"Other key drivers are ethnic, religious and tribal divisions many within national borders, corruption, repressive regimes, wealth disparity and a failure in some countries to more equitably share the wealth of oil revenues."

If this paragraph is put throught the filter of many recent OLO comments we end up with:

Other key drivers [of feelings of instability is the perception of] ethnic, religious and tribal divisions within Australia's borders, corruption, repressive regimes, wealth disparity and a failure to more equitably share the wealth of this country's natural resources revenues.

Hmmm...

The west might not be able to do a lot about instability in the developing world, but it can at least avoid fanning the flames.

Biofuels are increasing food prices and contributing to civil unrest. Unrest leads to death and misery. On top of that, biofuels are nothing more than a rich green indulgence. It's time the farce was ended.

Well said, Julie Bishop.

Oh if only it were that simple. Julie forgets the law of unintended
consequences. Fact is that it costs money to grow food. Oil,
fertilisers, machinery etc, all need to be paid for. As it is
farming is already one of the least profitable of industries, so
if prices went down too much, people would simply not bother growing
the stuff. In fact we could grow alot more food, if it was worth
doing.

I sold some oats a couple of weeks ago. In my pocket will land up
around 18c a kg for those oats. They will be turned into breakfast
cereal and flogged to you people for 5-8$ a kg. What they paid me
has little to do with what they charge you.

Wheat has gone from 20c a kg to 30c. That might just let farmers
scrape through another year, given near drought like conditions and
keep paying the bankers, given their 59 billion$ of debt in Australia.

If wheat remained at 20c, more of the near bankrupt farms would
have to be flogged off to the Chinese or no crop at all grown.

The ever teeming mass of people is not going to be solved by bankrupting
farming. Try some good old family planning. In places
like Yemen they still breed like rabbits. No wonder they can't feed
them all.

"Other key drivers are ethnic, religious and tribal divisionsmany within national borders, corruption, repressive regimes, wealth disparity and a failure in some countries to more equitably share the wealth of oil revenues."

Julie et al,

Australia and the U.S. are heading in the same direction, as the gap between the haves and the have-nots increases. This scenario is also exacerbated by the influx of tribal and religious refugees who hate one another in their home lands and bring this hatred to ours. Believe me, it is not going to get better.

David

What is the author advocating? Is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition advocating that more grain be converted to ethanol so that more vicious dictators are overthrown or that less be converted so people continue to starve less under brutal dictators?

I like the points Wm Trevor made as they point out the problems associated with having society composed of the 1% and the 99%.
How do the incomes of the likes of the CEO of ANZ (and other pigs at the trough executives) get usefully spent in the economy. They don't!

Basically those salaries add to inflationary pressure on asset prices and are thus a burden on those seeking houses to live in.

When BHP had some manufacturing activities, the salary ratios between the about six steps from front line supervisor to CEO was about 1.4 so the CEO reward was 6 to 8 times that of the FLS, or should have been.

Many CEO aren't geniuses and the only sure recipe for success for a large company is that it has an effective executive committee with no dictator.

It looks like Foyle and Trevor are memebers of 99% and the Occupy movement. I think the recent movie about these groups was great, espcially when the big guy with the mouth guard bashed everyone and blew up things.

Oh wait, that was that stupid Batman movie.

We should introduce our native wisteria to Africa and the Middle East. Ditto wattle!
Given both survive on the driest inhabited continent in the world, they should transfer quite well? Native wisteria is a soil improving nitrogen fixing legume that happily tolerates and improves marginal land.
As a perennial, it lasts for up to 7 years before production declines, demand replanting?
It's salt, frost and drought tolerant. The leafy foliage, I'm informed, produces an insect retardant which minimises predation, making almost naturally pest free.
The seed is oil rich and crushed, produces a virtually ready to use bio-diesel.
The ex-crush material is very high in protein, which will almost alone, support feed lots, fish farms or humans.
Wattle seed is also quite high in protein and produces a pleasantly palatable flour.
The suitable types are also very deep rooted, frost and drought tolerant, carbon absorbing perennials, that last for up to 7 years before replanting is required?
This saves fuel and or energy!
Even then, they could be turned into bio-char and added to the soil, to lock away some soil and fertility improving carbon!
Even drought affected areas in the US could grow one or both of these extremely hardy crops, for any of the applications already outlined.
This would help to sustain them and food production etc, and give then something else besides corn or highly subsidised sugar, planted in the most arable land, for bio-fuel production.
Similarly, some algae show great promise as the most nutritious foods on earth, or fuel sources that can be grown utilising thoroughly sanitized human/biological waste.
Food security will likely become more and more of an issue in the foreseeable future, and could culminate in not just regional unrest, but cross border wars.
We would be well advised to seek and obtain, total independence in both locally sourced fuel and food; or indeed, any ongoing dependence on Middle East sourced fuel!
Rhrosty.

