[News] Fidel - 3 billion people condemned to death from hunger and thirst
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Fri Mar 30 08:59:09 EDT 2007
GRANMA
March 28, 2007
OFFICIAL TRANSLATION
Reflections from the Commander-in-Chief
MORE THAN THREE BILLION PEOPLE IN THE WORLD ARE BEING
CONDEMEND TO A PREMATURE DEATH FROM HUNGER AND THIRST.
It is not an exaggeration; this is rather a conservative
figure. I have meditated for quite a long time on that
after the meeting held by President Bush with the US
automakers.
The sinister idea of turning foodstuffs into fuel was
definitely established as the economic strategy of the US
foreign policy on Monday, March 26th last.
A wire service issued by the AP, a US information agency
with world-wide coverage, literally reads:
WASHINGTON (AP), March 26 - President Bush touted the
benefits of "flexible fuel" vehicles running on ethanol
and biodiesel on Monday, meeting with automakers to boost
support for his energy plans. Bush said a commitment by
the leaders of the domestic auto industry to double their
production of flex-fuel vehicles could help motorists
shift away from gasoline and reduce the nation's reliance
on imported oil.
"That's a major technological breakthrough for the
country," Bush said after inspecting three alternative
vehicles. If the nation wants to reduce gasoline use, he
said "the consumer has got to be in a position to make a
rational choice."
The president urged Congress to "move expeditiously" on
legislation the administration recently proposed to
require the use of 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels
by 2017 and seek higher fuel economy standards for
automobiles.
Bush met with General Motors Corp. chairman and chief
executive Rick Wagoner, Ford Motor Co. chief executive
Alan Mulally and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group chief
executive Tom LaSorda. They discussed support for
flex-fuel vehicles, attempts to develop ethanol from
alternative sources like switchgrass and wood chips and
the administration's proposal to reduce gas consumption by
20 percent in 10 years.
The discussions came amid rising gasoline prices. The
latest Lundberg Survey found the nationwide average for
gasoline has risen 6 cents per gallon in the past two
weeks to $2.61. I think that reducing and recycling all
fuel and electricity operated engines is an urgent and
elemental necessity of all humanity. The dilemma is not in
the reduction of energy costs, but in the idea of turning
foodstuffs into fuel.
Today we know with accurate precision that one ton of corn
can only render as an average 413 liters of ethanol (109
gallons), a figure that may vary according to the
latter's density. The average price of corn in US ports
has reached 167 dollars per ton. The production of 35
billion gallons of ethanol requires 320 million tons of
corn. According to FAO, US corn production in 2005
reached 280.2 million tons.
Even if the President is speaking about producing fuel
out of switchgrass or wood chips, any person could
understand that these phrases are far from realistic.
Listen well: 35 billion gallons, 35 followed by nine
zeros!
Beautiful examples of the productivity of men per hectare
achieved by the experienced and well organized US farmers
will come next: corn will be turned into ethanol; corn
wastes will be turned into animal fodder, with a 26
percent of proteins; cattle manure will be used as raw
material for the production of gas. Of course, all of
this will happen after a great number of investments,
which could only be afforded by the most powerful
companies whose operations are based on the consumption
of electricity and fuel. Let this formula be applied to
the Third World countries, and the world will see how many
hungry people on this planet will cease to consume corn.
What is worse, let the poor countries receive some
financing to produce ethanol from corn or any other
foodstuff and very soon not a single tree will be left
standing to protect humanity from climate change.
Other rich countries have planned to use not only corn
but also wheat, sunflower seeds, rapeseed and other
foodstuffs to produce fuel. For Europeans, for example, it
would be a good business to import the entire soybean
production of the world to reduce the cost of fuel for
their automobiles and feed their animals with the wastes
of that legume, which has a high content of all kinds of
essential amino acids.
In Cuba, alcohol was produced as a sugar cane by-product,
after three extractions of sugarcane juice. Climate change
is already affecting our sugar production. Severe
droughts alternate with record rainfall values, which
hardly allow our country to produce any sugar during a
period of 100 days with adequate yields during our very
mild winter. So, in Cuba, we are either producing less
sugar per every ton of sugarcane, or the number of tons
of cane per hectare has been reduced due to the long
lasting droughts in the plantation and harvest seasons.
I understand that Venezuela would not export alcohol; it
will use it to improve the environmental safety of its
own fuel. Therefore, despite the excellent technology
designed by Brazil to produce alcohol, its use in Cuba to
produce alcohol from sugarcane juice is nothing but a
dream, the ravings of those who entertain such ideas. In
our country, the land which would otherwise be devoted
solely to the production of alcohol could be better used
to produce foodstuffs for the people and protect the
environment.
All countries of the world without exception, whether
rich or poor, could save trillions of dollars in
investments and fuel if they only replace all incandescent
bulbs with fluorescent bulbs, which is what Cuba has done
in all the residential areas of the country. This would
be a palliative that will enable us to cope with climate
change without killing the poor people in this planet with
hunger.
As can be seen, I am not using adjectives to describe
either the system or those who have become the owners of
this world. That task will be brilliantly accomplished by
the information experts, the many honest socio-economic
and political scientists in this world who continuously
delve into the present and the future of our species. A
computer and the increasing number of Internet networks
will just be enough to do that.
For the first time a truly globalized economy exists and
a dominant power in the economic, political, and military
spheres that is in no way similar to the ancient Rome
ruled by emperors. Some people may wonder why I am
speaking about hunger and thirst. And I will answer: this
is not about the other side of a coin, but of the many
different sides of quite another object, maybe a six-sided
dice or a polyhedron which has many more sides.
This time I will quote an official news agency, founded
in 1945, which is in general very familiar with the
economic and social problems of the world: TELAM. It
literally said:
"Within hardly 18 years, nearly 2 billion people will
inhabit countries and regions where water might seem a far
away memory. Two thirds of the world population could
live in places where the lack of water could bring about
social and economic tensions that could lead peoples to go
to war over the precious "blue gold".
In the course of the last 100 years, water consumption
has grown at a pace which is more than twice the
population growth rate.
"According to the World Water Council (WWC), the number
of persons affected by this serious situation will
increase to 3.5 billion by the year 2015.
On March 23, the United Nations Organization observed the
World Water Day, urging all member countries to cope with
the international water shortage as of that day, under
the auspices of FAO, with the aim of emphasizing the
increasing importance of water shortage in the world and
the need for greater integration and cooperation to
ensure a sustainable and efficient management of water
resources.
"Many regions in this planet suffer from severe water
shortage, where the annual rate of cubic meters per person
is less than 500. Every time there are more and more
regions suffering from a chronic shortage of this vital
resource.
"An insufficient amount of the precious fluid necessary
to produce foodstuffs, the impaired development of
industry, urban areas and tourism, and the emergence of
health problems are some of the consequences that derive
from water shortage." So much for the TELAM wire service.
I have not mentioned other important facts, such as the
ice that is melting down in Greenland and the Antartic,
the damages caused to the ozone layer and the ever higher
titers of mercury found in many fish species which are
part of the regular people's diet.
Other topics could be addressed, but in these few lines I
simply intend to make some comments about the meeting held
by President Bush with the chief executives of US
automakers.
March 28, 2007.
Fidel Castro
The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org
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