Grain of Corn or is it a Grain of Salt
“Speak but one word to me over the corn, Over the tender, bowed locks of the corn.” William Morris
Grain produce is the world’s primary food staple. It accounts for more than 75% of mankind’s physical energy needs. Yet in this age of fast internet, advanced space and medical technology, starvation still lingers larger than ever before. Our planet groans at the seams as potable water and arable land are devoured by homo-sapiens voracious appetite.
As non renewable fossil fuels begin to descend into unknown territory that has been termed ‘peak oil’, like locusts, we turn on our food crops to satisfy the short term gains selling convenience, speed, prestige and extravagance. The western world has been very fortunate in recent history. We have ridden down the black gold rivers of oil, whilst it was plentiful and relatively cheap. But all good things must come to an end.
Someone once said, when China awakens, the world will shudder. And shake it will, when an upwardly mobile middle class’ with a population larger than the United States and Great Britain combined, begin to demand, buy and drive cars whilst filling their homes with the latest electrical goods. Where will all this energy come from?. Our needs will not be satisfied by burning the suns stored energy trapped in the residue of prehistoric flora and fauna.
The United States currently pours almost 10 percent of its grain produce into the fuel tanks of its cars in the form of Ethanol. The lunacy of this action becomes apparent when you realize that even if you gathered all the ethanol producing grains grown within the continental United States, it would not even fulfill five percent of the nations motoring needs. Very persuasive arguments have also been shown that the production opportunity cost by producing one liter of biofuel is 10 liters of water. And potable drinking water will one day be one of the worlds scarcest resources.
The list of pros appears to be far outweighed by the cons when you considered the amount of pesticides and fertilizer required to cater for such mass production of the bio fuels.
Yes it may make us feel or warm and fuzzy inside, driving down the interstate in our corn on the cob powered car but the price of this folly is just too great.
October 30, 2009
Posted in: Ethical Shopping