Tag: food

The Great Bug Protein Bust: Economic Reality Hits Hard as One Voice Wonders If Mass Insect Farming Was Cruel

The industry collapse is real and mostly economic Major outlets across the spectrum (Vox, Mother Jones) reported in early March 2026 that roughly a quarter of the ~20 largest insect-farming startups have gone bust or entered liquidation after ~$2 billion in total investment.

AI generated by Grok

The bugs-for-food industry is indeed struggling badly, and the ethical question about insect sentience isn’t new or fringe—it’s a live scientific debate that predates the current collapse. – Mother Jones

The industry collapse is real and mostly economic Major outlets across the spectrum (Vox, Mother Jones) reported in early March 2026 that roughly a quarter of the ~20 largest insect-farming startups have gone bust or entered liquidation after ~$2 billion in total investment.

Why?

Not primarily ethics or “leftist regret.” It’s straightforward economics:

  • Insect meal costs ~10× soybean meal and 3.5× fishmeal.
  • Feed, energy, and scaling problems make it uncompetitive.
  • Consumer demand for actual bug-based human food never materialized in the West (it’s mostly a novelty). The bulk of production was aimed at livestock feed, but even there the math doesn’t work well. motherjones.com

Markets rejected the “eat ze bugs” pitch faster than regulators or venture capital could prop it up. Cultural aversion to insects as staple protein is strong and persistent outside a few traditional societies.

The bugs-for-food industry (more precisely, large-scale insect farming for protein in human food or animal feed) has faced serious setbacks, with several high-profile failures driving headlines about a “collapse” in early 2026.

Key developments include:

  • French company Ÿnsect, once the sector’s flagship (raised over $600 million, backed by figures like Robert Downey Jr. and significant public funds), entered judicial liquidation in late 2025 after struggling with financing and scaling issues. Its main facility shut down, though a smaller site may pivot to fertilizer production.
  • Of the roughly 20 largest insect-farming startups (which collectively attracted around $2 billion in investment), nearly a quarter have failed or liquidated, accounting for almost half the total funding poured into the space.
  • Other projects, like a planned large Tyson Foods-backed facility in Nebraska for black soldier fly larvae, remain on hold or scaled back.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

As bugs-for-food industry ‘collapses,’ one leftist wonders if it were an unethical endeavor all along since insects might be able to feel pain

Image: Free image, Pixabay license.

From The American Thinker

By Olivia Murray

Fantastic news, and a reminder that “progressive” ideas deserve no consideration.

The good-news pieces are too far and few between, but this is one of them: Kenny Torrella at Vox (via Mother Jones) reports that the bugs-for-food industry is in a death spiral, and things are “collapsing” in grand fashion.

Feeding us bugs was “supposed to be the future,” a perfect humiliation ritual and solution to decimate what health we have left (water laced with microplastics and synthetic hormones and skies sprayed with a range of chemicals anyone?) all rolled into one, but the “global market” never showed up:

Of the 20 or so largest insect farming startups, almost a quarter have gone belly up in recent years, including the very largest, Ÿnsect, which ceased operations in December.

All told, shuttered insect farming startups account for almost half of all investment into the industry. “Things have gone from bad to worse for the big insect factory business model,” one insect farming CEO said late last year in a YouTube video.

And Vox can exclusively report that plans to build a large insect farm in Nebraska—a joint project between Tyson Foods, America’s largest meat company, and Protix, now the world’s second largest insect farming company—are indefinitely on hold.

(I wrote on that Tyson-Protix deal in 2023, an essay which can be found here.)

Now, I thought the bugs-for-food campaign was going to be successful—I’m happy to have been wrong thus far—because I’m well aware that the minds behind the scheme have an absolute arsenal of tools at their disposal to force our hands, and all the money in the world to see it through. However, I never thought the global market would come to the table willingly, and neither did Andrea Widburg, who quipped: “Bugs are for starving people living marginal existences. We’ll eat them after they make us starve; not before.”

But did they actually expect something different? How is that possible? Save a few self-loathing leftists, who in the first world prefers bugs to filet mignon or a ribeye?

Anyway, this is all well and good that things are going to poorly for the WEF crowd, but there’s another nugget in Torrella’s report that deserves attention, because it’s a good reminder that “progressive” ideas deserve no consideration or regard, and they really are the most abhorrent group of individuals:

Beyond the financial woes of the insect farming industry, some philosophers worry about the ethical implications of potentially farming tens of trillions of bugs for food, as emerging research suggests insects may well have some form of consciousness and hold the capacity to feel pain and suffer.

‘Evidence is building that there’s a form of sentience there in insects,’ Jonathan Birch, a philosopher at the London School of Economics who leads the Foundations of Animal Sentience project at the university, told me last year.

For context, we’re talking about “fly larvae, mealworms, and crickets.”

Do these two individuals lamenting over a filthy little grub’s alleged sentience and supposed “capacity to feel pain” possess the same empathy to the lives of other nascent and developing creatures? Namely…humans?!

