biocrime's photostream

An open letter to all members of the United States Congress.

On April 3rd the price of corn hit $6 a bushel, which translates into
higher prices for chicken, eggs, beef, and diary products at a time
the US is already in a recession. Low income families are losing
their homes and many bakeries and restaurants are going out of
business due to high food prices. Last year so many wheat farmers
switched to growing corn for ethanol that the USDA states that by the
end of May, US wheat supplies will be lower than at any time since
1948. This spring more wheat has been planted, but that means less
corn was planted as our supply of growing land is limited, and by next
year corn prices will be much higher than they are today. High corn
prices are destroying the poultry industry in America, but many
politicians don't seem to care. Many politicians also do not seem to
care that there have been biofuel created food riots in at least 20
nations; Mexico, Haiti, Bolivia, Morocco, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Yemen,
Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, the
Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, the Philippines,
and Italy.

Those of you who voted against the foolish Bush biofuel bill should be
very proud that you made the sound decision not to support turning our
own food into fuel. It is better to drill in ANWR (with at least 10.4
billion barrels of oil) and North Dakota's Bakken Oil Formation (with
at least 175 billion barrels of oil) than in the human food supply!
Those of you who voted for the disastrous biofuel legislation should
be ashamed of yourselves and endeavor to come clean with fellow
Americans that you have so badly damaged with your poor judgment. I
suggest holding a press conference and admitting guilt, that wasting
food is an immoral crime when there is so much hunger in the world,
and vow to repeal this counterproductive legislation as soon as
possible. You have made a similar mistake to Chairman Mao's 1958
"Great Leap Forward", which ending up starving millions of people.
That well meaning plan by government to force a shift from agriculture
to industry is very similar to our government's mandated shift from
feeding people to feeding cars and trucks.

What is truly disgusting is that so many of my fellow Democrats voted
for this inherently ugly act, and Democrats loudly claim to "put
people first"! The biofuel legislation was as big a mistake as the
Iraq War, and only those who admit guilt now and try to correct this
mess will ever be forgiven by the public. You have starved the world,
speeded up global warming by increasing C02 and nitrous oxide
emissions, needlessly eroded topsoil, polluted rivers and the Gulf of
Mexico with fertilizer run-off, and have created a vampiric, solely
profit driven biofuel manufacturing industry that lies through its
fangs and will be very difficult to get rid of. Scientific studies
have shown that ethanol form cellulose (switchgrass, crops waste, wood
chips, etc.) will never be economically viable, so none of the guilty
politicians should try to rationalize their crime by saying this
problem is only "a temporary glitch."

For all the tragic biofuel facts and positive environmental
alternatives, see home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html

Sincerely,
Christopher Calder