Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Letter to the Editor
National Post
300 - 1450 Don Mills Road,
Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3R5
Re: Feeding Corn to Cars
I never cease to wonder. Why would humans, and MP’s, promote the use of land and soil resources to grow food for cars when many humans are going hungry? There are alternates for our cars. Could there be a devious Kyoto goal behind the promotion of ethanol as fuel for our cars (Counterpoint, Ethanol’s benefit has been shown, 03_07_14, FP13)?
Perhaps some perverse logic goes along the following line. Growing crops to produce ethanol for cars will use a lot of land which might have been devoted to food for humans. That in turn will lead to a decrease of human population. Humans are responsible for climate change through excessive use of resources to fuel their cars. Using land to grow fuel for cars is thus a double benefit as greenhouse gases are reduced from cars and the population demanding the use of cars is reduced. Wow! Two strikes for Kyoto.
Seriously, a broader understanding of human use and interaction with energy, land, soil, agricultural and forest resources in the context of greenhouse gas management is needed – before we go off wholeheartedly on half-cocked schemes like this.
Yours truly,
Duane Pendergast