Since Torratella works for Vox, I highly doubt it.

What kind of deluded sicko considers it a worthier crusade to defend a bug’s right to life than a precious baby’s? I could be wrong, but after a quick search online, I could not find a single defense of the unborn written by Torratella.

Now I get it, most of us probably don’t need the reminder that the left and their ideas are completely idiotic and unworthy of recognition, but I feel compelled to routinely address it lest our considerate sides get the better of us, and we get sucked into believing we’re simply all informed and well-meaning, albeit with different, but equally valid perspectives and opinions; the two sides are not equal, and these people are completely unable to positively participate in the real world.

Climate Medical Quackery Exposed

Human health, morbidity, mortality and longevity are significantly impacted by climate. This review examines the evidence for past, present and possible future human health impacts of climate change and its ramifications. It will also examine the health impacts of different energy sources and climate actions. It will not examine every link in the literature to a range of conditions where attribution is implausible or tenuous, or where association assumes causation.

A cartoon depiction of a smiling CO2 molecule character chasing three frightened young adults in a grassy field, illustrating a humorous take on climate change concerns.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

A humorous illustration depicting the evolution of quackery in medicine, showing stages from folk medicine to climate medicine, with cartoonish figures representing each stage.

The following 65 page report was Submitted September 19, 2025 by physicians Dr. D. Weston Allen, Dr. Jan Breslow, and Dr. Daniel Nebert CO2 Coalition Comment on Reconsideration of 2009 Endangerment Finding and Greenhouse Gas Vehicle Standards  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Table of Contents
Climate Change and Health …………………………………………………………………………………… 3
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3
Warmth, Wealth and Health……………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Temperature, Morbidity and Mortality ………………………………………………………………….. 6
Future Warming ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 10
Temperature Extremes…………………………………………………………………………………….. 12
Temperature and Disease Vectors………………………………………………………………………. 15
Extreme Weather Events………………………………………………………………………………….. 24
Food, Famine, Climate and CO2 ………………………………………………………………………….. 33
Mental Health……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 37
Energy Sources and Health……………………………………………………………………………….. 39
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 44
References……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 45

Some examples of Climate Medical Mischief

Introduction

Human health, morbidity, mortality and longevity are significantly impacted by climate. This review examines the evidence for past, present and possible future human health impacts of climate change and its ramifications. It will also examine the health impacts of different energy sources and climate actions. It will not examine every link in the literature to a range of conditions where attribution is implausible or tenuous, or where association assumes causation.

Warmth, Wealth and Health

Davis et al (2003)23 found a 74.4% decline in heat-related mortality in 28 of the largest U.S. cities from 1964 to 1998 and estimated that another 1⁰C increase would further reduce the net mortality rate.24 Analyzing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries, Gasparrini et al (2015)25 found that cold weather was over 17 times more lethal than hot weather: 7.3% of all deaths due to cold and 0.42% from heat. Masselot et al (2023) found cold weather to be ten times more lethal than hot weather across Europe and forty times more so in northern Europe.26 Their visual display of this difference (Fig. 1) was camouflaged by making the X-axis for heat-related deaths 5.6 times greater than the X-axis for cold-related deaths!

Bar graph comparing cold and heat-related deaths across different age groups and European countries, showing higher excess death rates from cold than heat.
Figure 1: Temperature-related mortality in European cities from Masselot et al. 2023 (A) As depicted in the Lancet (B) Identical X-axis for heat and cold, corrected by the CO2 Coalition
Temperature and Diseases

Cholera, which afflicts 3-5 million people and kills about 100,000 annually,76 is now confined to developing countries in the tropics and subtropics (Fig. 5). When an epidemic broke out in London in 1848, Dr. John Snow performed the world’s first epidemiological studies in linking Itto contaminated water. Nearly a century and a half later, a paper in the prestigious journal Science77 linked a 1991 outbreak in South America to climate change. The real cause, however, was a failure of the Peruvian authorities to properly chlorinate water supplies.78 Climate change can be a convenient scapegoat for government failure!

World map showing countries reporting cholera deaths and imported cases in 2016, with regions color-coded based on the number of deaths.
Temperature Extremes

Deadly heatwaves such as the European one in 2003 are often attributed to climate change.93
Temperatures elsewhere across the globe at the time, however, were normal or below normal (Fig.
7).94

Global map depicting temperature anomalies, with various color gradients illustrating areas of differing temperature changes.
Figure 7: Global tropospheric temperature anomalies, June-August 2003. Source: Chase et al. (2006)

The 1936 North American heatwave during the Dust Bowl decade set record temperatures across 14 states, reaching 49⁰C in Steele, North Dakota, and killed at least 5,000 people.99 The 1954 summer-long heatwave across the Midwest, reaching 117⁰F (47.2⁰C) in East St Louis, ranks as the hottest in 11 states (Fig. 8) based on an analysis of Midwest temperature records from 1845 to 2009.100 Nancy Westcott (2011) also found a reducing trend of heatwaves over the 20th century.

