Straight Talking

STRAIGHT TALKING On Ending Global Warming February- March Letter 10 Allan Yeomans Australia Author of PRIORITY ONE Together We Can Beat Global Warming

CUBAN TRADE EMBARGO. BIG-OIL and GLOBAL WARMING

The United States trades with Communist China, so why not Cuba? There is a sick but logical answer. Sherlock Holmes said “first look for he who will benefit”, or “Cui Bono” which is another way of saying the same thing.

Cuba’s main business is growing sugarcane. Using sugar is the cheapest and most practical way to produce ethanol. Every year from an acre of sugarcane you can produce 750 gallons of ready- to-use ethanol. (And it can be done organically.)

If Cuba was allowed to trade freely with the US it could supply ethanol to US motorists at half the price you now pay for gasoline.

When you look at the figures for Cuba you find that 75% of Cuba is sugar cane country. That’s like a paddock one hundred and seventy miles square. It would produce enough to continuously run 30 million cars on straight ethanol. Or 35 million cars on E85, which a lot of modern American cars are designed for.

It is thus very logical for the oil conglomerates and the Middle East oil states to insist, and demand, and to connive, to insure that the Cuban Embargo continues indefinitely.

Other things have also been “arranged” that suit the oil companies. There is a 2.5% duty on imported oil and imported ethanol into the US. So on face value that seems fair but, (and it’s a big “but”) if you import ethanol you pay an additional 54 cents duty on every gallon imported.

Corn farmers and the oil conglomerates in the US are now subsidized to produce and blend ethanol from corn. The costs have been astronomical and the impact is that a just a tiny 1.5% of US fuel is derived from corn farming. Coincidently, the oil industries’ corn ethanol subsidies appear more than sufficient to offset the 1.5% loss in oil sales revenues.

WHAT TO DO ? First eliminate the 54 cents penalty on imported ethanol from anywhere in the World. Secondly, eliminate the trade embargo on Cuba - at least on sugar and ethanol. And lastly, because it would be political impossible to cancel, maintain the corn subsidies to American farmers.

See also en.allexperts.com/q/Global-warming-Climate-3851/ - 23k for other comments by Allan Yeomans ( “Allexperts” is part of The New York Times).

If you like and agree with the above then email this to a dozen friends. Or better still, to everybody in your address book. Or if you prefer send me the email addresses of everybody you feel should receive copies and I will send them direct.

To change the world we need an organization of volunteers to beat the fossil fuel industries at their own game.

Email me, Allan Yeomans at [email protected] or phone me at 61 (Australia) then area code 7 then 55923017. Time wise I’m about seven hours behind your US time.