Is it ethical to convert corn into ethanol for cars, when there's so many people starving in the world?

Question

Instead of feeding the world, the US is going to let them starve so we can run down the interstates.

Answer 1

For the umpteen millionth time, CORN ALCOHOL IS AN INEFFICIENT MEANS OF CREATING FUEL. There are many far more efficient means, including sugar cane and prarie grass. WHY is it SO DIFFICULT for people to understand this??? Is it possible that they don't WANT to understand, but prefer to blindly continue using up finite resources when we have the technology to open our fuel resources up with inexhaustible sources??

Even the oil companies are preparing to wean themselves off of petroleum. It's STUPID to ignore facts in order to press home political advantage.

Answer 2

IUing corn for enthanol is not an ethical problem.

Here's why: if you look at countries where getting enough food is a problem, you will find the same causal factors in EVERY SINGLE CASE. Take Zimbabwe as a typical, if extreme, example. In this nation, there is more than enough arable land to produce the food for the existing population--and a goood deal left over. Yet people are starving--because of government incompetance and corruption that keeps people in poverty while a tiny elite guards their power and privilege at any cost to the people.

If you want to soleve world hunger--that is the cause. And unless we do address that problem, no amount of food will keep people from starving--because the ones who need it will never see it.

Answer 3

Actually, the products such as corn and sugar cane used for Ethanol would not decrease our current food supply. If anything, this would increase the demand, and therefore the production. This makes the production of biofuels completely ethical.

I live in a rural area where agriculture is big business. When demand for a certain product wanes, the farmer reduces production. When demand rises, production increases.

In actuality, the US already has a vast surplus of food. As this food already has a hard time finding its way to the poor, increasing the demand for certasin tyes of food to be grown may actually increase the cahnces of feeding the poor, as there would be a surplus of previously unpopular crops. Worst case scenario, there would be no change, as we already tend to hoarde our surplus crops.

In addition, biofuels decrease dependancy on non-renewable resources, such as fossil fuels. If you are killing the environment by raping the world of non-newable resourses, then you are also endangering the people, as you slowly kill off the plants and animals that we eat. Reducing this dependence on non-renewable resourceswill also help reduce damaging practices and/or accidents such as oil drilling, strip mining, and oil spills.

While biofuels are not the complete answer, or even a long term solution, they are a step in the right direction. The end goal is to eliminate dependence on non-renewable resources and replace that dependence with dependence on renewable resourses.

This end goal applies to more than just fuels. Many other industries are also trying to reduce such dependence. Take a look at the cookware section at your local supermarket or department store. Maple cutting boards are being replaced with bamboo, which serves the duel purpose of making a harder cutting board and is much easier (and quicker) to regrow. Another example is that many plastics for food service are now made from corn or soy, rather than petroleum, so that they will be biodegrable.

Biofuels such as Ethanol are not the whole solution, just one step toward the goal of reducing the auto industry's dependence on non-renewable resources. If anything, it would be unethical to abandon this pursuit.

Answer 4

First: The United States never did feed the world.

Second: The increase in the price of corn has resulted in an increase in the planted acreage of corn. There is a larger supply of corn because of its use as a bio fuel.

Third: The price of corn is not all that high to begin with. The current price of shelled corn is less than 10 cents per pound. That is very cheap.

Fourth: Only the starch is fermented for alcohol. the starch has very low food value. The minerals and vitamins remain after the production of ethanol and are used as a very nutritious cattle feed.

The use of corn for biofuels is not the source of the problem.

Answer 5

Ethanol was never a good alternative, there isn't enough land. You could take all the farmland in the US capable of growing corn, switchgrass or whatever and convert it all, you still would not produce enough ethanol to replace gasoline. Since we do need do feed ourselves, it is an idea that is DOA.

Answer 6

Lets let the free market decide.

Farmers grow the corn.

A grocery store goes to the farmer and offers $1000 for all the corn he grew.

Some guy wants to start a company that makes ethanol. He goes to the farmer, but he can only pay $100 for the same amount of corn. He can't afford to compete with the grocery store, so he goes to the government. The government gives him subsidies. Now he can go back and offer $1100 for the corn.

Now the grocery store has to go to other farmers and compete with other grocery stores.

The result: Corn prices shoot up because of government.

Answer 7

It's unethical not to keep looking into growing fuels to replace fossil fuels. I read a while ago that the U.S also canned their research into producing oil from algae about ten years ago.

That research was being conducted in the remote desert in Arizona - where food wasn't being grown. The same source said enough oil can be produced from algae to replace diesel altogether if they want to.

Not only that - some species of algae are highly nutritious. One kg of algae (like spirilina) has the same nutritional value of 1000kg of veggies according to NASA.

I often wonder why growing alternative fuels receives such opposition, especially when growing corn or algae TAKES CO2 out of our environment (thereby slowing global warming) and plants are inexpensive solar collectors.

Answer 8

We could grow only corn and send it all over thee world th help the hungry.This would flood the world markets with corn and all would be able to feast on American corn. Unfortunately it would not help.The main reason is corn is extremely hard to digest for humans.Cattle and other animals that have chambered stomachs can digest it but not humans. It also is extremely low in essentials(vitamins minerals). Change your question to wheat and it will be another story. But wheat isn't being considered for fuel so the point is mote

Answer 9

The food crops grown on that land wouldn't be going to feed the poor anyway, so I'd have to say there's no ethical conflict in that sense.

Using the land for biofuels does make food crops less plentiful and therefore more expensive, which makes it more difficult for poor people to feed themselves and their families. In that sense you could make an argument about the ethics of biofuels. Or at least an argument not to increase our dependency on biofuels, since we don't use them very much at the moment.

Answer 10

They can't be doing too badly. Their (fill in the blank) populations increase like bacteria. When they get hungry enough to eat their young, maybe they will realize that whatever little food goes farther when divided up by smaller numbers.