headline should read "manmade global warming farce already causes price for pizza to go up"...if you are an AGW proponent, i would start getting alittle nervous stirring up some of the italians because you think ethanol is a good thing...especially, those pizza eaters with connections to sicily!!!...

When you burn a carbon based molecule in the presence of oxygen, you create CO2. It makes little difference if the molecule is octane CH3(CH2)6CH3 or ethanol C2H6O. Both have a H/C ratio of about 3.

Ethanol does produce less pollution than gasoline because of fewer impurities.

Just to clarify - ethanol fuels (and higher pizza prices) are a response to the fear and exploitation of AGW, not AGW itself. So the real solution is to mitigate the fear.

You ain't the first of probably last.

Based upon this information I would like to officially change my position that we should do all we can to stop global warming in order to save the price of pizza. Oh the humanity!

Better yet, we should gain the real insight and learn that ethanol production, as currently undertaken, is an incredibly wasteful effort and merely a feel good thing that idiotic midwestern politicians are promoting. We should really should be putting effort into coal gasification. We can't eat coal and pizza prices would stay lower using this process. Besides, if I understand it correctly, we could dang near get rid of mideastern oil imports which is a good thing all around.

This is almost as silly as the logic used by deniers to explain AGW...lol.

You're right. That is a bit of a stretch. :-)

Maybe we could come up with a "Six Degrees of Global Warming" game. I'll bet just about anything can be linked to global warming in six steps or less.

Not to mention higher shipping charges for all the ingredients due to artificial fuel taxes so we can send money to China.

Maybe we would save because the pizza ovens wouldn't have to work as hard.. (JOKE!!!!) Actually corn doesn't even exist anymore its all genetically modified organsims and its not efficient to make ethanol. I think they came up with some grasses or other gene mutations that actually make ethanol feasable. Or we should just invest in sugar cane in Brazil.

Let's see...Six Degrees of Global Warming Game...I like it...let me try...
Overweight country....Jenny Craig...Monica Lewinsky....Bill Clinton...Al Gore...Global Warming...see I knew it!

Actually, it is the Federal Mandates that are causing higher grain prices. Here's how it works, the Feds mandate a certain percentage of ethanol be available at the pumps by a certain date. Ethanol producers buy thier corn/sugar products via commodity brokers. The extra demand for these products increases the price for all who buy on the market. The price of corn/sugar go up.

As a consequence, grain farmers worldwide are switching thier crops to the more profitable corn and sugar. The global supply of oates, wheat, barely, rice, etc.. go down, which in turn increases the price of these grains.

This could have disasterous consequences for our global food supplies if these mandates continue into the future. What this means to consumers is that for every increase in the price of oil there will be an equal increase in corn and grain products as demand for ethanol will surely increase. The price of bread will be tied to the price of oil.

For the life of me, I cannot believe how ignorant our political leadership is. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Here is where the AGW hysteria can lead to very harmfull policies.

JP,

Corn prices have been artificially too LOW for years because of subsidies. Farmers were paid to overproduce and corn was sold very cheap on the global market. Conservatives often blame these subsidies as one of the causes of global hunger because farmers in the third world essentially can't compete with artificially-low prices.

The price of corn today is probably more reflective of what it SHOULD be.

Tying our global economy to oil is more disastrous in the long than any slight fluctuation in the price of wheat.

Marc,
I don't know how much you know about agriculture, commodities trading, etc... but your comment saying grain prices are about where they should be shows you have much to learn.

Ranchers this year are going into the red just to keep thier live stock fed, the small outfits that raise livestock are either going out of buisness, broke or both. Even people who own a few head of cows or horses are having to sell thier live stock because they cannot afford to feed them. Affordable hay is becoming difficult to find.

To keep a diversified food supply chain in check, nations must produce a diversified crop; however, farmers who normally would grow wheat, barley, oates and other grains are cashing in on the run on corn. In the tropical nations like Brazil and Indonesia, farmers are burning jungles in order to grow more sugar cane. The price of corn and corn futures has been sky rocketing since 2006 as there just isn't enough corn to go around. Other nations, like in Europe are turning to growing corn, while passing on thier more traditional crops like wheat, barley and rye.

In short, the ethanol program is fast turning into a disaster. It only takes one bad year to introduce a global food shortage. Hey, but that's okay; as long as the greenies can pump a few gallons of ethanol in order to make themselves feel good all is right with the world.

I hope you have a nice big garden.

Hey, but that's okay; as long as the greenies can pump a few gallons of ethanol in order to make themselves feel good all is right with the world.

The cheapshots demean you, JP -- you're better than that and smarter than that. The ethanol push isn't coming from the "greenies" or, for that matter, from very many within the community of people concerned about AGW. The net energy balance is made worse by the shift to ethanol, and the net effect on the GG is worse (because of the increased CO2 emissions required to grow, harvest, transport, and process the plant matter that produces the ethanol).

The push for ethanol is instead coming from America's Red-State heartland -- and the politicians who pander to it (from both sides of the aisle). The spurious claim is that burning made-in-America ethanol will somehow be better for America than offshore gasoline.