Map showing the ranking of heatwaves across the United States in 1954, with a color gradient indicating the severity of heat experienced in different regions.
Figure 8: Rank of the June–September 1954 heat wave based on National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) climate division temperature data for the years 1895–2009. Source: Westcott (2011)
Temperature and Disease Vectors

West Nile Virus (WNV) was first identified in a West Nile district of Uganda in 1937. It is asymptomatic in 80% of infected people but can cause severe encephalitis or meningitis in about 1 in 150 infected persons, especially the elderly or immunocompromised. It is transmitted by a Culex species of mosquito that has bitten an infected bird (not human). Appearing in New York in 1999 and spreading across the states taking hundreds of lives, it was soon linked to climate change. 173 174 But its rapid spread from northeast to the south and west (Fig. 12) and its decline despite warming (Figs. 13 and 14) indicates that the vector was already there and climate change had nothing to do with that.

A series of maps showing the spread of the West Nile Virus across the United States from 1999 to 2003, highlighting changes in states affected each year.
Figure 12: Progress of WNV in the U.S. 1999-2003. White 0, Blue <1%, Green1-5%, Yellow 5-10%, Red >10%
Food, Famine, Climate and CO2

In his 1968 book The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich predicted widespread famine with hundreds of millions starving to death in the 1970s, but the death toll declined as the population grew
(Fig. 27).

Bar graph illustrating global population growth and death toll from great famines from 1900 to 2015, with world population shown in green bars and mortality from famines in an orange line.

The U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research matched satellite-based observations of outdoor CO2 levels across the U.S. with county-level agricultural output data and other economic variables and concluded that CO2 emissions had boosted U.S. crop production since 1940 by 50 to 80%, much larger than previous estimations using FACE experiments, and found that every ppm of increase in CO2 boosts corn yields by 0.5%, soybeans by 0.6%, and wheat by 0.8 % (Fig. 29).305

Graph showing the relationship between agricultural yields and CO2 levels from 1866 to 2021, with lines representing corn, soybeans, and wheat yields relative to 1940.
Figure 29: U.S. average CO2 levels and yields of corn, soy and wheat all normalized so 1940=100. Source: Taylor and Schlenker (2023)
Chart comparing global crop yields from 1961 to 2023, displaying trends in banana, potato, cassava, maize, rice, wheat, and other crops.

Mental Health

A cartoon depicting two characters standing on a bridge holding various signs. One sign reads 'EARTH WILL be UN-INHABITABLE in X YEARS', while another character expresses confusion about the situation. The scene humorously critiques climate change alarmism.

Dire predictions are often based on flawed models, exaggerations, wild imaginations and a failure to factor in human ingenuity.335 Predictions made in the 1970s of an impending ice age, falling crop yields, increasing global famine, advancing deserts, a pesticide-induced cancer epidemic, of oil, gas and other resources rapidly running out, were not only wrong but the very opposite has happened.

A timeline illustrating failed predictions related to climate change, including events like 'Dire famine by 75', 'New Ice Age by 2000', and 'World will end in 12 years', accompanied by images of activists.

More recent predictions of malaria spreading across the globe, Arctic ice disappearing by 2013, increasing droughts and tropical cyclones have all failed to materialize. Indeed, the world has never been safer than now (Fig. 30).

Bar graph showing decadal average death rates from natural disasters worldwide, measured per 100,000 people, with categories including droughts, floods, earthquakes, storms, extreme temperatures, volcanic activity, and wildfires from 1900 to 2020.

The academic left first quarreled with science339 before capturing, corrupting and politicizing it. They then ignored quantitative uncertainties343 to contrive a catastrophic climate change consensus, calling sceptics deniers and inventing a climate crisis and global boiling to foster fear, funding and a rush to renewables. Anthropocentric purists prohibit alternative diagnoses, prognoses, priorities or remedies and suspect fossil fuel funding behind anyone challenging “The Science”. Climate change does impact the poorest the most but, as we shall see in the next section, a lucrative climate industry makes them even poorer and more vulnerable.

A cartoon depicting a train labeled 'Gravy Train' with a conductor humorously steering it, carrying a large bowl labeled 'Climate Crisis Inc.' and displaying the words 'Pols' and 'IPCC'.

Conclusion

Warmth is good for human health and prosperity. Fossil fuels have played a vital role in providing the wealth essential for health and environmental protection. They have also boosted atmospheric CO2 and added a little warmth, both being hitherto beneficial overall for plants and people. The ingenuity of Homo sapiens at adapting to climate has permitted people to populate almost the entire globe from the freezing Arctic to the steamy tropics. If we stick to doing what we do best – adaptation – we will continue to thrive.

We must be prepared not only for global warming, but also for global cooling,
which will surely occur as our present warm Holocene draws to its inevitable end.

