Is it moral to use FOOD to FUEL transportation?

[KathleenElsie]

I ask this question in this forum because I see it as a moral issue. Expensive oil for the ground is at least not taking food from the poor and disadvantaged. We have touted this as better for the environment then the use of crude oil. But is it?

I believe that we need to care for the people and the earth. God told us to do so. But in my opinion food for people and the environment would be better served if we drill for oil in our own country and not take food from the mouths of the poor…

townhall.com/columnists/DavidStrom/2007/11/13/biofuels_poison_for_the_poor

Ethanol, it turns out, may be great politics in Midwestern corn growing states, but it is terrible environmental and economic policy. As more and more food is diverted from human consumption to producing fuel, prices for basic food are skyrocketing around the world. Deforestation is on the rise as third world countries try to cash in on the boom, and violence has broken out as small landholders are being kicked off their land to make way for large palm oil farms.

A coalition made up of Oxfam, the World Wildlife fund, and other groups is raising concerns about the current rush to replace fossil fuels with biofuels. Increased Ethanol production has led to a spike in corn prices that has caused food shortages in third world countries, including our neighbor to the South, Mexico. African and Asian countries that are currently unable to produce enough food for their own populations are clearing cropland to supply Ethanol for Europe’s new mandate of 10% Ethanol in all their gasoline.

 

[iamscifimike]

I always felt it was ok because I was under the impression that it is not a matter of food shortage keeping food from people. I also heard that not all of our farmland is utilized to maintain a food market inline with our standard of living

This information gives me something to think about. I’m afraid I cannot vote yet

 

[KathleenElsie]

No opinions?

Well IMHO we all need to conserve not just those that are now priced out of gas or heat or other fuel. Being cold or dark or stuck home is not conservation.

We in the USA sit upon some of the largest deposits of fuel in the world. In the Gulf of Mexico we don’t drill. Cuba and Mexico drill but we are prohibited. We purchase Gulf of Mexico oil and tell the world we don’t want to potentially harm the environment. IMHO this is being hypocritical.

Buying environmental credits is just a feel good measure unless the money is used to find other sources to power those big planes and houses that celebrities own.

They have drilled 20 natural gas wells near us. (400ft to 1/2 mile) The only complaints I had (the gas company took care of it hem) were the 24 hour drilling for one week and when they hit the power line and our water heater broke. My family and I don’t get any money from these wells but they are one step closer to fuel independence. Oh and by the way for those that say they wreck the environment THEY RECLAIMED EVERY SINGLE SITE SO THE ONLY THING YOU SEE IS THE PUMP & TANK AND THEY ARE PAINTED TO BLEND INTO THE LANDSCAPE. The company signed a contract with the Township to repair any road damage and to replace well if anyone had a problem with their water wells. So they make good neighbors and provide resources we need.

 

[ribozyme]

I always felt it was ok because I was under the impression that it is not a matter of food shortage keeping food from people. I also heard that not all of our farmland is utilized to maintain a food market inline with our standard of living

This information gives me something to think about. I’m afraid I cannot vote yet

I think the issue is explored in this wikipedia article as one can argue the resources used for meat production can be diverted to the needy.

Personally, I’ve abnegated by own consumption of cattle, pork, and poultry. Unfortunately, I now use fish oil supplements (unable to find algae oil) as I do not want to die of a myocardial infraction about four decades from now and I occassionally eat fish. Furthermore, I use whey protein powder (it’s not vegan) as a supplement too as I felt that my own body was victim of my own catabolism during my stint on vegetarianism and this provides my protein requirement.

I do think Kath signature is rather appropriate and it is something that, ironically, Peter Singer would agree with. Unfortunately, he does not completely abide by his own ethical system given that he has an apartment in Manhattan. (See: reason.com/news/show/27886.html)

 

[puzzleannie]

you did not post the obvious choice: I think it is immoral to divert food product to fuel production

the fact that people and nations who already consume (largely through waste) the larger part of the world’s food supply, now intend to get rich by diverting food production to provide even more fuel for gas-guzzling ineffecient transportation systems says even more about human greed and exploitation than the notion that the UN should enforce population control on the poor so there will be more resources available for the rich.

 

[Kay_Cee]

I ask this question in this forum because I see it as a moral issue. Expensive oil for the ground is at least not taking food from the poor and disadvantaged. We have touted this as better for the environment then the use of crude oil. But is it?

