Global Warming Hysteria: Ethanol's Human Cost

Global warming is killing people, but not in the way people like Al Gore and David Suzuki want you to believe. A couple years ago, British documentary the Great Global Warming Swindle noted that environmentalism was an anti-human movement, citing pressure being placed on Africa to adopt green yet inefficient and prohibitively expensive forms of energy generation. Most of the debunkers saw that the mass hysteria of global warming was going to cause some sort of human crisis. However, many of us were surprised by how quickly it happened. 

Not too long ago, biofuel was supposed to be the great saviour since it was said to be cleaner than gasoline and also had the side benefit of cutting our dependency on foreign oil. Originally, biofuel was mostly biodiesel, which is made from old cooking grease. More recent efforts have pushed ethanol as an alternative. Ethanol is an alcohol made from distilling grain such as corn, wheat, rice, etc. It's essentially what is in booze. Rather than being used to make your favorite whisky or sake, corn and rice instead are being made into a pure ethanol solution for car fuel. This is what gives us fuels such as E10 (10% ethanol, 90% gasoline) and E85 (85% ethanol) which you can use to fuel your car. E10 fuel is required by law in Ontario. Of course, there's one obvious problem with this. 

In Peru and Colombia, there is a major problem with cocaine. Everybody knows that. Lets take Peru for an example since coca (the plant which cocaine is made from) can be legally grown. There, unprocessed coca leaves are chewed for an energy boost. It has the same effect as drinking Red Bull and is not nearly as potent or addictive as processed cocaine. So why am I talking about coke? Well, coca is a very hardy plant and grows just about anywhere with minimal human involvement. Poor farmers grow it illegally where it is sold to drug cartels, processed into cocaine, and shipped to North America and Europe for consumption. While farmers don't get even a fraction of the final street price, they do make more money than they would by growing food crops. Therefore, illegal coca plantations are a convenient cash crop for poor farmers. The same also bodes true for heroine poppy growing in Afghanistan. 

Growing ethanol grain is similar. It nets the farmer more money. The difference is that due to global warming hysteria, environmentalists have pushed governments to encourage farmers to grow ethanol grain. As if they even needed encouragement since fuel sells for more than than flour. Unfortunately, this saviour of the environment that will magically cut us from oil dependence has caused one of the greatest food crises in sixty years. 

In Asia, there is a major rice shortage. People are rioting in the streets trying to grab any scrap of grain they can get their hands on. For many people, it's forms the bulk of their diet. Similar situations have been seen in Latin America and Africa. Even us here in North America are feeling the pinch as prices at the grocery store rise. CTV described it as a perfect storm. A bad growing season in poor parts of the world has driven prices way up. Also noted was the increasing number of farmers converting their operations to grow grain for ethanol instead of food. Rice and corn are two such grains, which are major staples in the third world. Rather than going into a hungry mouth, that grain is going strait into your gas tank. It's no wonder the third world is so disgusted with the West. It is our fault for putting human lives at risk to solve a non-existent crisis. 

So what do we do to solve this. I think its time to stop beating around the bush. There is absolutely no proof that using ethanol for fuel lowers carbon dioxide emissions. As a fuel, it is also less efficient than gasoline. Laws requiring E10 fuel need to be revoked or at least put on the shelf until this food crisis is over. It would be a crime against humanity not to do so. Mr McGuinty, I'm speaking to you. 

Next, we need to address the problem of how we produce food and fuel. Free trade is needed to keep third world food moving into the West. This will encourage industrialized agriculture and overproduction in those countries. Countries in Africa have been wanting free trade for agriculture with Europe for years. Subsidies to Western farmers have become a road block since our food is actually cheaper and floods third world markets, shutting out their own farmers. International investment and genetically modified foods (drought and disease resistant) could be used to help farmers in less fertile regions to achieve this goal. We have the technology yet we don't share it, especially the boogie man of genetically modified foods. We fear them yet they could make the difference between famine and a bumper crop in many regions. We should encourage Western farmers to produce ethanol since they've long complained about how low their profit margins are. Making ethanol would generate them more money. It's not so much that we stop producing ethanol for fuel but we need to realign how the world does agriculture in order to keep food supplies in balance. Nations need to work together to accomplish this. We can't simply shut our borders on these issues. The United Nations needs to stop worrying about global warming and do something to solve this real crisis. Come to think of it, there is absolutely no reason why we should be using ethanol to begin with. Oil and natural gas are still abundant and hydrogen vehicles are on the horizon. Feeding humans should be top priority and feeding cars should always be secondary.