Graph depicting the Tropics to Pole temperature gradient, showing varying global mean temperatures and corresponding temperature ranges at different geographical positions from pole to pole.

Human health and that of the planet depends on balancing productivity and development with conservation and environmental protection. Only developed countries with people lifted out of poverty can afford to produce clean energy, protect the environment, put power lines underground, construct buildings with 5-star energy ratings and use efficient lighting/appliances to minimize energy and water use, provide adequate safe water supplies and effective public health measures to control communicable diseases. It is vital that governments focus on real pollutants, not imagined ones, and that they avoid using climate change as a scapegoat for failure to implement sound public health policies and proven preventive measures. Misguided climate action can be worse than unmitigated climate change.

The 2014 IPCC Summary for Policymakers nicely summed it up:

“The most effective vulnerability reduction measures for health in the near term are programs that implement and improve basic public health measures such as provision of clean water and sanitation, secure essential health care including vaccination and child health services, increase capacity for disaster preparedness and response, and alleviate poverty (very high confidence).”

Bar graph illustrating projected costs for tackling climate change, showing three figures: $85 trillion (global economic output in 2020), $98 trillion (investment previously estimated by 2050), and $131 trillion (investment required to address climate change by 2050).

Guardian Downgrades the Climate Crisis, Chemical Pollution a “Comparable” Threat

Amazing how many other problems are just as important as the crisis of our time.

Three women sit by a polluted river bank, observing industrial smoke stacks releasing dark smoke into the sky, surrounded by trash and debris in the water.

From Watts Up With That?

By Eric Worrall

Amazing how many other problems are just as important as the crisis of our time.

Chemical pollution a threat comparable to climate change, scientists warn

More than 100 million ‘novel entity’ chemicals are in circulation, with health impact not widely recognised

Damien Gayle Wed 6 Aug 2025 14.00 AEST

Chemical pollution is “a threat to the thriving of humans and nature of a similar order as climate change” but decades behind global heating in terms of public awareness and action, a report has warned.

The industrial economy has created more than 100 million “novel entities”, or chemicals not found in nature, with somewhere between 40,000 and 350,000 in commercial use and production, the report says. But the environmental and human health effects of this widespread contamination of the biosphere are not widely appreciated, in spite of a growing body of evidence linking chemical toxicity with effects ranging from ADHD to infertility to cancer.

“I suppose that’s the biggest surprise for some people,” Harry Macpherson, senior climate associate at Deep Science Ventures (DSV), which carried out the research, told the Guardian.

“Maybe people think that when you walk down the street breathing the air; you drink your water, you eat your food; you use your personal care products, your shampoo, cleaning products for your house, the furniture in your house; a lot of people assume that there’s really great knowledge and huge due diligence on the chemical safety of these things. But it really isn’t the case.”

…

Currently, chemical toxicity as an environmental issue receives just a fraction of the funding that is devoted to climate change, a disproportionality that Macpherson says should change. “We obviously don’t want less funding going into the climate and the atmosphere,” he said. “But this we think – really, proportionally – needs more attention.”

…Read more: 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/06/chemical-pollution-threat-comparable-climate-change-scientists-warn-novel-entities

The report “Toxicity: The Invisible Tsunami” is apparently available here, but as of the time of writing their website was unresponsive.

If this “Invisible Tsunami” of toxic chemicals is having an impact on human health, it is certainly not showing up in any life expectancy graphs I’ve seen.

Line graph depicting global life expectancy trends from 1543 to 2015, showing growth in life expectancy over the centuries.

I’m not suggesting that chemical toxicity is something which should be ignored, there are good reasons why dangerous poisons like Thallium rat bait and Tetra-ethyl lead fuel additives were discontinued. But spending huge money monitoring every imaginable chemical, that money has to come from somewhere. Spending billions of dollars on a wild goose chase, making life less affordable for people who are already struggling, would itself have a substantial large-scale impact on human health.

Genetic tweak to three key crops massively boosts their growth

Global demand for food may rise by 60% mid-century. A central challenge is to meet this need using less land in a changing climate. Nearly all crop carbon is assimilated through Rubisco, which is catalytically slow, reactive with oxygen, and a major component of leaf nitrogen.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Philip Bratby

Who would have thought!

Global demand for food may rise by 60% mid-century. A central challenge is to meet this need using less land in a changing climate. Nearly all crop carbon is assimilated through Rubisco, which is catalytically slow, reactive with oxygen, and a major component of leaf nitrogen.

Developing more efficient forms of Rubisco, or engineering CO2 concentrating mechanisms into C3 crops to competitively repress oxygenation, are major endeavors, which could hugely increase photosynthetic productivity (≥ 60%).

New technologies are bringing this closer, but improvements remain in the discovery phase and have not been reduced to practice. A simpler shorter-term strategy that could fill this time gap, but with smaller productivity increases (c. 10%) is to increase leaf Rubisco content.

This has been demonstrated in initial field trials, improving the productivity of C3 and C4 crops.

