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of Using Food for Fuel
A major area of concern from a moral perspective is how citizens in underdeveloped countries are seeing an increase in poverty and hunger due to higher global food prices. Former Vice President Al Gore calls global warming the "inconvenient truth" of the new environmental reality; I call food shortages and hunger due to increased ethanol production the inconvenient truth of the new energy reality.

While grain-based ethanol production stimulates economies and provides new jobs in order for citizens to grow wealthier, we need new studies to ascertain whether increasing wealth outpaces food shortages. If so, that is commendable; but at present it seems the balance is weighted far more toward the hunger side with the added consequence of increasing carbon dioxide emissions.

Currently, the nations are tipsy with excitement regarding the opportunity to trade volatile sources of oil for the renewable energy source called grain-based ethanol. But while using food for fuel may prove tenable in the short term, it is clearly not a long-term solution to the energy problem. However, if we increase funding for cellulosic ethanol which is derived from biomass such as wood chips and switchgrass, ethanol may have a bright future after all.

Learn more about this author, Daniel J. Gansle.
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