It's a bogus claim, and most everybody I know -- on each side of the AGW debate -- knows that it's bogus.

JP:

Well written and you are right on the money.

Just wait till there is a shortage of soy based products because of the slowdown in planting beans. It is exactly what you are saying. The rise in the price of the feed we buy for our livestock is really quite amazing.

Someone else put it succinctly, we are putting our food in the gastank. Not real intelligent.

JP,

I think you're being an alarmist, and this is a perfect example of how conservatives predict disastrous consequences for any regulation that is passed -- consequences that, of course, NEVER actually come to pass.

I view corn-based ethanol as a stopgap measure to bridge the eventual transition to cellulosic ethanol. I agree that corn-based ethanol doesn't help our situation, but I think it will spur an ethanol infrastructure in this country that will support the eventual transition to cellulosic ethanol.

Corn is being heavily used right now, but in 10 years, I don't think we'll be using much corn-based ethanol. Your dire predictions are typical of the doom-and-gloom we see out of the market fatalists on the right, but I guess we'll see if your prediction pans out.

I don't think it will.

BT,
Your are correct the Cornbelt lobby has been pusing ethanol for decades, but several groups in the past have always put on a brake on it -namely the Dept of Ag, think tanks, and of course the energy corporations. What has changed recently is:

a)The hysteria of AGW and carbon based energy
b)A significant younger generation of bureaucrats within the Executive Dept. The Dept of Ag always worries about food supply, food prices etc.. THey've always warned what ethanol would do to the ag markets, and thier predictions are already coming true.

Once the Feds install a program it is almost impossible to change or close it down. Ethanol is still an unprofitable energy source and only continues because of large subsidies and mandates. Yet, the effect the mandates are having on our ag market are already being seen -worldwide. There is a huge danger in putting so much into the production of a single crop. But currently the money is too good.

You will see the effects at the grocery soon. Actually, inflation of food products has almost doubled since 2006.

Sorry for the cheap shot, but I live in Ag land, and the changes are quite worrisome.

Apology accepted, JP.

I mostly agree with your analysis, though I might choose slightly different words to express it. Whether "hysteria" or "concern", the sadly unfortunate effect has been to make it harder for the voices of sanity about the overall economic impact of such nonsense to be heard.

It requires a certain amount of courage for any elected official to say "we face a problem for which there is no immediate and easy solution." Hence, our Cornbelt politicians -- from BOTH sides of the aisle -- jump to the quick-and-easy "buy American, buy ethanol" lie.

Part of my issue with all of this posturing is that it appears to be leading us towards the worst possible set of outcomes.

I'd much rather us devote our limited resources and energy towards a hard-eyed rational look at what common ground we agree on and what we should therefore be doing about it. Instead, we continue to squander hundreds of billions of dollars in militaristic misadventures abroad and senseless, unproductive, and ultimately trivial "debate" about "illegal immigration" at home.

BT:

Your right, we wasted way too much money in Bosnia and Serbia for no real result. If we had only invested those hundreds of billions, by now, we would have plenty of money to "fix" this little warming issue. Maybe even enough to construct the continental air conditioner.

I agree with Buzz's point. The people who believe we don't have enough information on AGW and how we shouldn't act unless we have some sort of "smoking gun" are the SAME people who were saying that Iraq had WMDs and that waiting for a smoking gun was like waiting for mushroom clouds over our cities.

Maybe if our "Intelligence" said that AGW was real, the deniers would believe it? I mean, hey, science and peer review, those are tools Communists use to try and control our lives. But "Intelligence"...that's foolproof...that's even better than a smoking gun.

Mark:

I believe that there is a great amount of info on both the climate and possible man-made influences. I just think that our ability to interpret that data is grossly inadequate. Further, even though there is a great amount of data, it is inadequate in light of the vastness of the potential.

There is a major difference between Iraq's "WMDs" and the debate over climate change. The fact that most people who wholeheartedly buy into AGW, cannot see the difference is frankly scary.

Oh, and by the way, I'll let you in on a little secret....now keep it hush, hush....it was the UN that demanded that Iraq comply with giving up their weapons. In 1997. Yep, the same UN that is held so asteemed for their great work on the climate.

Please try to keep the posts on the climate. We all went through the phase where we blamed everything on Iraq and how it compared to GW. WE don't need to do that again.

"Please try to keep the posts on the climate. We all went through the phase where we blamed everything on Iraq and how it compared to GW. WE don't need to do that again."

Ahh yes, this coming from someone who just posted about Bosnia and Serbia. I agree, Darren, you need to stay on topic.

"Oh, and by the way, I'll let you in on a little secret....now keep it hush, hush....it was the UN that demanded that Iraq comply with giving up their weapons. In 1997. Yep, the same UN that is held so asteemed for their great work on the climate."

And did we find any weapons? Nope. I guess they complied, huh?

If the IPCC report was based on the smoke and mirrors of 'intelligence', the Limbaugh crowd might actually believe it. Peer review, bad. Smoke and mirrors, good.

