January 25, 2008
Using food to make fuel is depraved
Toledo Blade, front page banner headline, January 11, 2008: “Ohio hails ethanol era with Putnam Co. facility.” The stated article went on to report the ribbon cutting ceremony that signaled the opening of a Bio-refinery in Leipsic, Ohio. All the pomp and circumstance, along with the usual cast of characters we’ve come to expect at such an event were present.
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland was given the honor of cutting the ribbon and declared, “This is a great day for Ohio.”
The research into alternative fuels, along with solar power and wind energy, coupled with conservation, will only become more crucial as time goes by. After all, petroleum is not a renewable energy source, when it’s gone, it’s gone.
The possibility of making fuel from corn cobs as the article postulates is an exciting prospect indeed. That being said, I do not see the opening of this plant as a “great day for Ohio,” but rather a crime against humanity.
With so much of the world ravaged by famine we dare celebrate our ability to take 22 million bushels of corn annually and turn it into 65 million gallons of ethanol. That just at one of three plants being built in Ohio, with 21 other ethanol producing plants nationwide owned by the same manufacturer.
If the impoverished people of the world were to read about this “great day for Ohio” what might they say? “Don’t the people of America claim to be a Christian– God fearing nation? Don’t they know our children are starving? Don’t they care?”
We would have to answer, “Yes, we know, and no, obviously we don’t care.
Using God given food sources to make whiskey, beer, and now bio-fuel is depraved. Research yes, but let’s not trade our soul for a tank of gas.