I believe that we need to care for the people and the earth. God told us to do so. But in my opinion food for people and the environment would be better served if we drill for oil in our own country and not take food from the mouths of the poor…

townhall.com/columnists/DavidStrom/2007/11/13/biofuels_poison_for_the_poor

It sounds like you’re operating under the “finite pie” theory.

Look at it this way instead. Suppose it happens that we develop an engine that can run on corn oil. Now, that would be an incentive for a lot of farmers to begin planting corn, and it would be an incentive for a lot of people who own open fields but do not raise crops to begin planting corn. So we would actually have more corn than before, not less.

In other words, if corn becomes worth more, more farmers will raise corn. And some of that corn, when used for fuel, will help transport food. Since it would be a cheaper form of transportation, more food could be transported to the poor–it would take fewer of your donation dollars to get it there. So the poor would get more, not less.

I might also point out that throughout history, food has been used for fuel. You use it yourself to fuel you body so you can walk, and people have used it for millenia to fuel animals used for transportation.

 

[pnewton]

I have no problem with it, at least at this juncture. Inequity and corruption are the culprits in lack of food, no biofuels. The day may come when this is an issue, I just do not see that it is at this time. It is something worth being reminded of, though.

 

[skeetor]

So long as you realise that tens of thousands of farmers all across this great nation of ours are being paid to NOT farm their own land to create a shortage just to keep the cost of food artificially high.

 

[KathleenElsie]

So long as you realise that tens of thousands of farmers all across this great nation of ours are being paid to NOT farm their own land to create a shortage just to keep the cost of food artificially high.

But that is a totally different issue and should be another thread. The dairy down the road from us gets a little over $2 a gal for their raw milk. The store sells it for just under $5. So processing and transportation plus proft cost more then twice the cost of the milk.

 

[BryPGuy89]

I think it is ok to use an abundant food source for fuel at least more than burning the remains of once living things, plus burns cleaner and causes a lot less damage to the world as a whole

 

[KathleenElsie]

I think it is ok to use an abundant food source for fuel at least more than burning the remains of once living things, plus burns cleaner and causes a lot less damage to the world as a whole

The environmental benefits of using Ethanol are miniscule to non-existent—some estimates even show that it takes more fossil fuel to make a gallon of Ethanol than it yields as a fuel. Water resources are being stretched to the point of disaster, and food prices are spiking across the world. The Japanese car companies warn consumers to avoid biodiesel as it lowers the life-span and efficiency of their engines

False or minimal benefits for the environment. How much polution gets into the environment with all the fossil fuel burned to make the bio and then how much damage is done when we DUMP the old engines? Bio fuel has the potential to damage the earth equaly to the old FOSSIL stuff.

 

[melensdad]

I think it is ok to use an abundant food source for fuel at least more than burning the remains of once living things, plus burns cleaner and causes a lot less damage to the world as a whole

As previously pointed out, the benefits of ETHANOL or E-85 fuel are certainly questionable. Ethanol and E-85 are less efficient than gasoline so your miles per gallon go down when using it. Typically you must save over 40-cents a gallon to “break even” when compared to driving your car and filling it with gasoline.

However, your statement seems to be true with regards to BIO-DIESEL. The downside with bio-diesel is that the engines required to utilize it cost more than gasoline engines. It is, however, more efficient than gasoline. Further, diesel engines (with the exception of a rare few) will not meet the US emission standards.

So we really need to look at the FUEL that we make from the FOOD before we make a wholesale comment that it is good or bad.

Further, things like Bio-Diesel can be made by harvesting algae or other easily grown non-food crops. Ethanol can also be made from non-food crops like switchgrass, but our plants here are not optimized for crops other than making ethanol out of corn.

The debate is probably a lot more complex than people believe.

Still, as for making fuel out of food, YES it is moral. Realize that much of the corn used to make ethanol is not even the type of corn that humans eat!!! Most of it is “feed corn” for feeding hogs and cattle.

 

[skeetor]

But that is a totally different issue and should be another thread. The dairy down the road from us gets a little over $2 a gal for their raw milk. The store sells it for just under $5. So processing and transportation plus proft cost more then twice the cost of the milk.

You stated “But in my opinion food for people and the environment would be better served if we drill for oil in our own country and not take food from the mouths of the poor…”

I am saying, there will always be a food shortage so long as the fed pays people NOT to farm their own land… It’s a MANUFACTURED shortage. I am not againts “drilling in anwar,” but it still doesn’t fix the problem, that people in the rest of the world are willing to pay more for gas than we are and anyone who does drill for oil in the USA will probably sell it to the highest bidder, and that will probably be China or India. It Doesn’t fix the problem.