Combining three-dimensional leaf canopies with metabolic models infers that a 20% increase in Rubisco increases canopy photosynthesis by 14% in sugarcane (C4) and 9% in soybean (C3).

This is consistent with observed productivity increases in rice, maize, sorghum and sugarcane. Upregulation of Rubisco is calculated not to require more nitrogen per unit yield and although achieved transgenically to date, might be achieved using gene editing to produce transgene-free gain of function mutations or using breeding.

https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.20298

All a bit arcane!

But this is what it really means in English, as revealed by New Scientist:

A simple change to maize, sorghum and sugarcane that allows them to take advantage of rising CO2 levels can boost their growth by around a fifth.

The growth of maize, sugarcane and sorghum has been greatly boosted by modifying the plants to take advantage of higher carbon dioxide levels now found in the air.

This was done by simply increasing the activity of two genes, says Coralie Salesse-Smith at the University of Illinois. The finding should lead to the creation of new varieties whose yields go up as CO2 levels continue to rise.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2460964-genetic-tweak-to-three-key-crops-massively-boosts-their-growth

Thank you Coralie and your colleagues.

You are doing what proper scientists have always done in the past, and should be doing now. Contributing to the knowledge of how the world works, and finding ways to make all of our lives better.

You shame the bunch of charlatans and cowboys, who hide behind their fake computer models and tell us we are destroying the planet.

Turning Food into Jet Fuel

From Watts Up With That?

Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen — 6 December 2023

One of the absolutely nuttier ideas to come out of the climate change / anti-fossil fuels mania of modern times comes from the international airlines business.  They are being pushed by governments and getting  unending pressure to signal their virtue by visibly climbing aboard the “Stop Fossil Fuels Now” bandwagon.  The hitch is, as we all know, is that airplanes need fuel to fly and currently, fossil fuels are the only choice.

But, thanks to the venerable Old Gray Lady, we are now informed, with interactive media,  that:

“Airlines Race Toward a Future of Powering Their Jets with Corn”

“Carriers want to replace jet fuel with ethanol to fight global warming. That would require lots of corn, and lots of water.”

The headline is simultaneously literal and tongue-in-cheek – the (I am fighting the urge to use the phrase “corny idea”) concept is to replace the more usual jet fuels  with ethanol made from corn. 

“Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula CH3CH2OH. It is an alcohol, with its formula also written as C2H5OH, C2H6O or EtOH, where Et stands for ethyl. Ethanol is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid with a characteristic wine-like odor and pungent taste. It is a psychoactive recreational drug, and the active ingredient in alcoholic drinks.”  [ source The Wiki ]

 Ethanol is “alcohol” of the same type one finds in their whiskey, vodka, gin, moonshine, beer and now fruit drinks.  

Ethanol is a fairly simple hydrocarbon composed entirely of Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen.   Products of its complete combustion are CO2 and H2O.

“Wait,” you say, “replacing fossil fuels with ethanol will still produce CO2?”  Of course it will, they are both, jet fuels and ethanol, primarily hydrocarbons. 

So why make the switch?  Already, in the U.S.A., “Today, nearly 40 percent of America’s corn crop is turned into ethanol, up from around 10 percent in the mid-2000s. This was largely because of government mandates that began in 2005 requiring gasoline to be mixed with minimum amounts of renewable fuel.” [ NY Times, linked article – hereafter just NYT ]

How much ethanol are they talking about for automotive gasoline each year?  “14 billion gallons”.  “….the 135 billion gallons of finished motor gasoline consumed in the United States contained about 14 billion gallons of fuel ethanol.”  [ source – US EIA ]

How much fossil fuel-based jet fuel is burned each year?  In 2019 commercial 95 billion gallons of jet fuel were consumed. [ source ]. The Covid panic reduced that somewhat, but the total is expected to reach that again this year.

To replace all of the fossil-fuel-based jet fuel would require, if all things were equal (which they are not) another 95 billion gallons of ethanol.

The U.S. already uses up to 40% of its total corn crop to produce the measly 14 billion gallons of ethanol mixed into gasoline.  It would take 250% of today’s total U.S.  corn crop [ something wrong with my math here – a little help? – kh ] to produce the 95 billions gallons of ethanol to replace jet fuels – not even considering the number of additional ethanol plans that would be needed.  Of course, the U.S. need not carry the whole ethanol load necessary to replace worldwide jet fuel use, but it gives us some idea of the magnitude of the suggestion.

In acreage of land planted in corn, that would be an increase from 100 million acres to 250 million acres.  Much of that acreage would have to be irrigated and aquifers in the mid-west corn belt are famously overtaxed already.

Other sugar crops such as sugar cane and sugar beets can be used to make ethanol using the same processes as for corn.  Ethanol can also be produced from almost any plant materials even  cellulosic feedstocks, such as crop residues and wood—though this is not as common. 

But wait, there’s more:  ethanol does not contain the same amount of energy per gallon as jet fuel. 

