New York Times:

UNITED NATIONS — With memories still fresh of food riots set off by spiking prices just two years ago, agricultural experts on Friday cast a wary eye on the steep rise in the cost of wheat prompted by a Russian export ban and the questions looming over harvests in other parts of the world because of drought or flooding.

Food prices rose 5 percent globally during August, according to the United Nations, spurred mostly by the higher cost of wheat, and the first signs of unrest erupted as 10 people died in Mozambique during clashes ignited partly by a 30 percent leap in the cost of bread.

“You are dealing with an unstable situation,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

“People still remember what happened a few years ago, so it is a combination of psychology and the expectation that worse may come,” he added. “There are critical months ahead.”

The F.A.O. has called a special session of grain experts from around the world on Sept. 24 to address the supply question. Given that the fields stretching out from the Black Sea have been the main source of a huge leap in wheat trade over the past decade, the fluctuating weather patterns and unstable harvests there will have to be addressed, he said.

It is an issue not limited to Russia alone. Harvest forecasts in Germany and Canada are clouded by wet weather and flooding, while crops in Argentina will suffer from drought, as could Australia’s, according to agricultural experts. The bump in prices because of the uncertainty about future supplies means the poor in some areas of the world will face higher bread prices in the coming months.

If the U.S. didn’t have a policy of growing food for oil, might that help lower the cost of food?

He should have rented the Prius:

(Sept. 3) — When the Rev. Jesse Jackson led a rally for “green jobs” in Detroit, he arrived in the Motor City in a massive Cadillac SUV. But his exit from the Motor City was a lot more environmentally friendly — thanks to some car thieves.

The robbers stole the civil rights activist’s rented 2009 Escalade SUV on Monday. He was in Detroit for Saturday’s Jobs, Justice and Peace Rally in downtown Detroit.

“We were traveling for Jobs, Justice and Peace and we came [outside the hotel] next morning and it was gone,” Jackson told AOL News today in a phone interview. “It was obvious that it was stolen.”

Police found the car later that day, stripped of its wheels but otherwise intact, WXYZ reported.

Green cars for thee but not for me.

A new book by White House auto czar Steven Rattner reveals that the White House was hands-on in day-to-day GM decision-making even as President Obama fibbed to the public that “our goal is to . . . take a hands-off approach, and get out quickly.”

The Washington meddling ran the gamut from personnel decisions to financing options to a veto of GM’s proposal to abandon its Detroit headquarters, Rattner discloses in Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry.

GM proposed moving out if its Detroit’s Renaissance Center HQ to its sprawling suburban tech center, arguing that the move would save money and would symbolize a commitment by top brass to be more involved in the company.

But the “hands-off” White House snuffed the idea, opting to protect Detroit — a key political constituency of the Democratic Party. “Are you out of your mind?” Rattner quoted Brian Deese, who has been heavily involved in auto policy, as saying. “Think what it would do to Detroit.”

The Detroit News has the details:

The White House even commissioned an outside analysis of the impact a move would have on Detroit property values, Rattner wrote. The answer: an estimated “double-digit hit on already deflated real estate prices.”

Leaving the RenCen “made a lot of strategic sense,” Rattner wrote. But Michigan native Gene Sperling, a U.S. Treasury Department official, was one of many who fought the idea.

“It’s over for Detroit if you do this,” Sperling yelled in a meeting, Rattner recalled. “Don’t do this to (Detroit Mayor) Dave Bing… He’s a good man trying to do a good thing.”

The request was passed up the chain to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, “and word came down that the move would be a bridge too far,” Rattner wrote.

AP:

NEW ORLEANS — Stark differences exist between the oil platform fire in the Gulf of Mexico and the blast that led to the massive BP spill. Most notably, no one was killed and no crude was gushing into the water, but the distinctions don’t end there.

Even though the Mariner Energy-owned platform that erupted in flames Thursday was just 200 miles west of the site of the spill, everything from the structures to the operations to the safety devices were different.

Yet, when word spread of the latest mishap, Gulf Coast residents could only think of the three-month BP spill that began after the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Sophie Esch, 28, a graduate student at Tulane who is from Berlin, Germany. “They should finally stop drilling in the Gulf. They should shut down all the drilling out there and not give permission to do any more. They’ve shown that it’s just unsafe.”

