Biofuel policies in countries from Australia to the U.S. may push 120 million people into hunger by 2050 while doing little to halt climate change, said Mahendra Shah, an advisor to Qatar’s food security program.

So-called first-generation biofuels produced from commodity crops compete with food for land use and fertilizers, resulting in higher grain prices and increased deforestation, Shah said at the MENA Grains Summit in Istanbul today.

World food output will have to rise by at least 70 percent by 2050 to feed a growing world population, according to Shah. The use of crops for biofuels is forecast to raise food prices by 30 percent to 50 percent in that period, Shah said, citing a study by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Fund for International Development, or OFID.

I am not a fan of our corn ethanol policy as I made clear during the last food crisis (see “The Fuel on the Hill” and “Can words describe how bad corn ethanol is?” and “Let them eat biofuels!“).  In a world of blatantly increasing food insecurity — driven by population, dietary trends, rising oil prices, and growing climate instability — America’s  policy of burning one third of our corn crop in our engines (soon to be 37% or more) is becoming increasingly untenable, if not unconscionable.

Earlier this year, Bill Clinton warned that too much ethanol could lead to food riots (see “The Corn Ultimatum: How long can Americans keep burning one sixth the world’s corn supply in our cars?”

Now Bloomberg reports, “Biofuels May Push 120 Million Into Hunger, Qatar’s Shah Says.”  Here’s more of that story:

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Year after year the worriers and fretters would come to me with awful predictions of the outbreak of war. I denied it each time. I was only wrong twice.

– Senior British intelligence official, retiring in 1950 after 47 years of service

This weekend’s question is:  What are the “Unknown Unknown” climate impacts?

In 2002, Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld infamously popularized the term “unknown unknowns” – “the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” See video below.

As my illustrated review of 50 recent studies on climate impacts made clear, what we know with confidence is coming on our current emissions path is  more than enough reason to act.

If we go to 7°F — let alone 9°F or higher — we are far outside the bounds of simple linear projection. Some of the worst impacts may not be obvious — and there may be unexpected negative synergies. The best evidence that will happen with the staggering warming we face if we keep doing nothing is that it already happened with even the 1°F or so warming we have seen to date.

As quantified in the journal Nature, “Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change,” (subs. req’d), which just looks at the current and future impact from the beetle’s warming-driven devastation in British Columbia:  “The cumulative impact of the beetle … converted the forest from a small net carbon sink to a large net carbon source.

No wonder the carbon sinks are saturating faster than we thought (see here) — unmodeled impacts of climate change are destroying them:

Insect outbreaks such as this represent an important mechanism by which climate change may undermine the ability of northern forests to take up and store atmospheric carbon, and such impacts should be accounted for in large-scale modelling analyses.

And the bark beetle is slamming the Western U.S. and Alaska, too.

The key point is this catastrophic climate change impact and its carbon-cycle feedback were not foreseen even a decade ago — which suggests future climate impacts will bring other equally unpleasant surprises, especially as we continue on our path of no resistance.

Note I am not talking about the many “known unknowns” — the stuff we know could happen but we have no idea how fast and fierce:

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Lee Fang, in a cross-post from TP Green.

Republicans are on a war path to defund all clean energy programs, targeting not only the loan program tapped by Solyndra but all green jobs efforts by the federal government. As Climate Progress’ Stephen Lacey has reported, Republicans are now expanding their inquisition to include killing a program that employs veterans to install solar panels.

Forbes, for instance, sent a letter to Secretary Steven Chu expressing support for International Biofuels’ application for a clean energy loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. Despite the fact Forbes voted against the funding mechanism for the loan, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he requested that the Obama administration give preference to a company planning a renewable energy plant in Virginia. View a copy of the Department of Energy’s response below:

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On the campaign trail, Rick Santorum says his career since the Senate has been a paid commentary role at Fox News and as a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. But a mandatory disclosure requirement for presidential candidates reveals something new: Santorum has maintained his lifestyle through a well-paid consulting gig with Consol Energy Inc and a lobbying firm called American Continental Group.

The disclosure, revealed earlier this week, comes as a surprise because Santorum has never mentioned the fact that he works for a lobbying firm, nor do any state and federal lobbying disclosures have him listed as a lobbyist or contractor to such a company.

Consol Energy is one of the country’s largest coal mining companies that also has substantial involvement in hydraulic fracking in Pennslyvania. According to the company’s website, it is “the leading eastern U.S. gas producer and our future growth is centered in the Marcellus Shale.” ThinkProgress has attended multiple Santorum campaign stops, and the former senator almost always spends a few minutes extolling the virtues of fracking in the Marcellus Shale region:

– During a campaign stop in Iowa in July, Santorum said: “You know what the Marcellus Shale is? It’s the largest natural gas found in the history of the country, the second largest natural gas field in the world! Its under Pennslyvania, and we are drilling, baby, drilling. Everywhere. ” The remarks are typical of a Santorum stump speech. He never discloses that the “we” when he says “we are drilling, baby” might refer to his employer, Consol Energy.

One of his other moonlighting jobs, his “consulting” position with American Continental Group, reveals more questions about Santorum’s political positions. American Continential Group is a corporate lobbying firm long associated with pushing industry friendly legislation and earmarks. This year, the firm has a client roster including Comcast, the Association of Mortgage Investors, Credit Suisse Group, Monsanto, Toyota Motors, and General Electric.

– Santorum’s jobs plan appears more as a wish-list for corporations, including clients of his firm American Continental Group. Santorum calls for cutting the corporate income tax to zero and allowing for companies to bring earnings made overseas back to the United States and only taxed at five percent. Both positions would amount to a bailout for already super-profitable companies, including his lobbying firm clients like Monsanto.

According to the disclosure, Santorum is paid more than $330,000 for his work on behalf of Consol Energy, American Continental Group, and a public relations firm called the Clapham Group. He was paid $217,000 from the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and $239,000 for his contributions to Fox News in 2010 and the beginning of 2011.

Yesterday, Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) signed a bill to allow mountain lions to be stuffed and displayed.

His signing letter tweaks state lawmakers for overwhelmingly supporting that “presumably important bill,” and then asked them to bring the same “energetic bipartisan spirit” to “creating clean energy jobs.”   Here’s a copy of Brown’s awesome statement:

TP amusingly notes, the bill may have had such strong bipartisan support “perhaps in a celebration of this recent viral video hit“:

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