Jet Fuel contain approximately 135,000 BTUs per gallon.  Ethanol contains only 76,330 Btu/gallon which is only 56% of the energy in jet fuel.  Thus, many more gallons of ethanol will be needed – around 130 billion gallons of ethanol to replace the 95 billion gallons of jet fuel.

On the CO2 emissions side, burning 1 kg of jet fuel produces about 9.3 kg of CO2 whereas burning 1 kg of ethanol only produces 5.7 kg of CO2.  That’s about 2/3s as much CO2 per kg….but, as above, ethanol doesn’t have as much energy per kg (or BTUs per gallon) as jet fuel – only about 2/3s as much, to the actual reduction in CO2 has to be calculated taking into account the extra ethanol that has to be burned or the same energy return. 

Then there is the idea of burning food to power jet airplanes.  Of the world’s current 8 billion humans, just under 10% do not get enough food to eat – do not get enough basic calories, not to mention vitamins, proteins, micro-nutrients – they just plain do not get enough food.  Corn is good food.  Land used to grow corn for jet fuel could grow other food or other basics grains which, if transported to areas of need, would help resolve that problem.  Corn and other grains are also food for animals raised as food – chickens, pigs, cattle, sheep, rabbits and goats that provide high quality protein around the world. 

Remember, because this idea touches on the topics of fossil fuels, the environment, agriculture, animals as food and fresh water use, there is and will be a great deal of controversy.

Bottom Lines:

1.  It is my opinion that it is ill-advised, bordering on criminally negligent, to convert much needed food into fuels for cars or for airplanes, when so many people are in want of basic calories.

2.  Whether or not any real world net reduction in CO2  would result from a shift from jet fuels to ethanol in air transportation is questionable.  

3.  Arable land is just too precious to be wasted in the misguided effort to grow corn in order to replace jet fuel with ethanol – given that arable land could be used to grow better food for the underfed peoples of the world.  

# # # # #

Author’s Comment:

In short, growing five times more corn so that it can be turned into ethanol is just a stinking rotten idea when there are plentiful fossil fuels.

Revisiting the idea if and when fossil fuels ‘run out’ might get my vote – but I doubt it.

If we must, for some as yet unknown reason, restrict emission from airplanes, then forbidding our governments from flying politicians around the world all the time would be my first suggestion.  Junketing businessmen and women would be next on the list – let them have video conferences. 

OK, in truth, whole books and journals full of research would be needed to cover this topic and do it justice.  I’m just sticking with “Bad Idea”.

Thanks for reading.

Watch: Morano talking ‘climate emergency’ on Laura Ingraham on Fox: ‘This is the intentional collapse of our energy, transportation & food’ with no ‘vote of Congress’ involved

A guest on Fox News said that Republicans in the Senate have not reacted to the threat of a “climate emergency” declaration from President Joe Biden.

From Climate Depot

By Marc Morano

Fox News Channel – The Ingraham Angle w/ Laura Ingraham – Broadcast September 29, 2023

‘Real Teeth Behind It’: Fox Guest Says GOP Senators Have Been Silent On Possible Biden Climate Emergency Declaration

By HAROLD HUTCHISON

A guest on Fox News said that Republicans in the Senate have not reacted to the threat of a “climate emergency” declaration from President Joe Biden.

Biden administration officials considered a “climate emergency” initiative in July 2022, according to emails released following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Energy Policy Advocates. Left-wing Democrats called on Biden to declare a “climate emergency” in June, citing wildfires in Canada that caused smoke to drift into the eastern United States, Bloomberg News reported. (RELATED: ‘Electric Cars Are Losing Us Money’: UAW Member Slams Biden’s Push For EVs)

WATCH:

“If I was a senator, I would be burning the place down making the point that the Biden administration is trying to destroy this country through climate policy, but Republicans don’t seem to be too exercised about it,” Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com told Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

Biden cancelled oil leases in Alaska granted late in the Trump administration, according to CBS, while proposing new regulations to limit energy production. Biden considered declaring a climate emergency in 2022, but did not do so.

“The most significant thing was the message of all the protesters in the streets of New York City urging Joe Biden to declare a national climate emergency. Now, that just sounds like a slogan, but there is real teeth behind it,” Marc Morano told Ingraham. “The Covid emergency declaration made the climate activists jealous. We had a Teen Vogue activist, Jamie Margolis say, if we can shut down the world for a virus we can do the same thing for climate. That’s exactly what they want to do.”

“The Center for Biological Diversity has estimated that Joe Biden will get 130 new executive powers by which to bypass democracy if this climate emergency declaration goes through,” Morano continued. “They will be able to literally have no vote in Congress to impose this agenda on us, just like Covid.”