 

[manualman]

Interesting. Do you take the position it is INHERENTLY evil to use food for transportation fuel or only if it occurs beyond a certain extent?
If the former, then logically everybody before about 1900 or so was guilty of this crime since their horses and oxen ran on biofuels!

 

[Cathryn]

Jesus didn’t seem to have a problem with feeding a donkey and using it for transportation. Now is this the same basically as feeding a machine and using it for transportation? It seems to be pretty close. It is also a re-newable resource.

 

[KathleenElsie]

Interesting. Do you take the position it is INHERENTLY evil to use food for transportation fuel or only if it occurs beyond a certain extent?
If the former, then logically everybody before about 1900 or so was guilty of this crime since their horses and oxen ran on biofuels!

We still feed animals food. So no it is not immoral to feed the animals that need food to survive also.

Why is it that some people try to go to feed animals as an equal to “feeding” cars? One is alive and requires food. The other is a machine and requires fuel and care but not food.

 

[ribozyme]

We still feed animals food. So no it is not immoral to feed the animals that need food to survive also.

Why is it that some people try to go to feed animals as an equal to “feeding” cars? One is alive and requires food. The other is a machine and requires fuel and care but not food.

I do not know why. I guess the use of the word “feeding” is just personification. Utilitarian ethics includes animals in its ethical calculus. Singer includes them in his ethical calculus as they can suffer. I include them as they can suffer, which was the basis of Bentham’s original rhetorical question to consider animal welfare.

And we do feed animals…we do not feed them so they can live; instead we feed them so they can be slaughtered.

 

[KathleenElsie]

I do not know why. I guess the use of the word “feeding” is just personification. Utilitarian ethics includes animals in its ethical calculus. Singer includes them in his ethical calculus as they can suffer. I include them as they can suffer, which was the basis of Bentham’s original rhetorical question to consider animal welfare.

And we do feed animals…we do not feed them so they can live; instead we feed them so they can be slaughtered.

Ask the 30 or so that live at our place. They are not fed for the slaughter. But for their company.

 

[Zooey]

I am saying, there will always be a food shortage so long as the fed pays people NOT to farm their own land… It’s a MANUFACTURED shortage. .

[This is the perfect place for a "Nodding-your-head-while-sad-and-crying smiley]

At the height of the Great Depression, when people were starving, the federal government was burning both grain & pigs, in order to artificially raise the price of food. This was supposedly to “help the farmer”, but, of course, if that farmer had been raising all the hogs and wheat and corn possible, to sell on the free market, he would have had money from selling it all, the price would have been lower for people to buy it, and the farmer would have come out ahead farther than before. Why? Because in a free market, the price goes up & down naturally, according to supply & demand in the marketplace. When you tamper with it, the farmer has less, and the poor have less.
If farmers could grow what they chose to grow, on the basis of a free market, there would be more than enough food, & there would also be an excess to use for fuel sources.

And, in any case, the world is pretty much drowning in oil. Any shortage are also artificial. (We could fix that, fast, if we would just go back to getting our own out of the ground, instead of depending on the Middle East, but of course, that would require the government to back off, and there would be a lot of people in power who would have to go back to working for a living, like the rest of the ccountry…Hence, we continue a disastrous, totally failed policy).

I personally know a man who bought a piece of land from a local farmer to build a home on. It took him years on end, to convince the government to stop paying him for not growing crops… presumably in his living room somewhere… See, he was planting rose bushes around his home, & making a nice water feature for his side yard, and so he was getting a check every year for not planting a food crop. Being an honest man (& I know, because he was my high school guidance counselor & a family friend), he would send the check back, and then he would get threatening letters about how he was interfering in the federal government’s policymaking…

 

[manualman]

Your argument is based on the assumption that the horses in question would exist anyways. let’s see: Go on and calculate the number of horses per capita in the year 1900 in America. Now calculate the number of horses per capita today.

Back? Betcha today’s ratio is hundreds of times lower than in 1900. Back then horses were bred and brought into the world solely to be a means of transportation and to work. They weren’t pets and when they became obsolete as transportation the number of them plummeted.

So I reiterate: Was it immoral for folks in the 19th century to breed and subsequently feed horses for purposes of transportation?