The Coast Guard initially reported that an oil sheen a mile long and 100 feet wide had begun to spread from the site of the blast, but hours later said crews were unable to find any spill. The company that owns the platform, Houston-based Mariner Energy, did not know what caused the fire.

The rest here.

AP:

NEW ORLEANS, La. (AP) — A mile-long oil sheen spread Thursday from an offshore petroleum platform burning in the Gulf of Mexico off Lousiana, west of the site of BP’s massive spill.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Coklough said the sheen, about 100 feet wide, was spotted near the platform owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy Inc.

He said Mariner had deployed three firefighting vessels to the site and one already was in place fighting the blaze.

The Coast Guard says no one was killed in the explosion and fire, which was reported by a commercial helicopter flying over the site around 9 a.m. CDT. All 13 people aboard the rig were rescued as they floated in the nearby water in survival outfits called gumby suits.

The platform is in about 340 feet of water and about 100 miles south of Vermilion Bay on the central Louisiana coast. It’s location is considered shallow water, much less than the approximately 5,000 feet where BP’s well spewed oil and gas for three months after an April rig explosion.

Those fire-booms should be on the way, no?

Another example of the environmentalists as the impediment to the sustainable energy future they dream of:

EPA puts Maine’s Biomass Industry on Notice

An excerpt:

That’s right: the EPA placed Maine’s most prominent source of power – and one of only a handful of large-scale, environmentally-conscious energy projects in the country – on its list of carbon-causing industries in need of reform. And although the EPA issued this list back in May, they still haven’t carved out any exemptions for biomass or biogenic sources of energy, leaving them to be treated exactly the same as any other producer of greenhouse gasses – even ones who operate exclusively in a carbon neutral manner. Obviously, this comes as a bit of a shock to the biomass industry, who are afraid that biomass producers will just turn right back to fossil fuels.

This would not only mean the potential end of what the industry claims is a clean and renewable form of energy production, refusing to allow this exemption could be disastrous to Maine.  Senator Susan Collins noted that Maine’s biomass plans, paper mills and industry facilities could face closures, leading to major job losses and a disastrous economic impact. She noted in June that at least 14 facilities in Maine alone would be on the chopping block, to say nothing for the national impact.

It seems particularly counter-intuitive for a country in dire economic straits to not only put an industry out of business, but one that seems to represent the future of renewable energy production.

Washington Post:

An offshore oil rig exploded Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico, injuring at least one worker, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

All 13 people on board the Vermilion Oil Rig 380 have been accounted for, and the one who was injured is being transported to a hospital, Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough said.

The others were in “immersion suits” in the water awaiting rescue, he said.

The rig is believed to be on fire, Colclough told CNN in a live telephone interview. He said it has not yet been determined whether there is a leak as a result of the explosion, but he noted reports that “the rig was not actively producing” any oil or gas.

Multiple Coast Guard, Navy and civilian vessels are en route to the site of the explosion west of the location of the April 20 blast on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that caused a massive oil spill.

West Wing Report:

Coast Guard story on new Gulf oil rig explosion different than what Gibbs just said. #USCG: rig was in production. Gibbs says it wasn’t.

If the Obama administration had any sense, they’d be giving grades to autos by the amount of money they make. Sport utes would get an A+, and hybrids would get a D.

August sales are in, and the only bright spot for automakers is that their most profitable vehicles — SUVs and pickups — are selling in an otherwise down market. Industry insiders saw the increase in truck sales as a positive trend even as Washington introduced a letter-grading system shaming the purchase of trucks as gas-guzzling warming threats.

Chrysler was the only major manufacturer to see a sales increase – thanks in large part to strong sales of its crucial new Jeep Cherokee as well as strong sales of its iconic minivan. Both vehicles get “C” grades from an Obama administration obsessed with green.

Perhaps they should be more obsessed with monetary green since the more profitable SUVs Detroit sells, the quicker taxpayers get their bailout money back.

West Wing Report:

Coast Guard story on new Gulf oil rig explosion different than what Gibbs just said. #USCG: rig was in production. Gibbs says it wasn’t.

Stay east young man: