Stop the Insanity! Corn-based Ethanol as an Alternative Fuel Source

We are either on the brink of a global food crisis, or we are already experiencing one. With the announcement this week that retail giants Sam's Club and Costco would begin limiting the sales of rice the world woke up to just how desperate this situation has become. With climate change ravaging the globe while the population continues millions of people around the world are faced with the threat of starvation. So what are we doing about this dire situation?

We're growing corn to fuel our cars?

Say what? No need to check your eyesight. You read that right. While people starve we are taking perfectly good food and rather than feed the hungry we've decided to use it instead as an alternative fuel for our cars. Insanity right? I hope the hungry people don't find out. They won't be too happy.

Why are we doing this? Well, on the surface one might think it is our answer to the solution of that granddaddy of all problems we're facing: global warming. Biofuels such as ethanol are supposed to be virtually emission free right? Sure, once the stuff is in your gas tank it is a nice, clean-burning fuel. One problem though: how did it get there? The process of converting that corn into fuel is not emission-free; far from it, in fact. The environmental cost of this procedure is actually quite steep. There are many who claim that producing a gallon of ethanol produces more harmful emissions than burning a gallon of gasoline. Considering that many of the ethanol plants in the United States are coal -fired it is not hard to see the logic behind this argument.

So, if the whole point of this exercise is to reduce emissions, and this so-called clean fuel is actually doing more harm than good then why are we doing it? Good question. The answer is political in nature. George W. Bush and the United States government are coming under increasing worldwide pressure to jump on the climate change fighting bandwagon. However, as we all know, Bush has been reluctant to get on board, refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and, before a mountain of evidence finally forced him to change his tune, denying outright that global warming was occurring.