The mad rush for alternative fuel sources is taking us into another lemming jump as biofuel production drives up deaths from starvation. Rising food prices, as well as food shortages, are causing starvation rates to rise sharply around the world. While biofuel production is not the only factor in this alarming escalation, it is an important one. For example, since 2006, a significant amount of land previously used to grow food in the United States is now used to grow corn for biofuels, and the percentage of corn used for ethanol production continues to increase, reaching 25% in 2007 (Kingsbury 2007). ).
It’s funny how the engineers of this new fuel plan didn’t consider the consequences of burning corn, one of the world’s main staple foods. And with America losing two acres of farmland every minute or about a million acres every year (American Farmland Trust), isn’t it strange that no one with influence has considered the consequences of changing the use of our precious farmland? remaining? from food to fuel production.
Some brave souls are opposed to this mad rush because its predictable results of rising food costs and resulting increased hunger around the world are already underway. In April 2008, at the Thirtieth Regional Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Jean Ziegler, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, called biofuels a “crime against humanity.”
A perhaps oversimplified but memorable image is captured in this quote:
“Speculation and so-called biofuels are leading us to a reduction in raw food sources around the world. The consequence: the poor go even hungrier, so the rich can drive their cars in a supposedly environmentally friendly way.” environment. This shows the duality of the term biofuels. “Bio” means life. In this case, it is the life of those, which we must deliver for our refueling at gas stations.
Perhaps we should, cynical as it sounds, indicate the use of a car in terms of hungry people per hundred kilometers. An SUV uses one year’s worth of a person’s food needs for every full tank of biofuel. Depending on your driving style, every hundred kilometers you use 0.2 to 0.3 people! I’d rather keep my bike.”
-Marco Walter, Konstanz, Germany, 2008
Mr. Walter strikes an important note here. Reducing fuel consumption is a much more ethical long-term solution to the fuel crisis. In fact, the core tenet of biofuels and other potentially harmful “solutions” is based on continuing our outrageous reliance on motorized travel. Replacing just a fraction of the more than 60% of trips that are less than five miles with bicycling and walking, which burn no fuel, would significantly reduce fuel consumption and save households up to 20% of their costs each year (learn more by visiting the “Shift to Bike” link below). Plus, these active means of travel provide an easy way to fit healthy exercise into your daily life. And in dense cities where congestion is high and car parking is rare, walking and cycling are often faster than driving.
Such a change would also reduce congestion, thus reducing the need to build more roads, an often-overlooked siphon of oil. Of course, streets will need to be filled with safe and attractive provisions for cyclists and pedestrians for such a change to occur. Add in a full public transportation system, including light rail, buses, and free shuttles, that allow on-board bicycle use, and this shift from motorized travel could reach levels well above 50%, as enjoyed by many cities in around the world, including Manhattan, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. We must first open our eyes to the damage our fuel consumption is causing, and then commit to reducing this consumption through more sustainable modes of travel.