#

Laura Ingraham opening segment on elites Pushing climate

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Marc Morano Says RFK Jr. Has the Best Answer on Climate Change Among Presidential Candidates

ranscript

INGRAHAM: “Shouldn’t whoever the nominee is going to be — it might be Trump, it probably will be Trump at this point, could be DeSantis or maybe someone else — this should be front and center every single day. ‘I’m going to get gas down to about — by the time I’m done, it’s going to be $2.25 a gallon again.’ Yes? Isn’t that a winner issue?”
MORANO: “Just run on the fact that we’re not going to ban gas-powered cars. No one voted for it. It’s not going to happen. You tell the automakers that and you tell the consumers.”

INGRAHAM: “They’re killing the UAW. The EVs are killing the UAW, they’re killing the auto industry.”

MORANO: “And corporate banks are now saying they won’t give car loans to people who buy gas-powered cars. The World Bank isn’t going to allow financing at the automaker level, according to Nicholas Stern. This is the world which we face and the Republicans need to get their game up and fight this.”

MILLOY: “So we’ll see, you know, next week at the debate, whether any Republicans are going to be serious about this. You know, at the last debate Vivek had good answers, DeSantis had good answers. But after that, it just all kind of goes into —
“
INGRAHAM: “ — generalities. Just like cliches and generalities. We’ve got to get specific on this.”

MORANO: “I’ll tell you who has the best answers. RFK Jr. He actually says — forget anything else you know about him — he says, ‘I won’t talk about climate change because it’s been hijacked by the World Economic Forum and the U.N. for totalitarian control of society.’”

INGRAHAM: “As long as we’re making China rich, don’t tell me me we are fighting climate change. I mean, they’re not serious about any of that. Great to see both of you. Thank you so much.”

MORANO: “Thank you.”

https://x.com/JunkScience/status/1704296473448341769?s=20

Europeans war against food ignores water pollution

According to the World Health Organization, 31 million Europeans have no access to public sanitation and 48 million do not have piped water at home. At least 300,000 Europeans follow San Francisco’s practice of defecating openly – but in the countryside rather on public streets. But just as in the United States, water quality has taken a back seat to “climate change.”

From CFACT

By Duggan Flanakin

Organic vegetables. Mangold in farmers hands

According to the World Health Organization, 31 million Europeans have no access to public sanitation and 48 million do not have piped water at home. At least 300,000 Europeans follow San Francisco’s practice of defecating openly – but in the countryside rather on public streets. But just as in the United States, water quality has taken a back seat to “climate change.”

On another front, the European Commission has adopted a “Sustainable EU Food System,” an initiative that intends to set agricultural policies for European farmers from the top down – by bureaucrats most of whom have never plowed a field. The Czech-based Society for Animals commented that a mandatory sustainable food system framework must cover areas related to the environment, climate, water, air, soil, the impact on farmed animals for food – as well as trade, transport, economic instruments, and strict food import rules.No farmers need apply.

Meanwhile, in once-prosperous Europe, the European Environmental Bureau reported in 2021 that over a fifth of all Europeans were at risk of falling into poverty or social exclusion because food is seen as a commodity and not a human right. Only bureaucrats can save Europe, they add. No foodneed be consulted.

The EEB declared that “it is absurd to expect that simply giving people information about the nutrition or sustainability credentials of food and relying on them (the people) to make the ‘right’ choice” is no match for the evils in the “food environment” manufactured by market forces. Only if policymakers “step up to their role as defenders of the public good,” using “all policy instruments at their disposal,” is there hope that European eating habits will be conformeed to the bureaucrats’ demands.

Chief among the bureaucratic “solutions” is the claim that “Europe has a moral responsibility to reduce the land and resources needed for our own food consumption.” The reason? We, they tell us, are living “in a world where fertile land is dwindling due to climate change and environmental degradation and global population is increasing.”

Curiously, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported in 2021 that the global value generated by agriculture, forestry, and fishing grew by 73 percent in real terms between 2000 and 2019, and total production of primary crops grew by 53 percent during the same period. Agriculture, they noted, employs 27 percent of the global workforce. [Real world fact: Increased levels of carbon dioxide over the past three decades have caused an 11 percent increase in green foliage over the globe’s arid regions.]

Part of this grand scheme has already been playing out in the Netherlands, where the government in 2022 announced a plan to buy up and close down up to 3,000 farms “near environmentally sensitive areas” to comply with European Union nature preservation rules. Specifically, agriculture is responsible for about half of nitrogen emissions that are alleged to be causing the disappearance of native species.

The European People’s Party stood up for the farmers, calling agriculture a “strategic sector” that delivers food security in Europe and beyond and plays a crucial role for the vitality and economies of rural communities.

The EPP set its sights against the proposed Nature Restoration law, noting that the implementation of existing nature legislation has led to bureaucratic nightmares and planning deadlocks that have endangered rural economic viability, food security, renewable energy production, and crucial infrastructure. Such laws, said the EPP, are a direct assault on property rights, and taking 10 percent of farmland out of production would be extremely irresponsible.

