MyPeakOil.org

Lester Brown does us all a favor by bringing together food and fuel into the same article, and making the point that these two economic spheres are rapidly converging due to growth in demand for ethanol. I'd tweak the argument a tad by pointing out that presently about half our nation's grain goes to feeding livestock, not people. We like our beef in this country, although ever since I learned the following I have gone off the stuff: It takes about 12 kilos of grain to grow 1 kilo of cow, and if you consider just the mass of the cow that is eaten the ratio soars to 20 to 1. So if the goal is to keep grain cheap for the world's poorest, the social change we need could come on two fronts at once -- raising fuel efficiency and making other changes to the car fleet that Lester Brown calls for, but also teaching the ratios. Here's hoping to see the end of the corn-fed 18 month-to-market drooling antibiotic infused cow. Teach the ratios! And eat less beef.