Swanky Conservative

It’s a simple question of supply and demand. In poor countries where money speaks louder than the cries of the disenfranchised, more money always wins. Britain’s Guardian has this report about the not-so-hidden costs of food-based fuel:

It doesn’t get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the district of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks. Doubtless a team of development consultants is already doing the sums.

Increasing demand for ethanol strains the supply of corn. In this country, we don’t grow enough corn for the demand, so it’s going to come from somewhere else. And we’re not the only country on the block wanting it, so now we’re looking at a global increase in demand for ethanol sources. Increased demand raises prices which give more incentive to those with the fuel sources to sell more, taking away from food needs of the starving and disenfranchised.

How clean is your ride, really? I’d rather not have the fuel for my car coming from someone’s dinner plate.