"The level of civil unrest during the Arab Spring has not abated."

Another reason for this is that Western powers such as the USA are actively aiding the rebels, as is happening currently in Syria. Sadly, the worst affected by such unrest are the minority groups, e.g. the Christian minority, many of whose members are forced to abandon their belongings and flee for their lives.

"Part of the difficulty in reversing this trend is that ethanol production has been mandated by law making it a difficult task to return this farmland to food production."

A large part of the blame for this is attributable to the conning of politicians by the anthropogenic global warming proponents, who demand lower use of fossil fuels .

We were fortunate in NSW to get the NSW government to reverse its decision to phase out standard unleaded petrol. Had this not happened, many would have been left with machinery that could not be operated on ethanol blended petrol

Really,

This article must be drafted by someone who loves the oil industry.

Whilst the contents says - lack of food is a global instability issue ( amazing revelation)- the lead in line is totally deceptive.

"Biofuels legislation in the USA contributes to political combustibility in the rest of the world." -90% Rubbish

Biofuels are increasingly being made from non food related inputs like algae and work is moving forward on other types of non food inputs. Looks like a liberal party catch all line without analysis.

Also if you looked at the real driver of food prices it is not supply but the cost of the oil input to supply. You can add on top of that the increased climatic risks we all face as we refuse to start to limit carbon emissions.

The lead to the article effectively argues that biofuels are bad. Wrong. Some biofuels are crazy like corn based ethanol. Some are not like biodiesel made from weeds, stubble, algae etc etc

Complex says this:

"Biofuels are increasingly being made from non food related inputs like algae and work is moving forward on other types of non food inputs."

Links please. What is being described in this article is really old news with even left wing media sources subscribing to the view from some time ago:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7065061.stm

The fact that biofuels, from whatever food or 'natural' source, are still being promoted despite other problems with them other than people starving is an indictment of the corporate nature of AGW 'solutions', which in turn are a product of the crony capitalism, not capitalism per se, which sponsors AGW; some of those problems are discussed here:

http://joannenova.com.au/2010/11/unintended-consequences-greens-protect-coal-deposits-and-destroy-rainforest/#more-11855

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4756/when_renewable_is_not_sustainable

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/19/biofuels-policy-may-kill-200000-per-year-in-the-third-world/

Biofuels are emblematic of the scourge that is AGW and its 'solutions'; and I am sick of hair-brained ratbags dribbling on about how wonderful the new solutions to AGW such as "algae" are.

cohenite, have you been on the kool-aid again? Fancy citing Jo Nova and Anthony Watts as authorities on anything? If they happen to be correct, it is only ever by coincidence.

Your thesis that biofuel policy in the US was driven by AGW is totally wrong. George W Bush enacted the most recent increase in ethanol content of gas, not because of biofuels (Bush basically doesn’t accept that AGW is real), but because of energy independence. George W Bush was scared witless that the instability that he had helped perpetuate in the Middle East might mean that the US could not maintain access to enough oil and therefore gas prices would explode like they did after Hurricane Katrina.

For complex, the major driver of food prices is supply and demand, not inputs. When the cost of inputs go up farmers simply make less money. At the moment, as also happened in 2007 (but then coupled with hoarding), the problem is supply is down. This year it is down because of major droughts in the US, Russia and the Ukraine. What happened after prices increased in 2007 was that crop area sown increased dramatically the next year. Expect crop area sown to go up next year and prices to come back a bit.

A Reminder.
I brought this to your attention previously but it is worth repeating.

Eygpt has/had subsidised food prices.
The subsidy was financed by the sale of oil exports.
When Egypt's oil fields went into decline laess funds were available
for food subsidies, and then finally Eygpt became an oil importer.

The resultant rise in food prices triggered riots and led to the Arab Spring.
It really was as simple as that.

Food crop biofuels are likely to be banned in Europe and US fairly
soon, but Brazil has become a major supplier of biofuels to the US.
Brazil uses sugar cane for biofuels and having plenty of land and
cheap labour will probably be a major world supplier.

If Julie Bishop gets a report on this thread, she should try and get
her party to take seriously our liquid fuel problem.
Forget the world politician silence, it is about time politicians
acknowledge the warning that government's own bodies give them.