Into the Tank, Not the Stomach

I’m angry. I am disgruntled over the fact that people are starving, in America and abroad, and we are knowingly taking millions of acres of food and putting them into our gas tanks. The food is corn, the fuel is ethanol. The idea is to off-set our carbon emissions with a more ecological means to run our vehicles. The truth? Ethanol has the potential to emit as much or more carbon than gasoline – and people are still starving to death.

These facts become clear when reading Steven Mufson’s Washington Post article from April 30 entitled ‘Siphoning off corn to fuel our cars.’ Mufson writes, “Across the country, ethanol plants are swallowing more and more of the nation’s corn crop. This year, about a quarter of U.S. corn will go to feeding ethanol plants instead of poultry or livestock.” And you can sure as Hell bet that the mammals you reign at the top of the food chain are not seeing these food stuffs either.

According to a study in Science magazine that Mufson quotes, “greenhouse-gas emissions from corn and even cellulosic ethanol ‘exceed or match those from fossil fuels and therefore produce no greenhouse benefits.’ By encouraging an expansion of acreage, the study added, the use of U.S. cropland for ethanol could make climate conditions dramatically worse.” Hmm…so much for the bio-fuel remedy for a healthier planet.

With new research revealing such findings, it is a wonder that farmers are not heeding the advice by rerouting their destinations for their wares. Instead of sending them to the plants responsible for turning corn into fuel, they should be selling more as food in America as well as abroad to those who are in the midst of a troubling food shortage. Sure, there is Don Endres, chief executive of the VeraSun Energy company, who claims that “the corn used to make ethanol isn’t the kind people eat anyway,” according to Mifson. However, the land producing this so-called inedible corn could be used to GROW the types that ARE edible.

Here’s my simple answer: use the corn to feed the poultry and cattle, the Americans, Africans and Asians who need it most; then, bring back the electric car, which solves the fuel dilemma completely. What do you know! A solution for all parties!

A girl can dream, right?

~ by peacewriter313 on May 6, 2008.