Biofuel and Human Consumption, Using plants to replace petroleum? Options

[Inferia]

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I feel like I've been reading about biofuels a lot lately. There's been riots left and right over rise in food prices, and other countries are trying to subsititize their farmers to keep food prices down. Oil fuel is on the rise, and so are most produce. I don't know how much of this is a result of food for fuel, or because of rise in oil prices, the fall of the dollar or the rise of a new middle class in developing countries. I feel like using biofuels is not the way to go, the use of food for fuel will raise the prices of all foods. It will not make you want to useless, you're using essentially the same amount of stuff, or even the reverse may happen - when stuff is cheaper or deemed "more environmentally friendly" people may feel comfortable using more of it. They say sustainability relies on reduce, reuse, and recycle. I feel like the most important part of the equation is reduce. I remember a few years back when I was in China, I looked around and saw that pretty much everyone around me was looking for that "middle class". That's 1.2 billion people, and if we throw India in there, we're looking at 2.5 billion people looking to have a car, a house, more clothes, more space, more lifestyle. This really scares me. The US has pretty much been the leader in the "look at us, we're middle class" competition. As much as many countries dislike the US, they do want to achieve that US "middle class". Subsequently, I feel like that will be the biggest issue this millennium. On the other hand, I understand the comforts of the middle class. I feel awkward saying to someone that I can live in I guess middle class luxury, but you can't have it because we want to save the planet. I just feel like we can't use as much as we do.

By the way, I feel like this thread doesn't have to turn into a "climate change thread", we can try to stay on the topic of sustainability (which is slightly different).