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At
the top of the agenda for reporters this news cycle is the global food
crisis. Jay Leno observed the world is suffering from a food shortage
and obesity at the same time! Pundits, who seem to have the attention
span of a Bartlett pear, are busily looking for someone to blame! The
conservative bloggers are plotting a conspiracy theory which blames the
environmentalists. It goes like this:
As
recently as the 90s, a squadron of green politicians were clamoring to
place a federal surtax on gasoline to raise it up as high as $5.00 a
gallon. Their logic assumed Europeans pay that much, why shouldn’t we?
The high price of gas, they postulated, would make people limit their
driving, buy more gas-efficient automobiles and seek alternative energy
sources.
At
first, they were thrilled with the production of ethanol. They assumed
it would cost more than the gasoline it replaced. Therefore, the price
of fueling your car would go up no matter what, which was their original
unspoken intent. However, because of the overwhelming response of
farmers who switched to growing corn instead of wheat, biofuel soon cost
less than gasoline! The opposite of what the environmentalists wanted,
so they have taken extreme measures.
They
continue to protest against nuclear power plants, against oil
exploration in Alaska, to building more oil refineries, even fighting
wind power in Nantucket. The green Europeans are encouraged to resist
the import of genetically modified foods which reduce production costs
and makes food cheaper. They continue to enlist the help of celebrities
to promote extravagant energy use: Robert Redford’s SUV, Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s Humvee, Al Gore’s Tennessee castle, Condelezza’s
trips to the Mideast and corporate jets flying movie stars and C.E.O.s
around the world.
And,
if the conservative’s theory is right, it seems to be working; the
price of gas continues to rise. The liberal bloggers, on the other hand,
blame the oil companies’ greed and point-out subsidized farmers
produced more corn just to make money, but under the guise of producing
environmentally-friendly fuel. And in the prices of over-production,
they use more oil and gas to plant and harvest! Thus the oil companies
make money on both ends which isn’t fair. Who says you can’t have it
both ways? It appears to me both sides want the price of gas to stay
high, but for their own reasons.
Which
still doesn’t explain how we can blame the global food shortage on the
oil companies OR the environmentalists. Here’s my convoluted
reasoning: Gas prices go up. People drive less, they stay home and eat
more, thereby getting fat and simultaneously reducing the world’s food
supply which then stimulates farmers to grow more grain to meet the
demand, use more fuel, so the price of gasoline stays up, forcing people
to drive less, to stay home more, eat more and get fatter which reduces
the world’s food supply which then… |