Mark,
You do have a point; however, not everybody who disagrees with your view point is a gun toting, right wing spokesperson for Exxon and the RNC.

When I was a weather forecaster, there was daily an early morning forecast discussion (Metcon or Meterorological conference), in which the midnight forecaster presented a rough discussion of his forecast and the reasoning behind it. It could at times get a little heated as the forecaster who was going off duty had to defend his forecast to the station chief and the oncoming shift. The Metcon did force the midnight forecaster to think through his reasoning and science -the first shift forecaster had to live with that forecast for most of his shift.

In any healthy science, the person making the assumptions, predictions, or positing theories must be able to defend his/her analysis with science. This is becoming very difficult as political considerations are now driving much of the debate; it doesn't help when many of the leading proponents say that the science is finished. The Science is never finished.

Mark:

Uh, not sure where to go with this.

First, a picture of the IPCC report is shown next to the definition of "smoke and mirrors" in Webster's dictionary. So, that being the case, the "Limbaugh" crowd should be buying into it. Their not.

Second, the Serbia post, in context, was regarding an earlier post by another on the site to show the ineppitude of that post.

Third, and I am surprised you really seem to not understand this, the UN was incorrect about WMD right? Betcha their incorrect on AGW. See, problem solved, we can all go home now. Or is that too deep an idea for this conversation.

When I was a weather forecaster, there was daily an early morning forecast discussion (Metcon or Meterorological conference), in which the midnight forecaster presented a rough discussion of his forecast and the reasoning behind it. It could at times get a little heated as the forecaster who was going off duty had to defend his forecast to the station chief and the oncoming shift. The Metcon did force the midnight forecaster to think through his reasoning and science -the first shift forecaster had to live with that forecast for most of his shift.

In any healthy science, the person making the assumptions, predictions, or positing theories must be able to defend his/her analysis with science. This is becoming very difficult as political considerations are now driving much of the debate; it doesn't help when many of the leading proponents say that the science is finished. The Science is never finished.

Presumably when you had those early morning forecast discussions, none of you had to defend the assertion that precipitation generally comes along with low pressure systems, that circulation around a low pressure system was generally counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere, or the existence and behavior of warm and cold fronts. I strongly suspect that your team would have had little patience with, for example, a team member who "found God" and asserted that, in fact, he or she relied on scripture to reveal the weather for the upcoming day. You, JP, have spent enough time on this blog so that I don't have to name names to identify our own counterparts here.

When I say that "the science is finished", I mean that, for example, the science of whether or not small changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration are capable of producing large global climate changes is similarly settled. While it is certainly true that the boundaries of science thrive on skepticism and change, it is also true that the great bulk of every-day practicing science is, in fact, very stable. There have been very few Einsteins, and none of them -- to my knowledge -- are practicing climatology today.

While we might argue about the edges of climatology, the great bulk of the theory and models that support AGW are well-established. Breathless texts from Michael Crichton, no matter how broadly proclaimed, are not "science" and do not play the same role as the early morning forecast meetings you describe.

It is no accident that a great many of the climate change deniers (not skeptics, deniers) also, on different forums, also deny the science of evolution.

Like it or not, there is a movement, spearheaded by people like Inhofe, of religiously-motivated anti-scientific fundamentalism that aggressively attacks any scientific advance -- whether it be advances in climate change, evolution, or stem-cell research. This religiously-motivated anti-science movement has a long and bloody history, reaching at least as far as the reformation.

Those of us who value science, no matter how we come down on the various questions that are in play, should -- in my opinion -- display very little tolerance for such religiously motivated ignorance and thuggery.

The stakes for all of us are too high to do anything else.

Uh, not sure where to go with this.

Apparently.

First, a picture of the IPCC report is shown next to the definition of "smoke and mirrors" in Webster's dictionary. So, that being the case, the "Limbaugh" crowd should be buying into it. Their not.

Apparently Darren also didn't understand Mark's comment. Mark wrote "if the IPCC report was based on the smoke and mirrors of 'intelligence', the Limbaugh crowd might actually believe it. Peer review, bad. Smoke and mirrors, good."

This is called "sarcasm", or perhaps "irony." It was apparently lost on Darren. Mark means that the "Limbaugh crowd" bought the "intelligence" hook, line and sinker. Mark offers the sarcastic, or perhaps ironic speculation that if the IPCC had claimed "intelligence" instead of peer-reviewed publication, perhaps the "Limbaugh crowd" would have bought the IPCC report too. Mark means that the "Limbaugh crowd" apparently accepts the smoke-and-mirrors of "intelligence" (when it supports their bias) and rejects peer-reviewed science.

I made an observation that we might be able to invest more funds in rigorous climate research if we weren't burning more than 120 BILLION DOLLARS in Iraq and the "War on Terrorism" (see, for example, a representative CBO publication). Whether this observation is inept or not is a matter of opinion. The fact remains that we are spending this money as we speak, we are NOT spending this money on climate research, and JP has done an excellent job of highlighting the deficiencies in the data available to researchers attempting to do good science. I fail to see how cheapshots about Serbia have any relevance whatsoever to thi