In March, to the chagrin of the planners, the farmer-citizen movement (BBB), created in 2019 in the wake of widespread farmer protests (tractors blocking highways, for example), won 15 seats in the Dutch Senate with almost 20 percent of the vote. The BBB’s aim is to fight the government plan to force farmers off their lands, reduce livestock and crop production – that is, to protect their livelihoods from the foibles of urban disrespect for those who feed them.

The battle is on in Europe for the future of farming – and in a world dominated by urban politics, farmers and other rural residents whose livelihoods for centuries have been intertwined with those of farmers are viewed as just “not with it.” After all, urbanites today eat heavily processed foods and are being introduced to such delicacies as artificial meat and crickets.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Biden Administration is continuing his former boss’ war on agriculture. According to a “study” funded by a $10 million grant back in the Obama years, fine particulates (dust and soot emissions) from farm operations are killing 17,000 Americans annually. Poppycock, says the Union of Concerned Scientists, citing other studies claiming fine particulates kill between 100,000 and 200,000 people a year. Back in 2011 EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson claimed fine particulates were responsible for a fifth of all U.S. deaths.

In both Europe and the U.S., the eagerness of urban “intellectuals” (bureaucrats) to attack farmers and rural residents has increased as globalist institutions have grown in wealth and power. Concentrated power is easier for the very wealthy to influence, and just as with the pharmaceutical industry’s vaccine gambits surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, the rules government creates always seem to benefit the rich at the expense of the common people.

There is little profit to the wealthy in replacing aging water and wastewater and sewer lines, cleaning rivers and streams of accumulated pollution, or even providing running water to those in isolated communities. To the bureaucrat, there is nothing sexy about enabling the hoi polloi to enjoy water recreation in cleaned up lakes and streams. The regulations they impose on farmers and rural areas do not affect their lives.

In Europe and America – and in developing nations as well – people who live on and from the land are fighting to protect their homes and families from the “wisdom” of urban elites. This is, ultimately, the great battle of our day. [Note: AIs require neither food nor water for sustenance.]

Author

  • Duggan FlanakinDuggan Flanakin
  • Duggan Flanakin is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.
  • A former Senior Fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Mr. Flanakin authored definitive works on the creation of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and on environmental education in Texas. A brief history of his multifaceted career appears in his book, “Infinite Galaxies: Poems from the Dugout.”

Morano speaking tour exposes Great Reset and climate agenda

“Now, the Biden Administration is pushing the U.S. into a WHO pandemic treaty where it won’t matter who your Governor is, who your mayor is, this will be pushing Global instant lockdowns.”

From  CFACT

By Adam Houser 

CFACT’s Marc Morano has embarked upon an international speaking tour to expose the Great Reset and climate change agenda. Morano has spoken to events in Calgary, Canada, Orlando, Houston, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg.

More speaking engagements are also planned for the future.

Morano signs copies of his book, “Green Fraud” at a speaking engagement.

The speeches are drawn from the information compiled in Morano’s recent new books, “Green Fraud: Why the Green New Deal is Even Worse Than You Think,” and “The Great Reset: Global Elites and the Permanent Lockdown.”

CFACT is dedicated to fighting the Great Reset agenda, which has morphed into incorporating radical climate change measures to control every aspect of life in the name “sustainability” and to stop the so-called “climate crisis.”

Morano explained in Calgary that the “once free West is copying China’s one-party tyranny” by pursuing climate change regulations that limit freedom such as gas stove bans, and gas-powered car bans.

Morano addresses the Rotary Club of Houston on the climate and Great Reset agenda.

At the event in Harrisburg, PA, Morano spoke to the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, saying:

“The Great Reset essentially is restricting energy, food, transportation, Free Speech, property ownership, and collapsing our financial system…They’re collapsing high-yield agriculture in the Netherlands and other places. They’re making food scarce. The Harvard School of Public Health: The root causes of the climate also increase the risk of pandemics. So if you don’t support the Green New Deal, you’re a grandma killer! And that’s coming from Harvard University. This is Harvard as well. The Harvard Environment Law Review — this paper just came out this week. Climate homicide deaths for prosecuting big oil for climate deaths. Two years ago, a doctor issued the first clinically diagnosed patient with climate change — a lady suffering  from heat stroke. So you can be charged with homicide; A doctor can diagnose you with climate change;  and you can now have climate as a cause of death on your death certificate. I’m not making any of this up. This is in our academic mainstream now. Of course, the last hundred years of climate change has at a 99% drop in climate-related deaths.

“Now, the Biden Administration is pushing the U.S. into a WHO pandemic treaty where it won’t matter who your Governor is, who your mayor is, this will be pushing Global instant lockdowns.”

CFACT and Morano will continue to work tirelessly to educate the grassroots leaders and political officials across America and Canada so they are well-equipped to fight back against the anti-freedom Great Reset agenda.

Author

  • Adam HouserAdam Houser
  • Adam Houser coordinates student leaders as National Director of CFACT’s collegians program and writes on issues of climate and energy.