As if widespread food shortages and astronomical prices were not enough to alert our leaders to the dangers of increased ethanol production, an article published last Friday by the Wall Street Journal points out that world water supplies are also in jeopardy.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 10,000 liters of water are needed to produce a mere five liters of ethanol or one to two liters of biodiesel. This staggering ratio, coupled with the widespread water shortages in places like the United States, Mexico, China, India, and the Sahara, is both disconcerting and ominous.
To make matters worse, it seems those in Washington, including President Bush, are less concerned with satisfying the most basic of human needs than they are with producing a negligible amount of biofuel. The current expanded ethanol mandate has called for a fivefold increase in the biofuel production over the next several years. And the negative impact could be disastrous.
Although 24 Republican Senators, including presidential nominee John McCain, have called for a waiving or restructuring of the ethanol mandate, the sad reality is that this does not go far enough. As the Wall Street Journal article indicated:
“If there’s one certainty, it is this: The production of biofuels has stimulated a massive, and destructive, reorientation of the world’s agriculture markets…The biofuel craze, egged on by global warming activists, has helped fuel a huge agricultural crisis.”
Although there is merit to the exploration of alternate sources of fuel, never should it, or anything else for that matter, be declared of higher importance than peoples’ lives. It is preposterous to think that the cause of “saving the planet” has become a higher priority than saving the inhabitants thereof. This, however, is fast becoming the reality.
The facts stand alone. It is the duty of Congress to enact an immediate moratorium on the ethanol mandate until the food and water crises subside—and until other potential ill-effects of ethanol production can be thoroughly examined. If not, the already disastrous consequences of biofuel production will only worsen over time.
