Government Meddling Fallout

J.J. Jackson* | March 12, 2008

Filed Under Economy / Economics, Liberals, The Economy

Everyone panic. Food prices are on the rise:

American families, already pinched by soaring energy costs, are taking another big hit to household budgets as food prices increase at the fastest rate since 1990.

After nearly two decades of low food inflation, prices for staples such as bread, milk, eggs, and flour are rising sharply, surging in the past year at double-digit rates, according to the Labor Department. Milk prices, for example, increased 26 percent over the year. Egg prices jumped 40 percent.

Hmm. Gee, why could this be? Well let’s see. We feed cows and chickens corn … corn is currently being diverted away from food stocks to produce government subsidized ethanol … corn is in shorter supply and has an artificially higher demand … prices go up … food products that rely on corn also go up.

Isn’t it great that we are “going green” however? Sure you won’t be able to afford to put food on your plate … but at least your car will be “environmentally friendly”. Or not considering that recent estimates now show that ethanol production will increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

now comes word that expanding ethanol use is likely to mean not less CO2 in the atmosphere, but more. Instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline by 20 percent - the estimate Congress relied on in requiring the huge increase in production - ethanol use will cause such emissions to nearly double over the next 30 years.

The problem, laid out in two new studies in the journal Science, is that it takes a lot of land to grow biofuel feedstocks such as corn, and as forests or grasslands are cleared for crops, large amounts of CO2 are released. Diverting land in this fashion also eliminates “carbon sinks,” which absorb atmospheric CO2. Bottom line: The government’s ethanol mandate will generate a “carbon debt” that will take decades, maybe centuries, to pay off.

Oops. Can we get a do over?

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