The SoSA Perspective

Unintended Consequences

It seems you can’t mess with any part of the world with out messing with the whole thing. We have apparently decided that we need to be less dependent on oil in fueling our economy. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out, so far so good. Pursuant to this brain storm we’ve fallen face first into the production of ethanol from corn. Why turning fuel for your body (which is fairly fuel efficient) into fuel for your SUV (which isn’t) escapes me, but that’s another blog.

Here is where an impressive streak of unintended consequences begins. Using corn to produce ethanol drives up the price of corn. Farmers in the grain belt stop growing soy beans and plant corn instead, to take advantage of the high price. This drives up the price of soy beans. Dog food makers (who use a lot of corn in their product (don’t tell fido) can’t afford the pricey little kernels and so they substitute sweet potatoes. Society of St. Andrew (who normally distributes millions of pounds of cull sweet potatoes to the poor each year is left holding the proverbial (empty) bag. There, I’ve whined and I feel better. But wait! There’s more!

Remember the soy beans? They’re still expensive. So, cattle farmers in the Amazon basin plant soy beans in what used to be pasture land for their cattle. Meanwhile they still need pasture for the cattle business so (you guessed it) they speed up the cutting of the Amazon rain forest to provide more pasture. I understand from the nice people at Time magazine that they cut down an area the size of Rhode Island just last year!

Now the rain forest absorbs a lot more carbon dioxide (green house gas) that does pasture so global warming gets progressively worse, because of ethanol! Who knew? Is there a solution to all this? Beats me. But it might be a good idea (given the girth of the average American) to invest in a bicycle and use it when ever possible. Just a thought.