Typo Alert
September 12, 2007 - 17:57 ET by lgeubankTypographical error alert:
The original article asked "Is the CURE worse than the disease," not "Is the curse worse than the disease."
Thank you for your support.
People can't eat crude oil
September 12, 2007 - 18:54 ET by NBFPeople can't eat crude oil. Might as well refine it and use it for machines. You don't want machines competing for edible energy sources. It's counter-economical.